Press Release
Smith Commends Mladic’s Conviction for Genocide
In response to the verdict issued today by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on the trial of Ratko Mladic, Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), chair of the House global human rights subcommittee, said that the decision should serve as a notice that all perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses must brought to justice.
In response to the verdict issued today by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on the trial of Ratko Mladic, Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), chair of the House global human rights subcommittee, said that the decision should serve as a notice that all perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses must brought to justice. “This should be lesson to all those committing genocide and war crimes today—there is no statute of limitations on these crimes and we will document your crimes, hunt you down and bring you to justice. Accountability is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’,” Smith said. Mladic, the commander of Bosnian Serb forces during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, was convicted today on 10 out of 11 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity committed in the conflict. Mladic is remembered especially for his role in atrocities committed in the siege of Sarajevo and at Srebrenica in 1995, when over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred by Serbian soldiers. “While we cannot restore the many thousands of lives Mladic snuffed out in the Srebrenica genocide, and in war crimes that were committed under his watch during the Bosnian conflict, we hope this verdict will give some closure to their families and friends,” Smith said. Although Mladic was tried for crimes committed in Bosnia only, he participated in military operations in Croatia as well, as a field commander in the Yugoslav army in the early 1990s before he became the commander of Bosnian Serb forces in 1992. “Mladic specialized in attacks on defenseless civilians, and left a trail of misery through Bosnia and Croatia,” Smith said. Smith is in Croatia on a human rights mission to promote the fight against human trafficking and his International Megan’s Law among Croatian legislators and human rights defenders. In 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence, Smith and former Congressman Frank Wolf entered besieged Vukovar, accompanied by Croatian defenders. “Just this morning I met in Croatia with Fr. Branimir Kosec, an extraordinarily courageous Croatian priest who, during the siege of Vukovar in 1991, refused to flee the city in order to minister to his remaining parishioners from his bombed-out church. He is an amazing man of God,” Smith said. “When Vukovar fell Fr. Branimir was taken prisoner and severely tortured—yet in him today I saw only a spirit of resolute faith and love—then as now.” Smith, co-chair of the Helsinki Commission, has worked through the years in Congress to bring accountability to perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abusers. He has sponsored multiple Congressional resolutions condemning the 1995 massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Serbian soldiers at Srebrenica as “genocide.” Recently, to hold the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad accountable for its culpability in atrocities committed in the Syrian civil war, Smith has introduced Congressional resolutions—H.Con.Res.51 and H.Con.Res.121— that condemned violations of international law committed by the Assad regime and its allies in the conflict, and called for a Syrian war crimes tribunal to be established. Smith chaired 10 hearings in whole or in part on atrocities committed in Syria, including one on establishing a war crimes tribunal there. Smith is also the author of H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, which, among other actions, would direct the Secretary of State and USAID to help groups working with the Iraqi government to compile evidence of ISIS atrocities in Iraq and conduct criminal investigations. The bill also directs the Secretary of State to report to relevant Congressional committees Iraqi, hybrid, or international domestic courts that might be used to try the perpetrators of ISIS genocide in the region. H.R. 390 has passed the House and is pending action in the Senate. |