No Serb genocide against Croatians, UN court rules

[Loki]

UN court ICJ rules on Serbia and Croatia genocide cases


Some 20,000 people died during Croatia's war of independence

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is issuing its ruling on genocide cases between Croatia and Serbia.

The Croatian government has alleged that Serbia committed genocide in the town of Vukovar and elsewhere in 1991.

Serbia later filed a counter claim over the expulsion of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia.

About 20,000 people died during the 1991-1995 war, when Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia.

The Croatian town of Vukovar was devastated when it was occupied by Serbs for three months in 1991. Tens of thousands of ethnic Croats were displaced, and about 260 Croat men were detained and killed.

Four years later, the Croatian military's Operation Storm bombarded the majority ethnic-Serb Krajina area, forcing about 200,000 people from their homes.

Croatia filed its initial case with the ICJ - the top UN court - in 1999, accusing Serbs, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, of targeting ethnic Croats during the conflict.

It also wants Serbia to pay compensation for damages "to persons and properties as well as to the Croatian economy and environment".

UN 1948 Genocide Convention

• Act committed with intent to destroy in whole or part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
• Killing members of the group
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

In 2010, Serbia responded to Croatia's case with a countersuit, saying that ethnics Serbs were expelled when Croatia launched its 1995 operation to retake territory captured by Serbs.

The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says that for some this legal judgement will help to shed light on what actually happened during the darkest years of the Balkans.

Although genocide is the most serious of international crimes, it is also the hardest to prove, our correspondent adds.

The ICJ is to decide whether either country or both are guilty of genocide, incitement to commit genocide or complicity in genocide.

Both sides have said they will accept the verdicts, which began at 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT).

'End of a process'

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has described the verdict as "one of perhaps the most important events for our bilateral relations with Croatia".

"It will probably be the end of a process that has lasted for 15-20 years [and] will put an end to both sides' fight to prove who the worst criminal is," he told reporters on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Croatian Justice Minister Orsat Miljenic has previously said that the government's main goal is to "present what happened in the war and that was aggression against Croatia".

"Expectations have already been met" through the case being discussed at the ICJ, Mr Miljenic added in quotes carried by AFP.

Relations between the two countries have improved in recent years but in 2012 Serbia was outraged when Operation Storm commander Ante Gotovina, was cleared on appeal by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).


The verdict being delivered by Judge Peter Tomka (centre) is final


Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were forced from their homes by the Croatian military's Operation Storm

Last week, ahead of the verdict, Vukovar resident Kata Lozancic told Reuters news agency that she believed genocide had taken place in her town.

"Everything from cultural and natural sites, to people, everything was destroyed," she said. "The town and its vicinity are full of former camp sites, places where they held people in detention, searched them, tortured them."

Meanwhile, a refugee in Serbia, identified only as Dragica, expressed unhappiness at the Croatian government's claims.

"They expelled us Serbs, and now they [claim they] are not criminals, and we are," she told Reuters.

"[They say] we ran away... [but] who would be crazy enough to run away from their own home, leaving everything behind, everything we worked so hard for."

Former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after World War Two. It consisted of six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

The federation began falling apart in the early 1990s. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia declared independence, sparking conflicts with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. All four countries were eventually recognised as independent by the UN.

In 2006, Montenegro also emerged as a sovereign state after a referendum for independence, ending the former Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

[Crn Volk]

This court is irrelevant, like the UN itself.

[Loki]

U.N. court: Serbs' actions in Croatia not considered genocide


A U.N. court has ruled that Croatia failed to prove its claims of genocide against the Serbian government.

(CNN) Serbian forces committed egregious violent acts against ethnic Croatians in the early 1990s, but they don't equate to genocide, a U.N. court ruled Tuesday.

The 153-page ruling from the International Court of Justice means that modern-day Serbia will not have to pay restitution to Croatia, which in 1991 split from what was then Yugoslavia. The decision relates only to the two national governments' responsibility to one another, not the culpability of any individuals for targeting members of an ethnic group. Such individual cases are handled by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), another U.N. court.

