WASHINGTON—Following today’s guilty verdict in the trial of Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (Netherlands), Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Roger Wicker (MS) issued the following statement:
“Ratko Mladic finally has been brought to justice for the crimes Serb forces under his command committed during the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s. Two decades later, this trial has reminded us of how truly horrific these crimes—including the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina—were, and who was responsible,” Chairman Wicker said.
“Since then, a generation unfortunately has come of age in an environment that denies what happened, seeks to somehow justify it, or places the blame on the victims. I hope this verdict will compel them to question such a revisionist history, learn the truth of what really happened, and seek reconciliation with their victimized neighbors through acknowledgement,” he said.
On November 22, Ratko Mladic was found guilty of 10 of 11 different charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is based in The Hague. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mladic was a senior officer in the Yugoslav military based in Croatia during the conflict that followed Croatia’s assertion of independent statehood in 1991. When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, he became commander of Bosnian Serb forces in that country, a position he held throughout the conflict that lasted until the signing of the Dayton Agreement in late 1995.
Mladic was held responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide at Srebrenica, each of which led to many thousands of deaths. Indicted in 1995, he remained at large until his arrest in Serbia in 2011, when he was transferred to The Hague.
His trial is the culmination of ICTY’s two decades of work as the first ad hoc tribunal designed to hold individuals accountable for war-related crimes since the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials following World War II. The Helsinki Commission and its leadership have strongly encouraged U.S. support for ICTY and the cooperation of the countries of the Western Balkans with the tribunal.
