Former Serb Leader Calls Bosnian War ‘Just and Holy’

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is on trial for genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for his role in the mass killings of Croats and Muslims during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, but a defiant Karadzic apparently doesn’t believe that he presided over an ethnic-cleansing campaign.  —KA

Al Jazeera English:

Karadzic, dressed in a dark suit and tie, traced the origins of the 1992-95 war to the rejection by Bosnia’s Muslim leadership of any power-sharing proposal.

He argued that conflicts resulting from the break-up of Yugoslavia were a natural consequence of the struggle for land.

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in The Hague, said that Karadzic had appeared as “unapologetic, proud, at times even veering to sarcasm”.

“Overall the tone of Mr Karadzic is proud, defiant, what he’s saying is that there was certainly no plot on the part of the Bosnian Serbs to exterminate the Muslim, or Croat community,” said Phillips.

“Certainly not to ethically cleanse them out of any part of Bosnia.

“Rather the Serbs very reluctantly acquiesced in Bosnia’s secession from Serbia, from Yugoslavia at that time, they didn’t want that secession to happen.

Read more

AP / Jerry Lampen, pool

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in 2008, during his initial appearance at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.