Forty Years

The ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Radovan Karadzic has been found guilty of genocide (Srebrenica) and also individually criminally responsible for murder, unlawful attacks on civilians and terror (in Sarajevo) today at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. The president of the so-called Serbian Republic from 1992 to 1995, Karadzic was the political head of the project to force Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats out of areas deemed to be historically Serb, during the war that wracked the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia.

The men who scavenge through the garbage in Tesanj are war veterans, many traumatized and in need of medications and counselling. Greg Marinovich/The Stand

Samira Heralic, left, was jailed for two and a half years for shoplifting, a repeat offender, and was released after the state decided not to keep paying for the care of her second child. She lived in fear that they will re-arrest her to finish her sentence, but heard from the UNHCR that the state would no longer pursue her. She died four months after this image was made. Greg Marinovich/The Stand

A teenage girl watches television in a bar and restaurant, between Doboj and Tuzla. April 2012. Greg Marinovich/The Stand

Displaced Serbs at a collective center. Two of the barracks housing them burned down some days before. Zvornik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska. April 2012. Greg Marinovich/The Stand

Azemina and Murat Subasic (not seen), share this home with their daughter-in-law Alena and grandson Edi near Foca, in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Azemina has breast cancer and other illness, and continues to need treatment. Her 70-year-old husband's health is also poor. Their only income is a pension of 300 convertible marks (150 EU). The UNHCR donated a cultivator to assist them work their lands to survive. Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 2012.  Greg Marinovich/The Stand

Women outside the Splaviste collective center for Bosnian displaced persons. Gorazde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 2012.  Greg Marinovich/The Stand

A war-scarred home that belonged to a Serbian man killed in the war now houses a displaced, homeless Bosnian woman. The homes on either side have been gentrified and refurbished by their Bosnian owners who have bought the properties. Gorazde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 2012. Greg Marinovich/The Stand

The most appallingly visible moments of that war were the siege of Sarajevo – 11,000 dead – and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica which saw 8,000 men and boys killed while under the protection of the United Nations. While these were the bloodiest of the crimes Karadzic oversaw and allegedly initiated, they are not the only ones he and his generals and his people committed.
 
Karadzic's defense was that rogue militias and troops carried out these killings. He has spent eight years defending himself at the tribunal, a luxury not granted the many victims of his racist war crimes.
 
I covered the disintegration of Yugoslavia as well as the Bosnian war and returned in 2012 to look at the issue of people still displaced by the conflict, especially in areas that were bitterly contested and where there are still ancestral villages people fear returning to. These images reflect the massive damage that Bosnians still carry with them.

-Greg Marinovich