Radovan Karadzic denies genocide charges at war crimes tribunal

Karadzic’s defense hinges on the argument that Serbs were defending themselves and he implied that Serb actions were essentially pre-emptive. Speaking of Serb snipers that ringed Sarajevo and shot civilians young and old in what was a three year siege, the former president of the Repubic of Srpska and self-styled poet and psychiatrist told the court that "we were accused of firing indiscriminately at Sarajevo, but the targets were legitimate targets.”

Speaking of the Markale market massacre in February of 1994 attributed to Serb mortars hitting the crowded area of Sarajevo, Karadzic said the Bosnians "killed their own people."

James Swihart, a US State Department official and later ambassador, who was part of the European desk at the outbreak of the Bosnian conflict, argues that “I think Karadzic believes what he is saying...it's the war on terror...and for him, it is necessary to demonize, call them bad guys. It is despicable when he says it, but it is also being said in a simplistic ‘war on terror’ context today in the US and elsewhere that makes it seem plausible. The Bosnian Muslim identity was never very Islamic, but Karadzic doesn’t see it that way. He sees them as Turks that dominated the Balkans for 500 years.”

Bosnian Muslims are Slavs that converted to Islam during the Ottoman reign. Sarajevo is a city where Orthodox Christian and Protestant churches stand within blocks of the capital's main mosque and synagogue.

The Karadzic trial is the most watched at the tribunal since that of Serb president Slobodan Milosevic, who died at the Hague in 2006. Other than Mr. Milosevic and Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is still at large, Karadzic is considered one of the principle progenitors of a conflict that resulted in 100,000 deaths and the displacement of Balkan peoples across Europe and the US.

Karadzic’s insistence that the “cunning strategy” of the Bosnians, who fought much of the one-sided war without the weapons that the Serbs took from former Yugoslav Army military installations, was designed to bring foreign powers into the Balkans – was an argument often used by Serb leaders at the height of a conflict.

Marshall Freeman Harris, a former US state department official who resigned his position during the Bosnian war over US policy designed to downplay the war’s aggressive character, said today that Karadzic’s statements “show him to be unchanged” from his earlier incarnation as the Bosnian Serb president.

“The nature of the conflict is that Serb nationalists tried to take the territory of others to create their own state, and were willing to kill and drive out Muslims to do so,” Mr. Harris said by phone. “That’s what happened and everything else is obfuscation or confusion. What Karadzic is saying is not only inaccurate, but reprehensible. He is in the dock because what he is saying is not true.”

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