Lauren DiCiaccio
Feb. 26, 2009
5:32
The former president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, was found not guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Kosovo conflict. He was tried at the Hague by a war crimes tribunal who acquitted, but sentenced five other former government officials who were involved with the conflict that occurred in the 1990's. The other government members who received sentencing were charged with the deportation and forcible transfer of ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, which is a predominantly ethnically Serbian area. Critics of the officials, including Milutinovic, state that they worked closely with the former president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, to wrongly rid Kosovo of thousands of ethnic Albanians.
I thought it was interesting that Milutinovic was declared not guilty so close to the first year of independence of Kosovo. I was a bit disappointed to see that not many of the leaders charged with war crimes from the Bosnian or Kosovo conflicts charged. Most notably, the Slobodan Milosevic trial seemed to me to be a bit of a joke. He seemed to be more in control of the trial than anyone else, and his years of runarounds with the court ended in his death (due to natural causes), and not any sort of sentencing that he would follow through with. The atrocities that occurred in the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts were a large scale threat to humanity in those areas. I am certain that many would agree with me, especially those who had seen it. It would seem like the US policy of "never again" in regards to genocide and intervention on behalf of the victims of such conflict is more one of convenience. While the US and UN stepped in earlier in Kosovo than in the Bosnian ethnic cleansing, it was still too late and the people responsible have been able to live life without the proper consequences.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-26-voa45.cfm
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