The United Nations’ highest court ruled that neither Croatia nor Serbia had committed genocide against each other’s populations during the wars that accompanied the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Both sides said they hoped the ruling would mark a watershed in relations, long since improved but still sometimes frosty.
President of the International Court of Justice, Peter Tomka said the forces of both countries had committed crimes during the conflict, but that the intent to commit genocide — by “destroying a population in whole or in part” — had not been proven against either country.
“This marks the end of one page on the past, and I’m convinced we will start a new page on the future, much brighter and better,” Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic told reporters in the Hague.
Croatian Foreign Minister, Vesna Pusic said she hoped the ruling would contribute to “closing this historic chapter and moving on to a better and safer period for people in this part of Europe.”
The cases were part of the long legal fall-out from the break-up of Yugoslavia into seven states in wars that lasted for much of the 1990s and left more than 130,000 dead in Europe’s worst conflagration since World War Two. (Leadership)
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