War with a word

The language of lawyers can be extremely cold. The chauvinist elites in the disintegrating Yugoslavian state at that time did not show any intention of destroying "a national, racial, religious or other group characterized by its ethnicity." Neither completely, nor partially. That is what the judges at the International Tribunal in The Hague decided with a clear majority on Tuesday.

Thousands died in the Serbian-Croatian war between 1991 and 1995. Armed Serbs and Croats murdered, tortured, raped and drove out civilians from opposing sides. At the end, entire cities had been reduced to rubble. Entire ethnic groups disappeared from regions they considered to be their home for centuries. But it was not genocide, as the highest judges of the UN have now determined.

Continued respect for the offenders. And the victims?

Many members of a group died, or had to leave their homes forever because they were Croatian or Serbian. Many a soldier who is still a celebrated national hero in Belgrade or Zagreb must surely have inflicted physical or psychological injury on others. Present-day fans of these uniformed "heroes" know this. Behind closed doors they still admire their heroes for their "courage" – and they enjoy it. Publicly, they are more mild-mannered in their assertion that they are respectable patriots who fought for a just cause and cannot, by definition, be called criminals, or worse, genocidal murderers.

Since genocide was not committed, a new question arises. What do you call everything that happened in the Serbian-Croatian war?

Why did so many citizens have to die, or be driven out of out of the country? How can they find a term to describe the cruel fate of the victims?

Who – apart from families – miss the missing, those without graves? Does the term "crimes against humanity" or even the cynical euphemism "ethnic cleansing" get to the heart of the matter?

According to estimates, approximately half a million people took part in the war as fighters in the disintegrating Yugoslavia. Many of them know how little the lives of the opponent's civilians were worth then. No one willingly speaks of this – nor have they ever in the past. Instead, the word genocide has developed into the favorite catchword of the post-Yugoslavian political class and the frustrated masses.

The others are the culprits. We are the victims.

The others were the ethnic murderers and we were fair because we are the innocent victims. That is a common point of view on both sides of the Serbian-Croatian border. A glance at ex-Yugoslavian Internet forums also conveys the impression that this is the prevailing attitude - and that the Serbian-Croatian war is apparently not yet over.

The International Court of Justice ruling will not change that. It is misleading to expect that Serbia and Croatia acknowledge the decision as an incentive to initiate criminal proceedings within one's own ranks, or to intensify truth and reconciliation. Instead, each country will misinterpret the decision as a clean bill of health for themselves and as a judicial error with regard to the exoneration of the other side. The bullying Serb and Croat nationalists are once again taking advantage of the victims at that time.

Contradictions of the international judiciary in The Hague cannot hide the facts. Even if, according to the decision, genocide between Serbia and Croatia did not take place, massive crimes were commited in the war 20 years ago. And they were committed intentionally. Until now, only few representatives of the elite at that time have been legally prosecuted. And that is not fair.