Women as War Criminals

distanced Plavšić from her crimes and diluted her agency in the war.

Jean Kambanda, prime minister of the interim government of Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution yet still received a life sentence

a guilty plea, compliance with the tribunal, and cooperation with the prosecution are more momentous in the cases of those who engineered the crimes

the disparities between the powerful Plavšić, who gave orders during the conflict, and minor players like Duško Tadić, a prison camp guard who received a 20-year sentence.

guilty plea was followed by a statement of remorse and testimonies in her favor by such influential international figures as Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Carl Bildt, the European Union’s Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, co-chairman of the 1995 Dayton Peace Conference, and High Representative for BiH

Plavšić initially pleaded not guilty on all counts in 2001 but then, before her trial began in 2002, she agreed to plead guilty to one count of persecution on political, racial, and religious grounds, for the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs

Šešelj openly stated that he wished to manipulate his trial for propaganda purposes and relished the prospect of an international audience for his denunciations of Western policy in the Balkans.

earned a PhD in botany at the University of Zagreb

highly educated war criminals on record

Her subsequent memoir—written while in prison—was intended for a domestic Serb audience. It reinforced the Mother narrative but, instead of supporting reconciliation, showed disregard for international criminal law and painted the West as the enemy of the Serbs. Her extreme nationalist and anti-Muslim beliefs were on full view.