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Albright describes Bosnian horrors
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has described the "unimaginable" horrors of the 1992-95 Bosnian war as reminiscent of World War II. Albright was speaking on Tuesday in the case against former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic -- a key figure in Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing plans who later adopted the Dayton peace deal as the way forward for her country. Plavsic, once nicknamed the Iron Lady of the Balkans, has pleaded guilty to one charge of crimes against humanity. Albright, speaking at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, described her horror when she heard of the killings, rapes, concentration camps and torture of non-Serbs during the Bosnian conflict. "It was unimaginable that these kinds of things could be going on," Albright told the court. "It seemed to be being done in a deliberate way, not some accident of a drunken soldier marauding, but part of some kind of plan to eradicate various groups of people." She said photographs from war-torn Bosnia were "reminiscent of pictures that reminded one of World War II." "I'm very familiar with the horrendous pictures that came out at the time (of World War II) and it seemed to me a repeat of seeing people herded into buses and trains...families separated and horrendous stories coming out in terms of the crimes that were taking place," she said. CNN's Christiane Amanpour said: "(Albright) also said that Biljana Plavsic had had a change of heart because after 1995, after the Dayton peace process, she decided to co-operate with the international community. "Mrs. Albright said, as Secretary of State, she had also had several conversations and some meetings with Mrs. Plavsic during the implementation of the Dayton peace process ... that while always straight forward, some conversations were pleasant, some were not. "But she said that, in the end, Mrs. Plavsic proved to be -- at least from her perspective -- a woman of her word." Plavsic, once dubbed the "Iron Lady" of the Bosnian war, faces life in prison after pleading guilty to a count of crimes against humanity. The charge relates to the persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the 1992-95 conflict, which left 200,000 dead or missing. She pleaded guilty last October to the single charge in exchange for prosecutors dropping seven other war crimes charges, including two counts of genocide.
Plavsic, 72, is the highest-ranking figure to admit atrocities at the U.N. tribunal and the only woman publicly indicted in its nine-year history. Albright, whose long-standing support for The Hague war crimes court has earned her the tag "mother of the tribunal," gave evidence on the second day of the hearing as a so-called "common witness." She is the most senior U.S. official ever to testify at the tribunal. Plavsic served as deputy to Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the tribunal's most wanted men, and later took over from him. On Monday, prosecutors showed harrowing footage of emaciated Bosnian Muslim inmates at a Serb-run detention camp in 1992. A document released to the court said Plavsic admitted to having "embraced and supported the objective of ethnic separation by force and contributed to achieving it." In his opening statement, defence lawyer Eugene O'Sullivan urged the judges to consider Plavsic's voluntary surrender for trial, her guilty plea and her statement of remorse. Also due to testify before the hearing closes, on Thursday, are former U.N. Balkans envoy Carl Bildt, ex-OSCE mission chief in Bosnia Robert Frowick and Alex Boraine, a former South African parliamentarian and leading light in his country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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