Wheels of justice turn slowly

But they finally did roll to a complete stop yesterday. When they did the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had found Radovan Karadzic guilty of one count of genocide and other counts of “persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer and murder in connection with a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces during the country’s civil war from 1992 to 1995.” He was sentenced to 40 years in jail. He’s 70 years old now. Barring some unforeseen leniency he’ll die in prison.

Considering the magnitude of his crimes, that’s almost too good for him. It was under his command that Sarajevo was besieged for 1,425 days, three times longer than Stalingrad in World War II and a year longer than Leningrad during the same war. Nearly 14 thousand people died during those three years and ten months, and 11 thousand of them were Bosnian Army soldiers or civilians within the city.

I remember that period of history. It astonished me then and it still does now that the Europeans could not stop the worst fighting seen in their neighborhood in more than 40 years. They couldn’t muster the will or the armed forces to really do the job of forcing the Serbs to stay in their own country and leave their neighbors’ land alone. It’s nothing to be proud of.