The conflict that took place within the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina amongst the three major racial factions, the Serbians, Croatians and the Muslims, brought about mass annihilation perpetrated by the Serb forces against the Muslim civilians of Bosnia. Bosnia had been one of the numerous states that were created after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, a non-sectarian nation that consisted of various racial and religious factions that existed as adversaries or even staunch antagonists since historical times. The several religious factions that existed in Yugoslavia comprised of the Serbs who were Orthodox Christians, the Croatians who were Catholic and the Albanians who were primarily Muslims. After the Second World War, Josip Tito, leader of an intense resistance movement against the Nazis and a strong Communist sought to reunite all provinces of Yugoslavia such as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo under the same flag. Tito was a formidable leader who had aimed at maintaining brotherhood and peace within the various ethnic and religious groups of Yugoslavia in order to uphold unity and concord amongst the various religions existing within the country.
The year 1980 saw the death of Tito and the end of his strong headship of Yugoslavia and subsequently, the nation began to rapidly plummet down within political and financial bedlam. Consequently, towards the end of the decade Yugoslavia witnessed the establishment of new leadership under Slobodan Milosevic, a Serb who had also been an ex-Communist but had eventually fallen back on xenophobia and religious abhorrence in order to attain control over the state. His leadership initiated by rekindling the time-honoured racial and religious hostility between the Serbs and Muslims residing within Kosovo. Christian Serbs were in minority in Kosovo and they also asserted that they had been receiving mistreatment at the hands of the Albanian Muslims who were in majority in the province. This civil turmoil initiated by Milosevic, thus resulted in Kosovo losing its independent status and hence falling to the Serb rule. By the early 1990s Croatia and Slovenia had also confirmed their autonomy from Yugoslavia and as a result civil conflict erupted within the two provinces, which eventually saw the Serb forces, led by Milosevic entering into Slovenia to recapture the land but were unsuccessful in doing so because the nationalists of Slovenia managed to defeat the Serb forces very quickly and effortlessly.
Towards the end of 1991, the Serb forces had also been fighting the Croatian separatists and with intervention from the United States, an armistice was initiated between the fighting states, whereas at the same time the United States and Europe also recognised Bosnia as an independent Muslim nation that harboured Serb Christians who were in minority within the state. The Yugoslav leader, Milosevic had seen his empire breaking up and had also experienced defeat from all provinces that had obtained independence from Yugoslavia, replied to Bosnia's declaration of autonomy by raiding Sarajevo, which was the capital city of Bosnia. Sarajevo was then to become witness to such terrible atrocities inflicted upon Bosnian Muslims that reminded one of the mass destruction of Jews by German Nazi forces.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the assault of the Serb forces then became the most lethal of all the attacks conducted by the collapsing Yugoslav state. Bosnia very soon was subjected to severe atrocities inflicted by the Serb forces. The massacre was initiated by continuous gun-downs of Bosnian citizens on the streets of Sarajevo by the Serbian gunmen. The civilian being killed included men women and even children. Bosnian Muslim citizens were being systematically decimated by the Serb forces in a process described as 'ethnic cleansing' that ascertained a complete elimination of the Bosnian Muslim race so that the Serbians could capture maximum Bosnian land and leave a very small area for the Muslims to exist in. As the Serb forces acquired a stronger position within the capital city of Sarajevo, they consequently started to conduct methodical capture of local Muslim civilians, conducted repopulation of complete settlements and also conducted incarcerations within provisional concentration camps that held men and boys. Serb forces also utilised terrorism as a weapon to make Bosnian Muslim families to escape from their villages, while the women and children were also subjected to systematic and prolonged rape and aggression within enclosed 'rape camps'. In addition to these acts, Serb forces also initiated a process of destroying Muslim mosques and architecture in an attempt to fulfil the procedure of 'ethnic cleansing' from their land. It is because of acts like these that made the conflict of Bosnia an issue that is international in nature. The United Nations initiated The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Kosovo conflict which declared the various crimes committed as international crimes that needed to be tried under international law. According to Paragraph 1 of Common Article 3 within all the four Geneva Conventions of 1949:
This Article clearly signifies that any individuals who have participated in acts of violence, genocide, ill-treatment and torture are breaching humanitarian laws and are thus held accountable for their acts under the laws enforced by the Geneva Conventions.
