Sarajevo/Belgrade - Serbian President Boris Tadic said
Monday in Belgrade the International Court of Justice verdict that
Serbia violated international convention on genocide was very
serious.
However, leading members of Bosnia's tripartate state presidency
warned that the verdict would provoke tension, and expressed the hope
that this would not spill over into major demonstrations.
The UN's highest judicial organ had on Monday ruled that Belgrade
was not directly responsible for acts of genocide committed during
the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The case, which dates back to 1993, was the first of its kind to
be brought before the ICJ, which rules exclusively on disputes
between countries.
Although he marked the decision as 'positive', Tadic said the part
of the decision that confirmed Serbia did not do everything in its
power to stop the genocide in Srebrenica 'is very serious.'
He added he would ask the Serbian parliament to adopt a
declaration condemning the crimes committed in Srebrenica, where
Bosnian Serb troops, backed by Serbian paramilitary forces massacred
up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men after capturing that former eastern
Muslim enclave on 11 July 1995.
Leader of Serbian Socialist Party of the late strongman Slobodan
Milosevic, Ivica Dacic said he was satisfied with the ruling.
The ICJ's decision, he said, discredited the work of the UN's
Hague-based war crimes tribunal and the cases led against Milosevic
and other Serbian officials.
According to head of ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party
Tomislav Nikolic, the ICJ's ruling confirmed that 'Serbia did not
participate in any form of genocide.'
Genocide in Srebrenica, he said, 'did not involve all the Muslims
on the entire territory,' and should not be considered genocide.
Nikolic, whose former party boss Vojislav Seselj has been tried
before The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), said he was worried about the fate of the Bosnian
Serb entity, the Srpska Republic, following the verdict.
Commenting on the verdict, Muslim member of Bosnia's tripartite
state Presidency Haris Silajdzic indirectly called on changes in
Bosnia, stressing that the ICJ's ruling should mark the beginning of
a process to erase results of genocide in Bosnia.
'Results of the genocide should be annulled with a new
constitution to create a democratic system in accordance with
Bosnia's multiethnic society as it was before the genocide.'
He said the current Bosnian constitution, which created two
entities, the Srpska Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation, was
based on ethno-territorial principles and genocide, and must be
dismissed as such.
The Chairman of Bosnia's Presidency Nebojsa Radmanovic warned that
the verdict would provoke bitter feelings and disappointment in
Bosnia, and would increase the tensions in the country.
'This decision will provoke some tensions. I hope those tensions
will not further grow into large demonstrations,' said Radmanovic.
He stressed that tensions between political subjects in Bosnia-
Herzegovina already exist, but that should not have a significant
impact on the current relations with Serbia.
'I call on everyone to maintain the peace, to keep peace in
Bosnia-Herzegovina,' Radmanovic said in an initial reaction to the
ICJ ruling.
Legal experts in Bosnia-Herzegovina said the verdict was
disappointing for the country, especially for the families of the
victims, but should however help in building the peace and
reconciliation between the former Yugoslav states.
'The verdict is positive for Bosnia and would improve the
relations in the Balkans. The verdict made Serbia finally recognize
the genocide and also confirmed Bosnia's legal identity as a
sovereign country,' a Bosnian legal expert Cazim Sadikovic said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story