"Croatia has not established that the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the (Serbians') pattern of conduct ... was the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Croat group," the International Court of Justice (or ICJ) ruled. "... It follows ... Croatia has failed to substantiate its allegation that genocide was committed."

In addition to dismissing Croatia's case that its citizens had been victims of genocide, the ICJ also rebuffed Serbia's counterclaim that Croatian forces had committed genocide against its own citizens.

This all relates to what happened in the 1990s, in the bloody aftermath of Yugoslavia splintering into separate nations. Many of the most horrific allegations have been levied against those aligned with the Yugoslavia government -- the closest equivalent to what is now the Republic of Serbia -- for its actions in Kosovo and Bosnia.

In fact, several Serbians have been charged with genocide, though none yet specifically tied to actions inside Croatia. They include Radislav Krstic, sentenced to 46 years after the ICTY convicted him in relation to a five-day slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in what's been called the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by a U.N. tribunal when he was charged with 66 counts for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, though he was found dead in his cell before his years-long trial in front of the ICTY finished.

Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is still on trial for two genocide charges and nine others related to ethnic violence during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. When Ratko Mladic's own trial on 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity opened in 2012, the former general -- who is accused of orchestrating a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing -- showed no remorse, even appearing to threaten victims in court.

Yet even as such individual cases push forward, courts have been reluctant to hold governments involved in the conflict directly responsible for genocide.

In 2007, for instance, the International Court of Justice acquitted Serbia of committing genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But, in the same ruling, the U.N. court did find Serbia guilty of failing to prevent genocide in Srebrenica.

Proof of large-scale killings, but not intent

Tuesday's ICJ ruling relates specifically to what Serbian forces did in Croatia between 1991 and 1995.

The violence began when Serbian troops went into Croatia ostensibly to aid armed ethnic Serbians trying to create their own autonomous states there. The U.N. court considered reams of evidence, from both sides, about what happened in the years that followed.

And some of what happened, the U.N. court ruled, was consistent with genocide.

For example, the ICJ found Serbian and allied forces responsible for a "large number of killings" that disproportionately affected Croats, "which suggests that they may have been systematically targeted." The forces also "injured (ethnic Croatians) and perpetrated acts of ill-treatment, torture, sexual violence and rape (that contributed) to the physical or biological destruction of the protected group," according to the court.

Croats were singled out in other less lethal ways, like restricting their movement to create "a climate of coercion and terror" and spur them to leave, the ICJ said. The court didn't find sufficient evidence, however, to implicate Serbian forces on other grounds, like depriving Croatians of food and medical care.

But even if some of the acts could fall under the umbrella of genocide, there must be evidence of intent -- that the forces went in aiming to destroy a group of people -- in order for these actions to be labeled genocide under the so-called Genocide Convention, which dates to 1948.

That was not proven, in the eyes of the International Court of Justice.

"In view of the fact that dolus specialis has been established by Croatia," the court said, using the legal term for a specific intent, "its claims of conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and attempt to commit genocide also necessarily fail.

"Accordingly, Croatia's claim must be dismissed in its entirety."

[Loki]

This court is irrelevant, like the UN itself.

So what are your views on this? That it was a genocide?

[Minesweeper]

There was no genocide comitted by Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo. I stand behind these words. If anything deserves to be called genocide, it is planned persecution of Serbs during WW2.

[Methmatician]

If anything deserves to be called genocide, it is planned persecution of Serbs during WW2.

Isn't that already recognised as a genocide?

[Insuperable]

You could have also mentioned that the court dismissed the Serbian complaint too. Zero judges supported Serbian complaint and one judge (actually two, one of them is Croatian) claimed there was a genocide in Croatia.

[Loki]

You could have also mentioned that the court dismissed the Serbian complaint too. Zero judges supported Serbian complaint and one judge (actually two, one of them is Croatian) claimed there was a genocide in Croatia.

Ah, I see. I just copied/pasted the article, I don't know much about that

[Anglojew]

Massive result. Validates all of us pro-Serbians.

[Kabul]

Bullshit.