It has been 21 years since the Srebrenica massacre, iThe most serious episode of genocide in our continent since the Holocaust. Finally there is a culprit.
After a six-year trial, former psychiatrist Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the special International Criminal Tribunal of the United Nations because he was held responsible for genocide.
The one handed down by the judges in The Hague is the first sentence for genocide and war crimes ever pronounced against a European political leader.
Karadzic was captured in July 2008, after spending 12 years on the run despite a $5 million bounty hanging on his head. Before his arrest, he narrowly escaped capture by NATO several times. The most sensational example occurred in the summer of 1997 when he was allegedly helped to escape by a French officer, Major Hervè Gourmelon.
After years and years of silence, in January of last year, the same Tribunal issued a sentence in which it recognized the Srebrenica massacre as a crime against humanity in which eight thousand Bosnian Muslims lost their lives, killed by a unit of the Serbian army.
In addition to the conviction for genocide, Karadzic was found guilty of 9 other counts including murder, rape, persecution of civilians and hostage-taking. According to the judges, he is the author of the crimes committed during the siege of Sarajevo, four years in which more than 25 people died. Judge O-Gon Kwon said the campaign of attacks could not have happened without his support. The latest crime for which he was held responsible (hostage taking) refers to the kidnapping of 284 UN peacekeepers who were used as human shields under NATO bombs.
Despite various convictions, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs was acquitted of the charge of genocide committed in seven Bosnian towns and villages during the three-year conflict that ravaged the former Yugoslavia. For these episodes, the sentence against him was "only" for crimes against humanity, murder and persecution.
It should be emphasized that, although history has revealed for all to see the atrocities committed in the recent past, Karadzic's political heirs still threaten the secession of Republika Srpska from Sarajevo in the name of the same values for which their leader slaughtered thousands of people, including 1.500 children.
We also recall that, despite Karadzic's conviction, the road to justice is still long. Ratko Mladic, general in the People's Army of Yugoslavia during the wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, commander of the armed forces in Croatia and, during the Bosnian war, chief of staff of the Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is still under process. On his conscience, in addition to the massacres of Srebrenica, there is also the life of his daughter who decided to commit suicide out of shame for the crimes committed by her father. On May 31, 2011 he was arrested after 16 years on the run and extradited to The Hague. His trial began exactly one year later. The charges, again, are genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Slobodan Milosevic will never receive his sentence, former president of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as leader of the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) who died in prison before the judges could pass their sentence. The Serbian leader was accused of crimes against humanity for the Yugoslav army's ethnic cleansing operations against Muslims in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.
