Josipovic dissatisfied with ICJ judgment

ZAGREB - Outgoing Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said he was not satisfied with the final judgment of The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) that dismissed claims of genocide by Croatia and Serbia against each other during the 1991/95 war on the territory of Croatia.

The question is whether the horrible crimes that have occurred imply genocide, and the Court has adopted this conservative standpoint and raised the bar for genocide very high, said Josipovic, who participated in drafting the charges raised by Croatia against Serbia in the midst of NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1999.

Josipovic believes that some of the most horrible crimes had not been taken into account in pronouncing the judgment, since the Court took the standpoint that the FRY was not bound by the UN Convention on Genocide for acts committed before April 27, 1992, when the FRY was created following the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).

When it comes to Serbia's counter-claim, Josipovic told Zagreb-based Nova TV that the Court had pointed out rather clearly that Croatia cannot be considered a country that had committed genocide, nor had Operation Storm been genocidal.

He believes that the repercussions of the ICJ ruling on Croatia's future "will not be negative" and that the affirmation of Croatia's position that it gained freedom through a "just war" is not about to change.

Regarding further relations with Serbia, Josipovic said that neither side could now give up on the efforts to find the missing personsand that it was a responsibility of all countries to prosecute war crimes.

Photo Tanjug, Z. Zestic (archive)