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Bosnia Takes Case to World Court

Bosnian lawyers this week accused Serbia and Montenegro of taking non-Serbs on a "path to hell" in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, as the International Court of Justice at The Hague this past Monday launched formal hearings into state-sponsored genocide by the former Yugoslavia. "The armed violence which hit our country like a man-made tsunami in 1992 destroyed the character of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and certainly destroyed a substantial part of its non-Serb population," Bosnian attorney Sakib Softic told the World Court.

The Muslims and Croats of Bosnia followed Slovenia and Croatia in breaking away from Yugoslavia in 1992, doing so against the wishes of Bosnian Serbs, who were left as a one-third minority in what had been a Yugoslav republic ruled from Belgrade, Serbia.

Backed up by the Yugoslav army, the Bosnian Serbs responded to independence by capturing two-thirds of Bosnia, besieging the capital of Sarajevo and launching an "ethnic cleansing" campaign. The hearings are set to run until May 9. If Bosnia wins, it could seek billions of dollars in compensation. A binding ruling is expected by the end of the year.