BOSNIA SHOULD WE ALLOW AN EARLY RELEASE OF WAR CRIMINALS FROM PRISON?

War Crimes in Bosnia

It was only in the very recent past that the war crimes and genocide were committed that are in their brutality the same as those that had been committed in World War II: concentration camps, mass (execution style) killings of innocent civilians, rapes, torturing, ethnic cleansing…It happened during the Serbian aggression on Bosnia in 1992-1995.

Bosnian war facts:

Concentration camps run by Serbs for non-Serb civilians of Bosnia - the most notorious ones being Omarska, and Trnopolje, and Keraterm Manjaca (all near the town of Prijedor) and Uzamnica (near Visegrad). In Omarksa between 4,000 – 5,000 concentration camp prisoners (civilians) were killed killed.

- Mass rapes including those committed in the rape camps (such as Karaman’s House in the town of Foca where among the victims of rape were some minors as young as the age of 12).

- Genocide in Srebrenica where over 8,000 boys and men have been killed in the space of three days in mass executions.

- Between 130,000 and 150,000 killed (83% of the civilian victims were Bosniaks, 30% of whom were women and children)

- Around 2.2 million displaced

- Arms embargo imposed on the internationally recognised independent country of Bosnian and Herzegovina which denied the Bosnians the basic right to defend themselves against very powerful former Yugoslav People’s (National) Army that was, at the time of the aggression completely dominated by Serbs.

Some of the images are just showing part of the crimes committed by the Serbs on the non-Serb civilians:

Images from Serb-run concentration camps:

Omarska

2. Genocide in Srebrenica

3. The siege of Sarajevo:

‘It is estimated that nearly 10,000 people were killed or went missing in the city, including over 1,500 children. An additional 56,000 people were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children.[7] The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980. There are estimates that prior to the siege the population in the city proper was 435,000. The current estimates of the number of persons living in Sarajevo range between 300,000 and 380,000 residents.’

4. The massacre in Tuzla:

‘On May 25, 1995 (Marshall Tito's birthday and Relay of Youth in former Yugoslavia) at 20:55 hours, a shrapnel shell fired by a 130mm towed artillery piece, detonated in the part of the city called Kapija. 71 people were killed and 240 were wounded.[1][2][3] All of the victims were civilians and the majority were between the ages of 18-25’.

The mass graves are still being unearthed, the victims exhumed, and waiting to be forensically processed, some mothers of Srebrenica still do not know where their children had been killed and buried even 16 years after the war.

Most of the war criminals have been captured, and are in the Hague- some are still being tried, and some already serving their sentences. But, there are those in the Justice System of the European countries who believe that the rules that apply to ‘ordinary criminals’ should apply to the war criminals, and are therefore requesting their early release. Such is the request that has been recently put to the ICTY in the Hague by the UK Ministry of Justice for early release of Momcilo Krajisnik, one of the main architects of the war crimes committed against non-Serb civilians in Bosnia. It is the same as asking for the WWII war criminals to be released. Should we let such requests to be put in? And what kind of a message would such a request be sending to the likes of them both in Bosnia and other parts of the World?

If you do not agree with such a request please sign the Petition:

Thank you on behalf of all the innocent victims of the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Jenna Delich