Good News General Mladic to face justice.

Good News General Ratko Mladic is probably now going be tried at the Hague, for crimes against humanity. In July 1995 he commanded troops who killed 8000 Muslim men and boys from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. He is recorded on the notoriously propagandist Serbian State Television before the massacre as saying

"Here we are, on July 11, 1995, in Serbian Srebrenica, just before a great Serb Holy day. We give this town to the Serb nation. Remembering the uprising against the Turks [in 1875?] , the time has come to take revenge on the Muslims."

The Dutch UN peace keepers were utterly useless, and lacked meaningful support. 15,000 men and boys fled into the hills after the town was taken. The Bosnian Serbs under Mladic hunted down and murdered 8000 of them. Some where beaten to death, some men and boys were made to endure mock executions before being finally shot, some were killed by grenades in confined spaces, some were made to run for their lives while being shot for sport, some where made to sit in buses and witness the execution of others before their own .... the relatively lucky ones were just shot.

He was also in ultimate command of the Serbian troops who besieged the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo from April 1992 to February 1996. 12,000 of the city's inhabitants were killed, many by sniping and the systematic artillery barrages from the surrounding hills. He denied them water in summer and fuel during the harsh winters.

Mladic is only 69 and certainly should face trial. His victims have been denied justice for too long. He should not be denied the opportunity to look objectively on his crimes.

The war in Bosnia was a bitter dispute with crimes committed by Serbs, Muslims and Croats. The crime of the Srebrenica Massacre stands above all this. In any case, the real distinction to be made is between soldiers and war criminals, rather which side they belong to.

The war occurred after the breakup of Yugoslavia, when the Serbs effectively acquired the majority of the weaponry of the old Yugoslav armed forces. The West then put an arms embargo on all sides. Meanwhile Russia supported the now well armed attempt to create a "Greater Serbia". Only after the Srebrenica Massacre did public opinion finally force the West to really intervene, and managed to bring the conflict to halt by taking the breaks off the Muslims and Croats, after which the Serbs rediscovered their willingness to negotiate. There must surely be a lesson from this conflict that "Power Will Not Negotiate".