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What's the correlation between the two?
I'll get you some figures on the indictments.
But that is not the case you were making. You were making the case that the court is stacked against Serbia and in favour of Albanians, Bosnians and Croats, specifically, not just against the locals and in favour of the White People.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Around 100 Albanian civilians killed by NATO forces [7] NATO bombings: Human Rights Watch was only able to verify 500 civilian deaths throughout Yugoslavia, [8][9] with other sources stating from 1,200 to 5,700 [8]
You can also correlate with the number of expulsed.
You're the one who brought the number of indictees to the table. And you're the one who's claiming that the court is packed.
These figures do put into perspective the accusations against Serbs for organizing ethnic cleansing. What is clear is that the Serbs were the most 'cleansed' population of all four ethnic/religious groups.
First there are Serbs who fled Croatia before the war started. Then there are Croatian civilians who fled the shelling of civilian areas. Then there are Serbs who came into the captured territories. Then there are Serbs who fled before Operation Storm actually started. Then there are Serbs who fled during Operation Storm. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Then there are Serbs who came into the captured territories.
I was not aware of this. Who came from where to do what? This is the official NATO line.
The Serbs never 'occupied' Krajna... nor any part of Bosnia for that matter.
First some Serbs fled because they feared they would be attacked. Then the Croats were driven off by shelling, then the Croatian villages were settled or (more often) destroyed to prevent return. Then the same happened in reverse with Operation Storm: some serbs fled before it, some were driven off and then villages were destroyed to prevent return, or settled.
All of these with various degrees of "allegedly" and various sizes of people desplaced and houses destroyed. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
It is in fact so difficult to 'resettle' an area that the Croats, some 13 years after Operation Storm, still can't fill up the empty ex-Serb villages. They're ghost towns.
Second, the Serbs didn't have a scorched earth policy. They didn't even have time to properly collect their belongings and flee when Storm began... let alone destroy industry.
Finally, the area was mostly agrarian - not industrial.
Not having first-hand knowledge I would have to take things such as the follosing at face value...
Serbs of Croatia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tension between Serbs and Croatians were violently high in 1990s.[citation needed] The violence has reduced since 2000 and has remained low to this day, however, significant problems remain.[15] The participation of the largest Serbian party SDSS in the Croatian Government of Ivo Sanader has eased tensions to an extent, but the refugee situation is still politically sensitive.[citation needed] The main issue is high-level official and social discrimination against the Serbs.[4] At the height levels of the government, new laws are continuously being introduced in order to combat this discrimination, thus, demonstrating an effort on the part of government.[15] For example, lengthy and in some cases unfair proceedings,[15] particularly in lower level courts, remain a major problem for Serbian returnees pursuing their rights in court.[15] In addition, Serbs continue to be discriminated against in access to employment and in realizing other economic and social rights.[citation needed] Also some cases of violence and harassment against Croatian Serbs continue to be reported.[15] The property laws allegedly favor Bosnian Croatians refugees who took residence in houses that were left unoccupied and unguarded by Serbs after Operation Storm.[15] Amnesty International's 2005 report considers one of the greatest obstacles to the return of thousands of Croatian Serbs has been the failure of the Croatian authorities to provide adequate housing solutions to Croatian Serbs who were stripped of their occupancy rights, including where possible by reinstating occupancy rights to those who had been affected by their discriminatory termination[15] The European Court of Human Rights decided against Croatian Serb Kristina Blečić, stripped her of occupancy rights after leaving his house in 1991 in Zadar.[16]
Operation Storm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Approximately 300,000 Croatian Serbs were displaced during the entire war, only a third of which (or about 117,000) are officially registered as having returned as of 2005[update]. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 200,000 Croatian refugees, mostly Croatian Serbs, are still displaced in neighbouring countries and elsewhere. Many Croatian Serbs cannot return because they have lost their tenancy rights and under threats of intimidation.* Croatian Serbs continue to be the victim of discrimination in access to employment and with regard to other economic and social rights. Some cases of violence and harassment against Croatian Serbs continue to be reported.[53] Some of the Croatian Serbs will not return out of fear of being charged for war crimes, as the Croatian police has secret war crime suspect lists; Croatia passed an Amnesty law for anyone who had not taken an active part in the war, but many do not know if they are on amnesty list or not because amnesty rules are not clear enough.[5] [6] The return of refugees is further complicated by the fact that many Croats and Bosniaks (some expelled from Bosnia) have taken residence in their vacated houses. Another reason for the non-return of refugees is the fact that areas that were under Croatian Serb control during the 1991-95 period were economically ruined (unemployment in RSK was 92%). Since that time, Croatia has started a series of projects aimed at rebuilding these areas and jump-starting the economy (including special tax exemptions), but unemployment is still high.
