Trnopolje camp

Trnopolje camp
Concentration camp
Detainees at the Trnopolje Camp, near Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Photograph provided courtesy of the ICTY)
Location of Trnopolje camp within Bosnia and Herzegovina
Coordinates	44°55′24″N 16°52′26″E
Location	Bosnia and Herzegovina
Operational	1992
Inmates	Bosniak and Bosnian Croat
Number of inmates	4,000–7,000

Trnopolje camp was a concentration camp established in the village of Trnopolje near the city of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first months of the Bosnian War.

History

According to the local Bosnian Serb authorities Trnopolje was "a transit camp" for members of the non-Serb, mainly Bosniak, population of the Prijedor region. The camp was purportedly established and run by the authorities of Republika Srpska and local paramilitary Serb police to confine and detain members of the non-Serb (Bosniak and Bosnian Croat) civilian population found "innocent" after "investigation". The other Prijedor camps, Omarska, Keraterm and Manjača, served to detain those being "interrogated" or found "guilty" (and "awaiting trial").

Trnopolje has also been described variously as a ghetto, a prison and a detention camp. However, the Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts to the Security Council (the Bassiouni Commission Report) determined that "Logor Trnopolje" was "a concentration camp", functioning as a staging area for mass deportations mainly of women, children, and elderly men, and described the Omarska and Keraterm camps to which the adult non-Serb men were taken as death camps.

The Report used the Bosnian word logor (from German Lager, "(prison) camp" or "storage area") specifically to distinguish the Prijedor camps from the wide range of institutions encompassed by the English term "camp". The use of the term was intended to establish the link with the inhumane characteristics of their regimes.

"... the regime at the Trnopolje camp was far better than in Omarska and Keraterm; none the less harassment and malnutrition was a problem for all the inmates. Rapes, beatings and other kinds of torture and even killings were not rare. ... Albeit Logor Trnopolje was not a death camp like Logor Omarska or Logor Keraterm, the label «concentration camp» is none the less justified for Logor Trnopolje due to the regime prevailing in the camp."

The total number of camp inmates reportedly varied on average between 4,000 and 7,000 people.

The camp's existence was discovered by the international media in July 1992.^{[citation needed]} Footage of Omarska and Trnopolje filmed by a team of British journalists was shown around the world and caused public outrage which led to the closure of the camps.

According to the ICTY prosecution several hundred non-Serbs were killed at Trnopolje. In August 1992, during the closure of the camp, some 200 former male inmates were separated and killed in the Koricani Cliffs massacre.

Claims published subsequently by the British magazine Living Marxism (LM) that footage filmed at Trnopolje deliberately misrepresented the situation in the camp eventually prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to sue LM for libel. Following ITN's victory in a court case in which the evidence given by the camp doctor led LM to abandon its defence, the magazine declared itself bankrupt, avoiding payment of the large damages awarded.

The Judgment of the ICJ

The ICJ presented its judgment in Bosnian Genocide Case on 26 February 2007, in which it had examined atrocities committed in detention camps, including Trnopolje, in relation to Article II (b) of the Genocide Convention. The Court stated in its judgment:

"Having carefully examined the evidence presented before it, and taken note of that presented to the ICTY, the Court considers that it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps. The requirements of the material element, as defined by Article II (b) of the Convention are thus fulfilled. The Court finds, however, on the basis of evidence before it, that it has not been conclusively established that those atrocities, although they too may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were committed with the specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy the protected group, in whole or in part, required for a finding that genocide has been perpetrated."

See also

• Bosnian Genocide
• Dretelj camp
• Gabela camp
• Heliodrom camp
• Keraterm camp
• Manjača camp
• Omarska camp
• Uzamnica camp
• Vilina Vlas
• Vojno camp
• Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars

External links

• Human Rights Watch
• David Campbell (2002): Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part 1. Journal of Human Rights, vol 1, number 1. Available at http://www.david-campbell.org/photography/atrocity-and-memory/
• David Campbell (2002): Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part 2. Journal of Human Rights, vol 1, number 2. Available at http://www.david-campbell.org/photography/atrocity-and-memory/
• "The Picture that Fooled the World", Thomas Deichmann, LM
• "COURTSIDE: Prijedor Genocide Trial - Majority of detention camp inmates were "persecuted Muslims", court hears", Mirna Jancic, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, ICTY - Tribunal UpdateNo. 275, 15-20 July 2002
• "Poison in the well of history", Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian, 15 March 2000
• "High stakes in battle over Serbian guilt - ITN libel trial: Terrified eyes of a camp doctor said more than celebrity campaigning or the might of a giant news organisation", Julia Hartley-Brewer, The Guardian, 15 March 2000
• Radovan Karadzic $5 million Reward - The U.S. Government is offering $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Radovan Karadzic
• Ratko Mladic $5 million Reward - The U.S. Government is offering $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Ratko Mladic
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