The ICTY, created by the United Nations has been working towards trying those perpetrators who had committed or had ordered the execution of mass destruction and violence within the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia. On the other hand, towards the end of its tenure the tribunal has been able to prosecute only a limited number of senior level individuals who had been involved in crimes of war. However, even-handed and effectual judgments of the other, less-significant criminals needs to be conducted domestically in order to further preclude impunity as well as create regard for the directive of the law within former Yugoslavia. However, in Bosnia it has been seen that extreme insufficiency within the state justice structure in the course of and subsequent to the war gravely restricted efforts conducted on a domestic level to fight against the uncontrolled impunity of the crimes of war. Dina Francesca Haynes in her book 'Deconstructing the Reconstruction: Human Rights And Rule Of Law In Post-war Bosnia And Herzegovina' describes the situation by stating that the involvement of the International Community or IC had been done at too late a stage in the fight against corruption and organised crime. Its involvement occurred only when damning reports from NGOs and observers regarding corruption and disappearance of funding of millions of dollars began to surface did the IC decide to intervene and bring matters under control. Thus, the establishment of The War Crimes Chamber occurred which had been an attempt to deal with all such inadequacies and was also a means to facilitate successful trials for crimes of war committed in Bosnia. This chamber had also been given the authority to conduct hearings for those cases of war crimes that had been initiated and conducted on a domestic level and as a result will help the tribunal in completing its mandate. [1]
Various other impediments within the local and district justice systems consisted of inadequate resources to carry out effective prosecutions this was because there was a deficiency of expertise among the prosecuting officers who had been assigned cases of crimes of war, genocide and crimes against humankind. Similarly, there was an inadequate number of legal representation, prosecutors and additional staff whereas there was complete insufficiency of witness support and no witness protection existed there. [2] Some of the larger and more political aspects that caused hindrances in the effective execution of the trials was the compliance of law enforcement units in Bosnia to carry out investigations of crimes, while there was little or no coordination between the police forces and the prosecution officers as well as this, the investigations and inquiries showed a lack of ability to capture and restrain suspected criminals because of the absence of a proper structure for extradition with neighbour states. The victims on the other hand also had very little trust in the prosecutors because of inadequate usage of available resources and criminal evidence by the prosecutors in convicting the guilty and providing justice to the sufferers, hence international standards had not been applied by the prosecution officers to the cases and no proper communication existed between the state and the legal authorities. [3]
The Dayton Peace agreement signed by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Yugoslavia was an agreement for cease-fire between the three nations in 1995. This agreement was one of the first steps towards bringing peace into the conflicting nations and with the help of this agreement; it was ensured that all detained civilians to be released, refugees and displaced individuals and families to be allowed to return to their original homes and investigation of any human rights violations and infringement of humanitarian laws must be conducted. Furthermore, free and fair elections that would be overseen by international authorities to be carried out so that an adequate elected government takes control over the damaged land in order to start the rehabilitation processes as soon as possible. [4] Subsequent to the Dayton Accords, the Peace Implementation Council was formed in order to mobilise international recognition of the Accords. The Peace Implementation Council has not started to take keen interest in the trials being held in Bosnia in order to supervise the proceedings of fair trials of war criminals in Bosnia. The legal and justice system of Bosnia is in a dysfunctional state and the Council has the responsibility to supervise the judgements being passed, oversee any new legislation and constitutional changes being introduced within the country. [5]
In recommendation, Bosnian officials must now realise that it is essential for them to replace all those judges or prosecutors who are incompetent or are not qualified to carry out effective trials for the criminals of war crimes. New candidates being selected must be instructed to demonstrate their proficiency and capabilities before taking up their position within the justice system. The Peace Implementation Council must also ensure from its end that sufficient financial resources are being supplied to Bosnia in order to carry out trainings for individuals of the legal system of the country and adequate staff members must also be provided by the Council in order to conduct a comprehensive legal program for the country. Finally, and most essentially, cases that deal with crimes of war must have representation from international judges as well so that a fair trial may be given to the criminal; witnesses for such cases are provided with adequate protection and consequently the victims may also be given the justice that they require, in order to live a normal life again. It is also essential to educate the existing population of Bosnia about the trials being conducted on an international level, so that a transparent view is available to them about successful conviction of criminals who had conducted war crimes and crimes against humanity upon the citizens of Bosnia.
