No Rush to Judgment

Elma Ahmic, 17, is haunted by memories of the brutal destruction of her village near Vitez, 37 miles north of Sarajevo, on April 16, 1993. A unit of the Bosnian Croat militia called the Jokers first shelled the mostly Muslim town, then moved in to finish off the men. Relations with local Croats had been good, she said, but after the arrival of the militiamen, "about 20 people surrounded our house, shouting, 'Get out of here! This is Croatia, not Turkey!' My father came out and asked them what they wanted. They took my father and killed him. They shot my brother when he was coming down the stairs. Then they shot my grandfather and two uncles in the front yard."

At least 107 Muslims died that day in the village of Ahmici. "Many of the people who killed my family are still there," says Ahmic. "I know who killed them." So does Sefkja Dzedzic, a local Bosnian Muslim commander. "After the war," he says, "the dogs will eat these men."

As outside powers press the Bosnian factions to settle their civil war and accept the permanent dismemberment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is other unfinished business. The war has been as ugly as any in history. At least 85% of the 200,000 killed in three years of fighting have been civilians. An additional 4 million have become refugees, most of them driven from their homes in pogroms of "ethnic cleansing." Survivors tell of concentration camps, brutal guards, starvation rations, killing grounds, mass graves. They remember a sadist called the Butcher, the killer gang known as the Jokers. They have witnessed summary executions, decapitations, human beings being thrown on bonfires. Some still hear the moans of raped women, the shrieks of terrified children, the howls of men under torture.

Fifty years after Hitler's fall, war crimes are being committed in the Balkans on a level reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Governments and private organizations have compiled detailed documentary and eyewitness evidence of at least 5,000 specific cases, along with lists of 3,500 named individuals allegedly responsible for committing the crimes.

The atrocities, carried out mainly by Serbs but also by Croats and Muslims, cry out for punishment. So far, the U.N. and other international organizations have deliberately been dilatory in tackling them. Although a U.N. war-crimes tribunal has been appointed, it lacks the political support and the funding to begin its work. No international charges have been brought before it. No trials have begun.