UN court rules Serbia, Croatia not guilty of genocide in Balkan wars

The International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled Tuesday that neither Serbia nor Croatia was guilty of genocide during the bloody wars that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Court President Peter Tomka said that while many crimes were committed in the course of the conflict that raged from 1991 to 1995, neither side proved the other's intent to commit genocide — destroying a population in whole or in part.

The findings don't diminish the severity of the crimes against humanity committed during that conflict, but because genocide is by far the most serious of crimes against humanity, securing a conviction requires proof of intent. 

The rulings had been eyed as a potential landmark moment that could reopen old wounds between the former foes. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic described the case as "perhaps one of the most important events for our bilateral relations with Croatia."

Zagreb in 1999 dragged Belgrade before the International Court of Justice on genocide charges, describing its campaign of ethnic cleansing — in which large numbers of Croats were driven from their homes, killed or tortured — as a "form of genocide." Some 20,000 people died in Croatia's independence war.

Zagreb also asked judges to order Belgrade to pay compensation for damage "to persons and properties as well as to the Croatian economy and environment ... a sum to be determined by the court."

Belgrade responded with a countersuit in 2010, saying some 200,000 ethnic Serbs were forced to flee when Croatia launched a military operation to retake control of Krajina. Two-thirds of the region's ethnic Serb population was driven out of Krajina by the Croatian offensive, Operation Storm.

The cases were part of the long legal fallout from the wars that saw Yugoslavia break up into seven nations, leaving more than 130,000 dead in Europe's worst conflagration since World War II.

Tomka said of Serbia's campaign to destroy towns and expel civilians in Slavonia and Dalmatia on the basis of their ethnicity, "Croatia has not established that the only reasonable inference was the intent to destroy in whole or in part the [Croatian] group."

Rejecting Serbia's counterclaim, he said Croatia did not commit genocide when it sought to drive ethnic Serbs from the province of Krajina.

"What is generally called ethnic cleansing does not constitute genocide," he said. "Acts of ethnic cleansing may be part of a genocidal plan, but only if there is an intention to physically destroy the target group."

The panel of judges rejected Croatia's claim in a 15-2 vote. Serbia's counterclaim was rejected unanimously by the judges, including Serbia's delegate.

With wire services