If crimes against humanity are to be deterred, those that contemplate committing them must know that they will be punished for their misdeeds. The establishment of the International Criminal Court is an important step toward that end, but its effectiveness depends on governments having the political will to prosecute. The score card is mixed.
Last week, hopes that justice might triumph received a boost in Bosnia. There, Mr. Stanislav Galic, a retired Bosnian Serb general, was dragged from a car by international peacekeepers, and whisked off to The Hague, where he will be tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mr. Galic had been charged in a sealed indictment issued by the tribunal but kept secret.
During the bloody ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Galic was the commander of the Sarajevo-Rimanija Corps. It kept the city under siege for nearly four years. According to the indictment, he carried out a military strategy that targeted civilians in an attempt to spread terror throughout the city. He was charged with ordering the killing of civilians "shopping in the markets, riding on trams, gathering wood or simply walking with children." After the war, Mr. Galic became a military adviser to Bosnian Serb President Nikola Poplasen, who was ousted last March for opposing the Dayton peace accords by international officials administering Bosnia.