Denouncing Serbian Tilt, U.S. Boycotts U.N. Meeting
By Rick Gladstone, The New York Times
10 April 2013

The United States boycotted a United Nations General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, organized by the former Serbian foreign minister who is the body’s current president, that in theory was about the role of international criminal justice but appeared to be a thinly disguised Serb complaint forum about the war-crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Canada and Jordan joined the United States in the boycott of the two-day meeting, which included a General Assembly debate and panel discussion, while some other nations also criticized the meeting and sent low-level representatives. The event seemed to reopen emotional scabs about responsibility for ethnic slaughters committed in the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s, including the Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s worst mass killing since the Holocaust. (read more)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hague: 2 Serb Police Chiefs Convicted
By Marlise Simons
27 March 2013

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on Wednesday convicted two Bosnian Serb police chiefs for participating in a violent ethnic cleansing campaign that aimed to drive non-Serbs from their homes in 20 municipalities of Bosnia during the war of early 1990s. The two, Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zuplanin, were each handed a 22-year prison sentence. The verdicts underscored the crucial roles played by the police and armed militia in the notorious persecution of Croats and Muslims, many of whom were beaten, tortured, raped or otherwise abused in as many as 50 wartime detention centers run by Bosnian Serbs. The judges said that many civilians were killed or died from hunger, illness and mistreatment during the campaign to create zones for Serbs only in Bosnia.

© New York Times.

Gen. Momcilo Perisic of Yugoslavia in 1998. (New York Times)

Court Overturns War Crimes Conviction of Former Chief of Yugoslav Army
By Marlise Simons, New York Times
28 February 2013

PARIS — A United Nations appeals court on Thursday unexpectedly overturned the war crimes conviction of the former Yugoslav Army chief who had been sentenced to 27 years for aiding and abetting atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia, including attacks on Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

The judges, voting 4 to 1, acquitted the former chief, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, of all charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, and ordered him released.

General Perisic, who surrendered to the court in 2005, was expected to return Friday to Serbia, where officials welcomed the decision. Reports from Bosnia said victims’ groups were stunned. (read more)