Judith Armatta

From 1997 to 2000, I lived and worked in the Balkans. I arrived in the interwar period--shortly after the Bosnian war ended and before the war in Kosovo. My assignment was to support local efforts to establish rule of law in these former Communist countries. Initially, I landed in Belgrade, Serbia, which was living under the "soft" dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. Despite his efforts to control civil society, the judiciary, and the press, people had organized in opposition. Just months before I arrived, tens of thousands of Belgrade citizens spent three months of a freezing winter in the streets protesting his theft of local elections won by his opposition. Five courageous judges validated their efforts by publishing a letter in the press, explaining that Milosevic's actions violated the law. These five judges formed an independent Judges' Association. My assignment was to support them by connecting them to international jurists.

After much work and many false starts, we organized a successful conference with judges from France, Italy, the United States, and other countries. I gave a speech at the end in which I congratulated them on their achievement under difficult circumstances, including an authoritarian government. Despite not having a crystal ball, I told the assembled judges that, while U.S. lawyers and judges had helped make the conference possible, someday we in the United States might need their help to maintain rule of law and an independent judiciary. While I was trying to equalize our relationship, my prediction has become all too true. Given the Trump Administration's contempt for the rule of law and political appointment of judges who support the unitary executive theory of government in which power lies with the president and not the people's representatives, those of us in the U.S. who support the rule of law and our constitution might well welcome assistance from abroad.

Unfortunately, Serbian progressives' efforts to establish an independent judiciary and rule of law have been thwarted under the presidency of Aleksandar Vucic. But citizens are still active. Students took to the streets over a year ago after a railway station awning collapsed, killing 16 people. The protesters charge the government with corruption in granting a contract for the awning which resulted in shoddy workmanship and hence the deadly collapse.

Serbia has been a candidate for accession to the European Union since 2012. Recently, the European Commission announced that it is considering suspending 1.5 billion euros of payment to Serbia during its accession due to rule of law problems and controversial judicial reforms. It appears we cannot look to Serbian reformists for help in maintaining U.S. rule of law and an independent judiciary at present. We might check out Hungary. Despite Orban's 16-year autocratic rule, he lost badly in recent elections.

Soldiers have a duty to follow legal orders and can be court martialed for failure to do so. They also have a duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution and International Law. When a commander, including the President of the United States, orders military personnel to target or intentionally harm civilians, soldiers and their commanders are required by law to disobey.* This principle was established in the Nuremberg trials, where obeying orders was not a defense to charges of war crimes. It was subsequently codified in international and U.S. law. It has been applied in international war crimes trials, such as those at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

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I was working in the former Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo/a. Serbia's war against the Kosovo Albanians was largely directed against the civilian population in an attempt to drive them out of the province. Homes were burned, crops destroyed, people raped, tortured, and massacred. Some young Serbs and Montenegrins refused to fight. One soldier got into his tank and drove it to Belgrade where he parked it on the Parliament steps. In another situation, a whole platoon refused to fight. They started walking home. Their commanding officer demanded that they leave their guns behind. The young soldiers went one better. They took off their uniforms and set out walking in their underwear.

Parents did not know if their soldier sons had been deployed. A mother stood up among them and said, "Go to the barracks and retrieve your sons. Take them home with you." Another woman protested: "But they'll go to jail." The first mother answered: "They'll get out of jail, but never from the grave."

One of the soldiers who testified during the trial of Slobodan Milosevic said that he was never told about the Geneva Conventions and his obligation to disobey illegal orders. He and others were ordered to destroy a village. They'd burned between ten and fifteen houses before they discovered people. Fifteen women, children, and elderly men were forced out of their house at gunpoint and made to sit on the ground. One woman held an infant who was crying. The sergeant ordered the soldiers to shoot them all. The young soldier, who had asked to testify as a way to ease his conscience), obeyed.

"The people shot at began falling down one over the other. What I remember most vividly is how -- I remember this very vividly -- there was a baby shot with three bullets, screaming unbelievably loud." The baby's scream haunted the conscript for three and a half years and ultimately brought him to confront Milosevic: "I came forward to give my evidence because I wanted in this way to express everything that is troubling me, that has been troubling me for the past three years since I completed my service. Never a night goes by without my dreaming of that child hit by the bullets and crying. I thought if I came forward and told the truth, that I will feel easier in my soul. It is the only reason I am here."

Milosevic asserted that not a single officer ordered the soldier to kill civilians. He responded: "That is not correct. I heard this [order to not leave anyone alive] and also ten soldiers from my company can confirm it and in no way can you deny that. I was there. I heard it and . . . you, as Supreme Commander, could have come down there and seen what it was like for us. You were issuing shameful orders to be carried out." pp 90-91, Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

I joined other Portlanders this week at the ICE facility near the waterfront for a singing protest. It was powerful and moving. As I sang the songs I learned 60 years ago, I hid my face behind my song sheet to keep my tears from erupting into belly-wrenching sobs. One song was adapted from protests in Belgrade, when protesters invited police to join them. Though none of the Portland ICE agents accepted the invitation, in Belgrade the police did. They moved to join the protesters, refusing to protect Milosevic any longer. Shortly after, he was arrested, then sent to The Hague to stand trial before an international tribunal for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Though Milosevic died before a verdict could be rendered, he died ignominiously in a jail cell.

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*Ordering troops to engage in illegal conduct is a war crime.

NO GENOCIDE IN MY NAME

President Donald J. Trump announced to the world his intent to commit genocide in Iran: "A whole civilization will die tonight [April 7, 2026], never to be brought back again." Trump threatens to bomb civilian targets including power plants and bridges. This is a clear violation of international law. Indeed, stating his intent to commit genocide is itself a war crime.

Though Pakistan (supported by China) secured a cease fire for two weeks, Trump's threat remains. Admittedly, he is fast and loose with his pronouncements. That doesn't erase them.

The Genocide Convention, to which the United States is a signatory, states clearly: ". . . genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which [contracting parties] undertake to prevent and to punish." Article I.

". . . genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, i whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. . . . Article II.

"The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide." Article III

"Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals." Article IV

Assuredly, Trump believes he will never face justice for ordering the destruction of a country and its people. Still, for many people throughout the world he will die in infamy. No bronze statue. No peace prize. No carved head on Mt. Rushmore. He will go down in history with other leaders responsible (not all convicted) for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity: Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet, Josef Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic. . . .