BOSNIA: SERB WAR CRIMES SENTENCE SPARKS CONTROVERSY
Sarajevo, 28 Sept. (AKI) - The 27-year prison term handed down on Wednesday to
former Bosnian Serb wartime leader Momcilo Krajisnik by the United Nations'
Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, has shocked local Serbs
and reignited polemics with majority Muslims. Dragan Cavic, president of the
Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS) was one of the first to react, saying
he was "shocked," and that the verdict was a "manifestation of the political
character" of the tribunal.
"Krajisnik, as president of the People’s Assembly of the RS from its very
founding in the difficult war years [1992-1995], was first among equals," said
Cavic. "Therefore, any judgements pronounced on him are judgements pronounced
on the People’s Assembly,” Cavic added.
He said the Bosnian Serb parliament during the war did not pass "a single act
which would be contrary to the norms of war humanitarian law or any part of the
international law," which he claimed made Krajisnik's sentence all the more
absurd.
Cavic compared Krajisnik’s harsh sentence to the one passed on Muslim war
commander of the eastern town of Srebrenica, Naser Oric, who was sentenced to
only two years for crimes against Serb civilians and has since been released.
Other Muslim and Croat military commanders have never even been tried by the UN
tribunal, he pointed out.
"All this, compared with the trial against Krajisnik and the verdict
pronounced, points to the political campaign which is being waged not against
individuals, but in the final instance against the RS," said Cavic.
Sulejman Tihic, a Muslim member of Bosnia’s three-man rotating state
presidency, said the Krajisnik verdict confirmed "the RS authorities
participated in a joint criminal undertaking of persecution, obliteration,
murder, deportations and forcible resettlement of the non-Serb population."
"This verdict shows that RS entity was created by a criminal undertaking, aimed
at changing the ethnic composition of Bosnia," Tihic stated. He and other
Muslim leaders have stepped up their demands for the RS's abolition, saying it
arose from genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Several Bosnian Serb generals have been sentenced by the Hague tribunal on
charges of genocide for the murder of up to 8,000 Muslim civilians in
Srebrenica in July 1995, after Serb forces overran the town. But Bosnian
foreign minister Mladen Ivanic, a Serb, said the fact that Krajisnik was
acquitted on charges of genocide, "removes any possibility of accusing the
Serbian people and RS leaders of genocide."
Washington-based political analyst of Serbian origin, Obrad Kesic, told the
media the timing of Krajisnik's sentencing - three days before Bosnian
elections on Sunday - had been bad. Pointing out that Krajisnik was also
arrested on the eve of the elections in April 2000, Kesic said his sentence
would impact "on emotions" and on how people vote.
"The tribunal has once again demonstrated its bias on ethnic grounds," said
Kesic, claiming it was also seeking to intervene directly in Bosnia's electoral
process.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on
Wednesday sentenced Krajisnik to 27 years in jail for crimes against humanity,
persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and forcible resettlement of
local Muslims and Croats.
Krajisnik - considered one of the architects of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia -
was acquitted, however, on charges on genocide and breaking the laws and the
rules of war.
(Vpr/Aki)
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.345034154&par=0
Serbian News Network - SNN
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