UN says massacre was genocide
2004-04-19 11:24
The Hague - The Appeals Chamber of the United Nations war crimes tribunal on Monday confirmed that the 1995 massacre of more than 7 000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica was genocide.
"The trial chamber finds that genocide occurred in Srebrenica... against the Muslim population," presiding judge Theodor Meron said.
The ruling was made in the case of Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic, who led the troops that captured Srebrenica and is seeking to overturn his 2001 genocide conviction by arguing that the number of victims was "too insignificant" to be considered genocide.
The decision will have implications for some others on trial in The Hague for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, including former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The ruling will also have an impact on international justice because it will create important jurisprudence about the definition of genocide.
The 1948 Geneva Convention defines genocide as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".
The Appeals Chamber's ruling confirms a wider legal definition of the crime.
"It would be an expansion because it would make the killing of only men, and the deportation of women and children, a genocide and that has not been done before," said Heikelina Verrijn Stuart, an international law expert who follows the UN court closely.
The idea that an ethnic group can be destroyed in part, by committing genocide acts against a local community of members of the group, has up to now always meant crimes against an entire community of men, women and children.
"It would also mean that in local war in a small community, genocide can take place. That creates a situation were in many wars of secession and civil wars local atrocities can be labelled genocide," she added.
- AFP