Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

DRINA CORPS
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(ICTR), as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC), are the concretization of
such a code.
Drina Corps. During the Bosnian War (1992–1995) the armed forces of Republika
Srpska comprised two distinct segments: the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and
paramilitary units of the republic’s Ministry of the Interior. The commander in chief was
the president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic (b. 1945); the commanding officer
of the VRS was General Ratko Mladic (b. 1942). The VRS was in turn divided into six
geographically based Corps, all of which were subordinate to General Mladic. These were
the Drina Corps, the First Krajina Corps, the Second Krajina Corps, the Sarajevo-
Romanija Corps, the Herzegovina Corps, and the East Bosnia Corps. The Drina Corps
was formed on November 1, 1992. Its first commander was General Milenko Zivanovic
(b. 1946), who was replaced on or about July 11, 1995 by General Radislav Krstic (b. 1948)
though there is some dispute surrounding the date of the handover of command. The
Drina Corps consisted of about fifteen thousand troops. Two of the thirteen brigades into
which it was divided—the Bratunac Brigade and the Zvornik Brigade—featured significantly
in the action for which the Drina Corps will principally be remembered: the
Srebrenica massacre of July 1995. The Drina Corps was assisted in its murderous work by
an irregular militia unit calling itself the Drina Wolves. The Drina Wolves, though,
should not be confused with the Drina Crops itself, as they were distinct entities.
The massacre, and the Drina Corps’s role in it, was directly ordered by Mladic, who
considered this appropriate in view of the fact that the entire Srebrenica region fell within
the Drina Corps’s area of operations. Because of the indictment made against Krstic by the
prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
together with his subsequent trial, the Drina Corps itself came under a great deal of
scrutiny from the United Nations and the ICTY. Although charges for the Srebrenica
massacre have been leveled against specific individuals, no charges have thus far been
made against General Zivanovic, under whose command the city of Srebrenica was occupied.
Command of the Drina Corps had passed from him prior to the commencement of
the genocidal massacre that took place in Srebrenica from July 11 onward. Krstic initially
was found guilty of genocide, but on appeal, was found guilty of being an accomplice to
genocide. His initial sentence of forty-six years’ imprisonment was reduced to thirty-five
years. On December 20, 2004, he was transferred to a maximum-security prison in Britain
to serve his sentence.
Drogheda, Siege of. See Cromwell, Oliver.
Drost, Pieter N. (n.d.). Drost, a Dutch law professor, wrote an early and important
work, The Crime of State (Leyden: A W. Sythoff, 1959), in which he assessed the strengths
and weaknesses of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide. He was particularly scathing in regard to the fact that political
and social groups were omitted from the UN’s definition of genocide.
Duch (Khang Khek Iev) (b. 1942). Duch is the name of the former interrogator of the
Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison, where innocent people were tortured to death or murdered
outright. Along with Ta Mok (1926–2006), who was a senior Khmer Rouge official during
the genocide, he is one of only two individuals ever arrested for the crimes of the Khmer
Rouge. As of August 2007, Duch was incarcerated in a military prison in Phnom Penh.
Dunant, Henri (1828–1910). A Swiss banker, businessman, and humanitarian,
founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), inspiration behind the