War Crimes

The wars in Bosnia and Rwanda have been waged with brutal, wide- scale attacks against civilians. Serbs have carried out their policy of “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia by detaining thousands of Croats and Muslims in camps where murder, torture and rape have been common. In Rwanda, the majority Hutus killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis in the now-ended civil war. Under pressure from international human rights groups and an outraged world community, the United Nations has convened the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. Supporters hope that punishing individuals responsible for wartime atrocities will deter future abuses. But critics say the prosecutions are unworkable and may hamper peacemaking and reconciliation.