英语名人堂：拉多万·卡拉季奇

拉多万·卡拉季奇(Radovan Karadzic，1945- )是原波黑塞族共和国总统，波黑战争战犯。拉多万·卡拉季奇出生于南斯拉夫黑山共和国北部杜米托尔山区的一个小村庄。1990年，他弃医从政，创建了波黑塞尔维亚民主党，并当选为主席。1992年当选为总统。1996年5月18日，波黑塞尔维亚共和国总统卡拉季奇向公众发表讲话时宣布决定辞去总统职务[1] 。

2016年3月24日，卡拉季奇被海牙联合国特别法庭认定在1992年至1995年波斯尼亚战争期间犯下种族灭绝罪行和其他战争罪行，判处40年监禁。

Radovan Karadzic is a former Bosnian Serb leader. He is currently on trial for war crimes and genocide at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Karadzic is thought to be behind the deaths of thousands of people in Sarajevo and 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica. He was a fugitive for almost 13 years.

Karadzic was born in 1945 in Montenegro. He moved to Sarajevo in 1960 to study psychiatry. In the 1970s, he studied neurotic disorders and depression at a hospital in Denmark and at Columbia University in New York. When he returned to Yugoslavia, he started writing poetry. He also got into politics and made a speech attacking nationalism.

Karadzic co-founded the Serbian Democratic Party in 1989. He wanted to create a nation of Serbs if Yugoslavia ever broke up. In 1992, he proclaimed the Republika Srpska, representing Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the Balkan Wars of 1992-1995 Karadzic took control of his republic’s troops from his military commander Ratko Mladic. He formulated the battle plans in his fight for Serb nationalism.

In 1996, Karadzic was put on the UN’s most-wanted list, charged with crimes against humanity. He went on the run for nearly 13 years. While a fugitive, he assumed an alias and lived in Belgrade. He lived a normal life and worked as a specialist in alternative medicine. He was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008 and flown to The Hague, where he is conducting his own defence.