ICJ's verdict positive, but serious, says Tadic (Roundup)

Feb 26, 2007, 15:43 GMT

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.