The significance of the World Court ruling on genocide in Bosnia

There is no doubt that Milosevic bore substantial responsibility for the political developments that facilitated the break-up of Yugoslavia. However, the ICJ ruling flies in the face of the claim of Western governments and the media that he was the all-powerful figure who “directed what went on in the Balkans” or single-handedly “destroyed the delicate balance of ... Yugoslavia.” Such assertions provided the pretext for Western military intervention. And if Milosevic was no more culpable for the ethnic conflict than his counterparts Franjo Tudjman in Croatia and Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia, this objectively poses the question as to the real reasons for the imperialist intervention in the Balkans that led to the bombing of Serbia.

The politically motivated singling out of Milosevic by the West is underscored by the fact that just as the ICJ delivered its ruling, Ramush Haradinaj left Kosovo to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Haradinaj is a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and currently leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, part of the province’s governing coalition. The KLA functioned as a key ally and military proxy for the United States in the Kosovo conflict, and was hailed by Washington as a national liberation movement. Haradjani faces charges of involvement in the murder, rape and torture of Serbs and gypsies.

The origins of the Bosnian conflict lie in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia under the impact of policies dictated by the Western powers and imposed through International Monetary Fund and World Bank structural adjustment programmes. The aim of the West was to dismantle the state-run economy and restore the economic domination of international capital over Yugoslavia and the entire Balkan region.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/icj-m16.shtml