Civilian Muslims and Croats = 38,000 Civilian Serbs = 16,700 Bosnian Muslims soldiers = 28,000 Bosnian Serb soldiers = 14,000 Bosnian Croat Soldiers = 6,000
Sources (all offer the same data) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Casualties http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2004/11/bosnia-death-toll-revealed.html http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/utenriks/4260912.html
Now compare this to the ICTY indictments and you have a seriously biased court.
(FWIW, my quick mental arithmetic puts the ratios in my post downthread at 1/400 Serbian indictees vs. other people's civvies and 1/1600 Croat indictees vs. other people's civvies, respectively 18*10^5 Serbian indictees times dead Serb civvies, vs. 15*10^5 Croat indictees times dead Croat civvies.
So by one measure, they draw even - give or take 20 % - and by another measure you go from a factor of three to a factor of four. At the same time, the sensitivity to the choice of metric between these two decreases to a factor of four.
Still not convincing.
Then dig out those, and we'll play with them.
Besides, my comment wasn't an order or a request that anyone should do something. It was like saying "now look at that"... that's all.
In other words, doing the actual arithmetic. Which is your job.
That's not to say that I wouldn't happily do it for you once, or twice or even three times. But you used up that quota half a dozen posts ago, and I'm tired of first having to (re)construct your arguments from scattered data and vague insinuation before I can even begin to consider it properly.
Presenting free-floating data and claiming to have made a case is like presenting a bucket of paint and claiming that you've made a painting.
What on earth are you talking about? This is a discussion, it's not a PhD thesis!
But when you bring numbers to the table, you either do it to make a point - in which case you need to present a plausible model to translate those numbers into a conclusion.
Or you're not - in which case the numbers are just noise that add nothing to the debate.
You're the dude making claims here. You've got to present a case if you want those claims to be taken seriously. And so far, what you have presented is not a case, any more than a disorderly pile of bricks is a house.
And if you don't want your claims to be taken seriously, then why the are we having this discussion, anyway?
A factor of four is not conclusive evidence with a measure this crude. Certainly not for a charge as serious as packing a court of law. Particularly when another, not notably cruder, measure using the same data essentially breaks even.
If you massage the numbers enough and then cherry-pick the "right" metric, you can make them say virtually anything (which is why we spend so much time around here taking popular econometrics apart to see how they work).
Now, you may argue that this test is too crude (guilty as charged - it's a ballpark figure using a ballpark metric, nothing more). But then I invite you to construct a better metric - and argue that it is indeed better - and run the numbers on your own. Show your math, because when I do my math, it does not add up to your conclusion.
Besides, it's only 1:4 by one of the measures. The two other measures that have been put forward in this thread call it even. Furthermore, the measure that's 1:4 is the least appropriate one, because it assumes that all sides had an equal hand in all deaths that weren't from their own side, which is obviously nonsense.
JakeS: ...you have to base your model on assumptions that aren't pulled out of my ass
Exactly which of my assumptions have come out of your ass?
None of these are trivial assumptions.
The first is pretty blatant nonsense. The second is something that I would be willing to bet money on. The third is not necessarily true: It might be the case that if there are more war criminals, they leave more evidence implicating each other, and picking up one end of the web and unravelling the whole thing might be easier. Or a larger number of war criminals might be indicative of a superior organisation, which might include better cutouts between individual members and better cover manoeuvres, which would make it harder.
So, actually, you can add an assumption to the list: That all countries have been equally unwilling and/or unable to prosecute their own war criminals - because ICCY only has jurisdiction when it is clear that the country of origin is not going to prosecute of its own volition.
But I think that's a pretty fair assumption, all things considered...
I'm working on a statistical analysis which I'll share with you - whatever the results.
But that does not matter. The figure you used to state your case was based on those assumptions, no matter who came up with them. Which means that its validity is limited to the validity of those assumptions. I explicitly stated at the time that this was a ballpark figure, not a precise measure. And I used it only as a ballpark figure, not as a precise measure. So when you use it as if it were a precise measure, you're violating the assumptions that went into it.
In plain English: That number does not say what you seem to think it says. I should know; I built it.
I'd also like to know why the other two measures seem less adequate to you? That the number of war criminals is anti-correlated to the number of civilian casualties on your own side does not strike me as an unreasonable assumption - or at least not any less reasonable than to say that all sides are equally responsible for all the civilian casualties that are not from their own side.
