The Face of Genocide

His name is Dr Radovan Karadzic. He was, among other things, a psychiatrist,poet,soccer coach and genocidal leader.

Karadzic was born June 19, 1945 in the former Yugoslavia. In the 1960s Karadzic attended the Sarajevo University School of Medicine where he studied neurotic disorders and depression. In 1975 Karadzic furthered his education but attending Columbia University in New York. After studying in America, Karadzic returned to Yugoslavia to practice medicine. In the 1980s Karadzic turned his eye towards politics, where in 1989 he became the co-founder of the Serbian Democratic Party. He focused on uniting Bosnian and Croatian Serbs in the event of a breakup of the former Yugoslavia. As the breakup took place, Karadzic was voted the President of the newly formed "Republica Srpska."

Karadzic, who in addition to practising psychiatry, was variously poet,troubadour, soccer coach, chicken farmer, businessman, ecologist and petty criminal,had an astonishing rise to power. His aggressive nationalism and vicious anti-Muslim rhetoric surprised many who recalled his integration in the multi-ethnic life of pre-war Bosnia. He continued in psychiatric practice until 1992, when he became president (M. Kaplan, Robert. Australasian Psychiatry, Mar2003, Vol. 11 Issue 1, p74-78).

Radovan Karadzic orchestrated the mass torture, rape, and eventual murder of thousands of people in search of the "greater Serbia" dream. These people were identified simply because of their ethnicity. For the first time since World War 2, there were concentration camps in Europe.

As the genocide came to a close, the UN courts were actively working to take the responsible war criminals to justice. Karadzic was identified by the international court to be responsible for numerous war crimes, being the leader of the Serbian forces. Karadzic was indicted on five counts of crimes against humanity, three counts of violations of the laws of war, once count of grave breaches of the Geneva conventions, and the unlawful transfer of civilians because of religious or national identity.

Radovan Karadzic then went on the run. He had been a fugitive of justice for a period of approximately 11 years. He was finally captured in Vienna, Austria in 2007



Karadzic had allowed his hair to grow in an attempt to conceal his identity.

Accused of leading the slaughter of thousands of Bosniaks and Croats, he has twice been indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Appearing before the tribunal in late August, Mr Karadzic failed to respond to the 11 counts against him and the court entered pleas of not-guilty on his behalf.

He has refused to recognise the legitimacy of the court, calling it a "bastardised judicial system" and an instrument of Nato whose sole intention is to "liquidate" him.

The UN says his forces killed at least 7,500 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica in July 1995 as part of a campaign to "terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population".

He was also charged over the shelling of Sarajevo, and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields in May and June 1995 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/876084.stm)

It would be a total of 13 years between the genocide and the time Karadzic was brought to an international court to be tried for his crimes. As it stands today, Karadzic is still awaiting trial.