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Unfortunately, Gamsakhurdia's commitment to democracy and rule of law was not as strong as his romantic Georgian nationalism, which encouraged chauvinist and intolerant tendencies among his fellow Georgians. Not only did he favor ethnic-Georgian dominance in a population composed of nearly one-third non-Georgians, he dreamed of Georgia as a regional great power, a kind of Caucasian fulcrum between Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Tensions increased with all the country's minorities (including Armenians, Mengrelians and Azeris), but with real ferocity in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There had been serious interethnic violence in both regions starting in 1989, which led to South Ossetia's secession in 1990.

Gamsakhurdia was deposed in early 1992 in favor of an unelected Shevardnadze.

The Judgment then turns to Bosnia and deals with the rise of ethnically-constituted parties in 1990 and the efforts of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) to achieve a Greater Serbia by annexing parts of Bosnia and Croatia where there were Serb populations.97 There is a thorough discussion of how the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), which up to that point had been multi-ethnic, became 90 percent Serb. In 1991 it had become an army without a state to defend, and thus turned into an instrument of a militaristic Serb nationalism.98 War raged between the newly independent Croatia and Serb forces in late 1991, and this greatly increased tensions in Bosnia. The JNA withdrew from Croatia in early 1992 and brought 100,000 troops, airplanes, helicopters, and heavy weapons into Bosnia which further exacerbated anxiety and hostility among the population.99

The principle of individual criminal responsibility set out in article 6 of the Statute of the ICTR18 does not include the notion of responsibility based on membership in a criminal organisation. The notion was considered in the context of the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)19 as there had been reports of atrocities committed by paramilitary groups such as the "Tigers" (a Serb group commanded by Zaljko Raznjatovic (aka Arkan)), the "Cetniks" (a Serb group commanded by Vojislav Seselj), the "White Eagles" (a Serb group commanded by Mirko Jovic) and the "Fire Horses" (a Bosnian Croat paramilitary group).