The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #89575   Message #1691955
Posted By: Wolfgang
13-Mar-06 - 09:06 AM
Thread Name: BS: Milosevic found dead in cell
Subject: RE: BS: Milosevic found dead in cell
The left German daily newspaper TAGESZEITUNG had a nice headline with an untranslatable play of words:

Schlächter Abgang

'Schlächter ' is a homophone to 'Schlechter' so you can read the headline as

'bad end' 'bad exit' or 'the slaughterer's exitus'.

My God, Peter, you have a way with words which without any explicit lie gives rise to some misconceptions in the naive reader.
(1) Incidentally, although the tribunal is at the Hague, it should not be confused with the International Court of Justice, also at the Hague and hitherto often referred to simply as "the Hague." The latter exists under the aegis of the UN
The naive reader may think you want to imply that the ICTY had nothing to do with the UN, whereas it was fouded based on UNSC resolution 827 in 1993.
(2) Milosevic was not the first indictee to die in custody in the Hague. Several others preceded him. He was not even the first this month.
a naive reader may assume that something strange is at work here. Each month a death or two. To the best of my knowledge, 48 cases have been decided (40 people declared guilty and in prison), 47 cases are pending with the accused in custody, further 24 are pending with the accused in liberty at least until the sentence. That makes close to 100 mostly elderly men having been in custody in Den Haag (or else) in relation with the ICTY tribunal. Four of them have died since 1998, two of them undisputed suicides. You really can make these simple data looking sinister.


Wolfgang