Ed Vulliamy rightly points out that of the entire genocidal campaign perpetrated by the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, General Ratko Mladić, the Hague tribunal only convicted him of genocide in Srebrenica (Mladić will die in jail. But go to Bosnia: you’ll see that he won, 23 November). In setting the bar exceptionally high in determining genocide, the tribunal made it nearly impossible to prove the commission of the crime. Future genocidaires can rest assured that unless they put in writing their unequivocal statement of intent, judicial institutions following the criteria and logic of the tribunal will find it difficult to hand down genocide verdicts. Raphael Lemkin would be surprised at how convoluted procedures came to undermine the ideals for which he struggled.
Hamza Karčić
Vogošća, Bosnia and Herzegovina
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