20 years on - Karadzic convicted

As the old saying goes: ‘the wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding small.’ It is more than 20 years since the Srebrenica massacre, and eight years since the trial began at The Hague of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for his part in it.

But now he has finally been sentenced to 40 years in prison on one charge of genocide and nine other counts, including crimes against humanity over the siege and shelling of Sarajevo which left nearly 12,000 people dead. Defending himself, Karadzic had denied the charges.

Karadzic’s lawyer says he will be appealing against the verdict. Meanwhile, the trial of General Ratko Mladic, who commanded the Bosnian Serb forces, is drawing to a close.  

The United Nations top human rights official Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein welcomed the verdict against Karadzic as ‘hugely significant’, but the current president of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Milorad Dodik, rejected it.  (See also my posts of 5 April 2012 and 28 July 2015.)

Srebrenica - the battle over its history

Twenty years ago this month, 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered by Serb forces at Srebrenica in the worst mass murder in Europe since World War Two. It was condemned as genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and also by the International Court of Justice.

But Serb leaders deny the massacre was genocide, arguing that Serb victims of the wars that followed Yugoslavia's break-up have been forgotten, and a recent UN Security Council resolution denouncing it was vetoed by Russia.

Today Bosnia is split between Serb, Bosnian and Croat run sectors. Bosnian children learn all about the massacre, while Bosnian Croat children hear little about it, and Bosnian Serb children are taught that its mastermind, Ratko Mladic, currently on trial at The Hague, was a hero.

Srebrenica has never recovered, but one bright spot in the story is the absence of inter-communal revenge killings, though worryingly last month ISIS released a video calling on Balkan Muslims to murder their non-Muslim neighbours. 

Bosnia + 20

On this day…..20 years ago, the Bosnian War broke out.    A complicated conflict between Bosnians, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats left up to 329,000 people dead.

The war was scarred by massacres of civilians such as the one at Srebrenica in 1995 in which Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Bosnians.    The United Nations described this as the worst crime on European soil since World War Two.

After Bosnian Serbs bombarded civilians in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, killing more than 100, NATO launched a campaign of air strikes against Serbia, which eventually brought an end to the war.

At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 45 Serbs, 12 Croats and 4 Bosnians have been convicted of war crimes.   Most of the Bosnian Serb wartime leadership were convicted, while the former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadzic and the leading general, Ratko Mladic, are currently being tried.

War crimes arrests - Serbia and Rwanda

Supporters of suspected war criminal, Ratko Mladic, are due to march in Belgrade today to try to stop him being extradited to the Hague to face trial.   The former Bosnian Serb army chief is accused of being responsible for the murder of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, as well as other crimes. 

Serbia’s failure to arrest Gen Mladic for 16 years means that he is now aged 69, and his lawyers have been trying to resist having him handed over to the court on grounds of ill health.    An appeal will be heard tomorrow.    Meanwhile, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor says that anyone who helped to shield Gen Mladic from justice could find themselves in serious trouble.

The general’s political boss, Radavan Karadzic, is already awaiting trial at the Hague after being arrested in 2008.    The former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, died during his trial in 2006.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most notorious leaders of the Rwandan Hutu militia during the 1994 genocide has been arrested.   Bernard Munyagishari was wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Held to account for Srebrenica

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has just handed out its toughest ever sentences. Two security chiefs in the Bosnian Serb army, Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara, have both been convicted for committing genocide in the Srebrenica massacre, and sent to prison for life. Five other defendants were gaoled for between five and 35 years.

In April 1993, the UN declared Srebrenica a safe haven, but it was protected only by a small unit of troops. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army took the town. They bussed out all the women, and the men aged under 16 or over 65. The remaining men – nearly 8,400 of them - they massacred.

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst in Europe since World War Two. The court said that Popovic and Beara were acting under orders from General Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for trial but still at large.

The judgement also declared the massacre was part of "a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population" begun on the orders of Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who is now on trial before the tribunal at The Hague. See also my blogs of 16 October, 2009 and May 11, 2010.