Kosovo Accused's 40-year UN Conviction Overturned-EU Mission. Friday March 13rd, 2009 / 16h50 PRISTINA, Kosovo (AFP)--A European Union-led court in Kosovo has overturned a 40-year jail term U.N. judges gave an ethnic Albanian for a 2001 bomb attack on a bus that killed 11 Serbs, an E.U. mission said Friday. "A Supreme Court panel of five judges - three EULEX and two local judges - ordered on the afternoon of March 12 the immediate release of Florim Ejupi from Dubrava prison," said the E.U. mission known as EULEX. "He was acquitted of all charges and released for a lack of evidence," said EULEX, which in December replaced the U.N. mission that had administered Kosovo since its 1998-99 conflict. Last year, a three-member panel of U.N. judges jailed Ejupi for 40 years over the attack on a bus carrying Serb pilgrims from Serbia to the enclave of Gracanica in central Kosovo for a commemoration service in February 2001. Eleven passengers were killed and another 10 wounded in the incident, which occurred seven kilometers inside Kosovo, near the town of Podujevo.
PRISTINA, Kosovo (AFP)--A European Union-led court in Kosovo has overturned a 40-year jail term U.N. judges gave an ethnic Albanian for a 2001 bomb attack on a bus that killed 11 Serbs, an E.U. mission said Friday. "A Supreme Court panel of five judges - three EULEX and two local judges - ordered on the afternoon of March 12 the immediate release of Florim Ejupi from Dubrava prison," said the E.U. mission known as EULEX. "He was acquitted of all charges and released for a lack of evidence," said EULEX, which in December replaced the U.N. mission that had administered Kosovo since its 1998-99 conflict. Last year, a three-member panel of U.N. judges jailed Ejupi for 40 years over the attack on a bus carrying Serb pilgrims from Serbia to the enclave of Gracanica in central Kosovo for a commemoration service in February 2001. Eleven passengers were killed and another 10 wounded in the incident, which occurred seven kilometers inside Kosovo, near the town of Podujevo.
This is a complete listing of all indictees of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia along with their ethnic origin, rank or occupation, details of charges against them and the disposition of their cases. There are currently two indictees at large.
I counted:
Serbian indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 100/(4500+33000+2000+500) ~ 1/400
Serbian indictments times dead Serbian civilians: 100*(2300+3600) ~ 6*10^5
Croat indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 29/(2300+33000+3600+500) ~ 1/1200
Croat indictments times dead Croat civilians: 29*(4500+2000) ~ 15*10^5
Bosnian indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 8/(4500+2300+2000+500) ~ 1/1000
Bosnian indictments times dead Bosnian civilians: 8*33000 ~ 2.5*10^5
I'm not sure what to do with the Albanians, because I think they're from a separate, later round of wars.
Just from looking at these figures, you can see that they aren't conclusive (higher figures means greater likelihood of bias against that faction): By the first measure, Serbians get a short shrift, while Croatians appear favoured, but by the other measure, Croats get shafted and Bosniacs appear favoured. And all of these figures are well within an order of magnitude of each other, which is almost certainly an optimistic confidence interval for such a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation.
But then, the only thing I was trying to establish with my little back-of-the-envelope calculation is that a 1:3 ratio between Serb and Croat indictees isn't completely outrageous when you look at the casualty figures.
Here is a comparison trying to accredit civilian deads, 'generously' assuming that 20% of the ethnic Bosniak (Muslim) civilian dead were killed by ethnic Croat militias and 80% by Serb ones (I suspect the ratio may be even more tilted), splitting Bosnian Serb civilian dead between Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims), and Bosnian Croat (Migeru's "Hercegovine") dead between Bosniaks (Muslims) and Serbs.
Serbian indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 100/(4500+26400+500+950) = 1/323.5
Croat indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 29/(2300+6600+1800) ~ 1/335
Bosnian indictments vs. other people's dead civilians: 8/(1800+950) ~ 1/340
Surprisingly close. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Your indictees vs. other people's civilians figure maintained the 1:3 ratio :-)
No, it demonstrated that the results were unstable by up to an order of magnitude (one favoured Serbians over Croats by half an order of magnitude, the other the other way round), depending on which metric one uses. Which means that, pending a more detailed analysis - which it wasn't my job to do, since I wasn't trying to prove anything - any ratio below an order of magnitude in difference is not inherently suspicious.
I used two simple metrics in order to get a ballpark figure for the sensitivity to choice between simple metrics, and demonstrate that Val's simple metric was well within the sensitivity to choice of metric.
I can't really comment on your analysis, because it uses assumptions derived from knowledge of the general sequence of events during the war, which I don't know anything about.
I'm not sure it changes that much, though. It takes a lot of powder to wipe out five to ten million civilians, particularly given that the Allied bombing runs were, shall we say, not precisely decisively effective until the last years of the war.
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