NCJ Number
226847
Date Published
2004
Length
282 pages
Annotation
The author (Clea Koff), a forensic anthropologist from Berkeley, CA, presents an account of her seven United Nations missions to collect and analyze potential evidence of genocide in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Rwanda.
Abstract
Koff was 23 years old when she became part of a team of 16 archaeologists, anthropologists, pathologists, and autopsy assistants sent to Rwanda by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) after the 1994 genocide. ICTR is the sister tribunal to ICTY, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. ICTR and ICTY were the first international criminal tribunals since the Nuremberg trials following World War II. In 1995, ICTR’s then chief prosecutor made an unprecedented request for Physicians for Human Rights, a Boston-based nongovernmental organization, to assemble a team of forensic experts who could investigate mass graves alleged to have resulted from the genocide perpetrated by people already indicted. At the time, Koff was a graduate student in forensic anthropology, whose goal for years had been to counter human rights abuses through evidence yielded by bones of deceased victims of human rights abusers. She describes how her interest in the field of forensic anthropology developed in relation to advocacy for human rights victims. This is followed by detailed descriptions of her work, findings, and interactions with the forensic teams in Rwanda (January 6-February 27, 1996 and June 3-June 24, 1996); Bosnia (July 4-August 29, 1996); Croatia (August 30-September 30, 1996); and Kosovo (April 2-June 3, 2000 and July 3-July 23, 2000). The concluding section summarizes what Koff has learned about the motivations, objectives, and tactics of those governments and individuals who perpetrate human rights abuses and horrendous adverse effects on victims and survivors. Appended information on tribunals commenced and completed trials and a list of group questions and topics for discussion