A Quarrel in a Faraway Country

Karadžić in court today.

Over the course of my research into the Bosnian War I have spent many hours trawling through transcripts from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), combing pages of legal jargon and prevarication to find the testimonies of those involved in the war.  Of all the bit players and small fish to face trial in The Hague, today saw the culmination of the case of the court's biggest catch.  Today, Radovan Karadžić, political leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the violent conflict of the early '90s, was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

There were tentative celebrations in Sarajevo and protests in Belgrade.  Some hailed the conviction as justice served for the victims; others damned the ICTY for the punitive punishment.  40 years is not enough for genocide, some protested.  Journalists and academics have been writing at length about what Karadžić's sentence means for the future of Bosnia.  Scholars and activists have begun to pick apart the judgment and its language, studying the minutiae of Scheduled Incident E2 or F1.  I stared at a blank page.

Karadžić has defended himself throughout his trial

I cannot in my mind make the connection between this suited old man, spectacles perched on his nose, sitting in a court room on the other side of Europe and calmly defending himself in increasingly fluent legalese, with the chillingly ebullient character who bluffed and postured through the footage and reports of a war that ended over twenty years ago.  Today, 70-year-old Karadžić looked haggard as he sat and blankly listened to Judge O-Gon Kwon's hour and a half recitation of his crimes. Reading his defiant pre-trial interview with BIRN, he did such a convincing job of rewriting history, and his own role in it, that I began to doubt my own research.

Karadžić with military leader Ratko Mladić, pictured
in 1993.  Mladić remains on trial in The Hague.

What should I write about Karadžić's conviction?  Found guilty on 10 out of the 11 counts on which he was indicted, including, significantly, the indictment for genocide for his part in the massacre at Srebrenica.  Is the conviction historic? Landmark?  Does it set precedents and send out warnings to other would-be genocidal maniacs?  Will it bring closure?  Has justice been served?  Are there any other clichés I can roll out?  A guilty verdict has been presumed from the moment Karadžić was first indicted back in 1995.  I could have written this twenty years ago.

For a country beset by corruption, economic woes and unemployment, the verdict of a court in a faraway country will have little impact back in Bosnia.  It won't help those displaced by the conflict return to their homes and it certainly won't lessen the pain of those who lost their families, or allow them to even begin comprehending how neighbours could ever have done this to one another.  It will have little effect on the ethnic tensions that still lurk; on the Bosnian Serbs who feel the ICTY is entirely too one-sided in its convictions of war criminals; on the Bosniaks angry that the Serbs shared the spoils of war at all; nor on those in Herzegovina who fly the Croatian flag above their homes.  As Karadžić himself has said: he is an old man now, and there is a new generation of politicians.  That generation is responsible for building Bosnia's future.


Karadžić's sentencing confirms what has been known for some time: that terrible deeds were committed under his leadership.  He will appeal, but he will not be successful.  His chapter is closed and history will condemn him.  For Bosnians, the wounds of the war that tore them apart will only begin to close when they are left alone to heal.  Scars will remain, and rightly so - they should not be forgotten - but a future cannot be built on open wounds.  In this Bosnian future, Radovan Karadžić is irrelevant.  And perhaps, for him, that is the greatest damnation.