The term
Bosnian Genocide refers to either genocide at
Srebrenica and
Žepa[4] committed by
Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 or the
ethnic cleansing campaign that took place during the 1992–1995
Bosnian War.
[5]
The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000
Bosnian Muslim men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, in and around the town of Srebrenica in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed by units of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General
Ratko Mladić.
[6][7]
The
ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the VRS targeted Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship.
[8]
...
However, in line with a majority of legal scholars, the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) have ruled that, in order for actions to be deemed genocide, there must be physical or biological destruction of a protected group and a specific intent to commit such destruction. To date, only the
Srebrenica massacre has been found to be a genocide by the ICTY, a finding upheld by the ICJ.
[12]
...
The Court's opinion that genocide did not take place across the entire occupied territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its finding that Serbia was not directly involved in the Srebrenica genocide have been strongly criticized.
....
Main article:
List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions
About 30 people have been indicted for participating in genocide or complicity in genocide during the early 1990s in
Bosnia.
...The
International Court of Justice confirmed the
ICTY judgment that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide:
The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II
(a) and
(b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.
[39]
It cleared Republic of Serbia of direct involvement in
genocide during the Bosnian war, but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995
Srebrenica genocide.
[40]
...
Incomplete list of massacres:
According to
Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps, a total of 8,000 Croatian civilians and
Prisoners of war (a large number after the
fall of Vukovar) went through Serb prison camps such as
Sremska Mitrovica camp,
Stajićevo camp,
Niš camp and many others where many were heavily abused and tortured. A total of 300 people never returned from them.
[35] A total of 4570 camp inmates have started
legal action against former
Serbia and Montenegro (now
Serbia) for torture and abuse in the camps.
[36]
The
Serbian police and the Yugoslav Army were in spring 1999 "in an organized manner, with significant use of state resources" conducted a broad campaign of violence against Albanian civilians in order to expel them from Kosovo and thus maintain political control of Belgrade over the province.
[29]
According to the legally binding verdict of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Federal Army and Serbian police after the
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia 24 March 1999, systematically attacked villages with Albanian population, abused, robbed and killed civilians, ordering them to go to Albania or Montenegro, burning their houses and destroying by their property.
[41] Within the campaign of violence, Albanians were mass expelled from their homes, murdered,
sexually assaulted, and their religious buildings destroyed. Serbian forces committed numerous war crimes during the implementation of "
joint criminal enterprise" whose aim was to "through the use of violence and terror, force a significant number of Kosovo Albanians to leave their homes, across the border, the state government to retain control over Kosovo."
[29] Ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population is performed by the following model: first the army surrounded a place, then followed the shelling, then the police entered the village, and often with them and the army, and then crimes occurs (murders, rapes, beatings, expulsions...).
[41]
