Newswise — Radovan Karadzic, former leader of the main Bosnian Serbian party during 1992-1995 Bosnian war, has been sentenced to 40 years of prison for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. John Weiss, professor of history at Cornell University, says that the sentence is cause for dismay as Karadzic - found guilty of at least 18,000 deaths – received less than one day’s imprisonment per victim.
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Weiss says:
“Karadzic was a masterful liar and a supremely protean political personality. Supporters of the Bosnian government attacked by Karadzic’s forces in 1992 will get satisfaction from the Hague Tribunal’s near-total rejection of every one of Karadzic’s arguments in his defense, including his claim that the shelling of civilians within Sarajevo was done by the Sarajevo government itself in order to provoke NATO intervention.
“But the sentence of 40 years - with 8 years’ credit for time served - is cause for dismay when compared to sentences given to other perpetrators of genocide: Gen. Radislav Krstic, found guilty of genocide by the same tribunal for actions in the Srebrenica massacres, was given 46 years, 2 days per victim killed.
“Karadzic, found guilty of at least 18,000 deaths, received less than one day’s imprisonment per victim.
“The most important product of the verdict, though, is a kind of negative closure and the hope for some progress in reconciliation. Since Karadzic took leadership of the Bosnian Serbs’ utopian nationalist project in 1991, he has essentially obtained his objective of the permanent social - and physical - separation of Serbs and non-Serbs. Truth and reconciliation commissions have been unsuccessful: children raised in the semi-autonomous Serb-populated entity officially within the borders of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska, usually do not see themselves as Bosnians or living in Bosnia.”
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