Bosnia to Challenge Ruling Clearing Serbia of Genocide

 Bosnia will appeal the UN International Court of Justice ruling that cleared Serbia of blame for genocide, a move likely to widen rifts between the ethnic groups which fought the 1992-95 war. 
Member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency Bakir Izetbegovic said the appeal would be launched before a 10-year deadline expired on 26 February. 
The 2007 judgment by the International Court of Justice exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for killings, rapes and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, though it said Serbia had failed to prevent genocide. 
And while the ICJ ruling concluded that genocide had occurred at Srebrenica, where about 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces, it did not say genocide had happened in other parts of Bosnia. 
Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the three-man presidency alongside Serbian and Croatian peers, has engaged a lawyer without his colleagues’ consent to prepare the lawsuit ahead of a 10-year deadline on February 26. 
"The request for (revision) will be filed next week," Izetbegovic, who heads the largest Bosniak party, SDA, told a news conference after meeting lawyers and war survivors. The goal is to prove that genocide was so widespread that it could not be limited to Srebrenica, he added. 
The Bosnian Serb and Croat leaders have opposed his initiative, saying it would violate the constitution and cause a political crisis in the volatile Balkan country. 
Serb lawmakers in the national parliament have indicated they may boycott the legislature until the ICJ declares on the request. 
Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, asked the Serb representatives in state institutions to dispute the appeal before the ICJ and launch criminal proceedings against Izetbegovic. 
Izetbegovic said the revision of the judgment carried an "obvious risk" but he could not give up. 
"To trade with human suffering and genocide for the sake of political stability would cause a disastrous damage to the dignity of the victims," he said. 

Source: QNA