Ratko Mladic Last month witnessed the final outcome of a six-year trial under international humanitarian law that examined charges brought against Yugoslav People’s Army General Ratko Mladic (known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”), including eleven counts of offenses fitting the definition of crimes against humanity—genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes—and described by the head of the tribunal that convicted him as “among the most heinous known to humankind.” The conviction handed down in the case (Prosecutor v. Mladic) on November 22, found the former general and ex-chief of staff of the Republika Srpska Army guilty of ten of those charges for which he was sentenced to life in prison. The most major crimes by far were the now infamous summary execution under his orders of between 7,000 and 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica, and his Army’s siege of Sarajevo in which 10,000 people perished. Mladic in the defendant's dock in The Hague The importance of this and other major...
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Author Roberto Vivo comments on wars past and present, on the world’s great peacemakers and on the pathway to global peace. His basic philosophy: In a world where 9 out of every 10 victims of armed conflict are civilians, war is no longer a viable political alternative. Indeed, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. If rising generations are to have a future, the key will lie in world peace. War is the pathway to oblivion.