U.N.

court rules Bosnian Serbs committed genocide in Bosnia

By Daily Mail Reporter
26th February 2007

The United Nations' highest court ruled that Bosnian Serbs committed genocide during the Srebrenica
massacre in 1995.
As she continued reading the book-length judgment, court president Judge Rosalyn Higgins said the
panel of international judges relied heavily on the findings of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for
Yugoslavia, which has convicted two Bosnian Serb army officers on genocide-related charges for the
deliberate slaughter of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims at the U.N.-protected enclave.

"The acts committed at Srebrenica ... were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the
group of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina as such, and accordingly ... these were acts of genocide"
committed by Bosnian Serb forces, the judgment said.

Bosnia has claimed that Serbia bears responsibility for the genocide. But the court has yet to pronounce
its key finding on whether Serbia had the intention to destroy "in whole or in part" the Bosnian Muslim
population of Srebrenica, the key element in defining genocide.

The case before the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, was the first time an
entire nation is being held to judicial account for the ultimate crime.

In a key ruling at the outset, Higgins rejected Serbia's argument that the court had no jurisdiction in the
case, saying Serbia had the obligation to abide by the 1948 Genocide Convention throughout the 1992-
95 Bosnian war.

The World Court, can only adjudicate disputes among U.N. member states. The U.N. Security Council
suspended Yugoslavia's membership in 1992 and readmitted the country, then known as Serbia-
Montenegro, in 2001.

Higgins also said Montenegro, which withdrew from the Serbia-Montenegro federation last year, was
no longer part of the case, and that Serbia alone assumed the "legal identity" of the former Yugoslavia.

One judge, Gonzalo Parra-Aranguren of Venezuela, had withdrawn due to poor health, Higgins said,
reducing the number of judges deliberating the case to 15. Another judge was absent from the reading.

Bosnia has said the government in Belgrade under then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic armed,
financed and encouraged Bosnian Serbs to conduct an ethnic cleansing campaign that amounted to
genocide in an attempt to create a "Greater Serbia" during the war.

Serbia has said it was not responsible for the actions of Serb paramilitary groups, that the war was a
conflict among ethnic groups, and that there was no intent to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population in
whole or in part - a key element in genocide as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

If it rules against Serbia, the court could order Belgrade to pay compensation, which would be
determined in negotiations. Bosnia has said Serbia should pay restitution for life and property to both
the victims and to the Bosnian state, claims that could total billions of dollars.

The case is being watched with passion in both Serbia and Bosnia.

Dozens of survivors stood Monday outside the Peace Palace, the court's cathedral-like seat, behind a
banner which read: "Serbia is guilty" and "It was genocide in Bosnia."

Hedija Krdzic, 34, from Srebrenica, a Bosnian town that was overrun by Serb forces during the war,
said a ruling against Serbia would help ease her grief but not erase it. "I lost my father, brother and
husband during the war. This verdict will not bring them back but maybe I will feel calmer afterward."
She said recognizing the atrocities in Bosnia as genocide "is important for the whole country and for all
the people who have lost their families and homes."

However, half of Bosnia hopes it will lose the case. As part of a 1995 peace accord, Bosnia is split into
a Muslim-Croat federation with a Bosnian Serb state, known as Republika Srpska. Bosnian Serbs claim
the lawsuit in The Hague is illegal since it was brought at a time when the country was at war and the
Bosnian Serbs were not part of the government that filed the charges.

"Whatever it will be, Republika Srpska will not accept the verdict and will not implement it," Milorad
Dodik, the state's prime minister, said earlier this month.

In Belgrade, the head of the Serb legal team, Radoslav Stojanovic, said if Serbia is convicted, "it would
have far-reaching consequences which would burden our future for decades."

Bosnia submitted its genocide case to the court in 1993. Since then, the separate International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which judges individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against
humanity, has determined that the Serb onslaught in at least one instance, the attack on the Srebrenica
enclave in 1995, amounted to genocide.

Two Bosnian Serb army officers were convicted of complicity in genocide or aiding and abetting
genocide.

Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, also was brought to trial on genocide charges but died in the
U.N. jail in The Hague last March, just weeks before his four-year-long trial was due to end.