biography
pronunciation:
[karajich]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1945– )
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| biography:
| Militant leader of the Bosnian Serbs within Bosnia and Herzegovina, born in the village of Petnijca in Montenegro, former Yugoslavia. He graduated in psychiatry from the University of Sarajevo, worked in local hospitals, wrote children's poetry books, and composed Serbian folk music. In the 1990s' upsurge of nationalism, he founded and became president of the Serbian Democratic Party. After a brief coalition with Slavic Muslims, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, and Bosnia's Serbs, led by Karadžić, sought union with Serbia. In April 1992, civil war erupted and the electorate voted for independence. By December 1992, Serbs had seized almost two-thirds of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Karadžić declared himself president of the self-styled ‘Serb Republic’. As a result of purges perpetrated by Bosnia's Serbs under Karadžić, more than 3 million people were dispossessed. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ by the Serbs peaked when 40 000 Bosnian Muslims were expelled from Srebrenica, which had been declared a ‘safe haven’ by the UN, and some 7000 young men were massacred on Karadžić's orders. He accepted the Dayton peace accord (1995) which ended the Bosnian–Croatian–Serbian war, under considerable Serb pressure. In the face of international efforts to bring him before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, he formally resigned from his presidency (1996), though retaining political power. In 1997 the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic held elections which deprived his front organization of power in the republic. Efforts to bring him to trial at The Hague have not abated. |
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