Article content continued

His sentence Wednesday was part of a 23-year effort by a UN tribunal to seek justice for atrocities committed during the Bulkan wars in the early 1990s. The legal battles will continue, however, with Mladic’s lawyers vowing to appeal his convictions on charges that included war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“In Srebrenica, for example, you can debate the issue left, right and centre about whether is was genocide or not, but it was a massacre and it was either encouraged or condoned by the general in charge and that makes him immediately guilty of a war crime,” MacKenzie said, adding that is was unnecessary for the court drag the proceedings over six years.

Canadian military personnel were deployed to the Balkans as peacekeepers in 1991 when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. MacKenzie said there was never an intention for the UN be involved in Bosnia, but they were dragged into the conflict because its headquarters for the Croatian mission was in Sarajevo.

“It was really the last place they should have put it, because we would be seen as having a UN presence in Sarajevo, but it was a headquarters with a bunch of staff officers and 30 soldiers — Swedish conscript soldiers — and we weren’t in a position to protect anything if trouble started,” MacKenzie said. “Well, two and a half weeks after we arrived, war started.”

MacKenzie said Mladic “got everything he deserved.” He also described him as a “bully,” who said several times that he would return MacKenzie and his soldiers to Canada in body bags if NATO threats persisted against Bosian Serbs.