In a busy week for judgments I’ve not yet mentioned the arrest of Radovan Karadzic and his transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. But I’m as pleased as anyone else about it. Of course leaders like Milosevic and perhaps Karadzic can make the proceedings look like a charade, and of course a conviction does very little to produce anything that can be called justice. But we now live in a world where brutal political careers are increasingly likely to end in court and in prison: that’s a historical shift that’s very welcome.
Here’s general information on his case, and here’s the 2000 indictment.
When Bush, Blair, Straw et al are free, the indictment is merely victors justice. A silly mockery. Worse, it is a means of implementing national foreign policies when it should be about justice.
You’ll be telling us about what a good idea the Lockerbie trial has been next.
Essay question, “Which has been the greater travesty of justice and why; the Milosovic Trial or the Lockerbie Trial?”
“Anonymous” has something of a point about “victor’s justice.” Also, as I understand it, the United Nations funding for this particular court is (or was) coming to an end. If Karadzic is able to drag this out like Milosevic did then we might get a verdict in about 2014! Milosevic was 4 years at the Hague before his mortal-coil expired and they got nowhere near to finalisation of the case.
Having said all this, the general principle of being able to bring to some form of justice those who commit crimes against humanity and the like has to be right. However, like much in international law, the “might is right” principle will ensure that some escape justice!
Anonymous is not correct, in the sense that the Western powers were not victors and the results of Karadzic’s ethnic cleansing remain in place.
If you actually study the immense body of evidence from the Hague, it is clear that Karadzic, Milosevic and people like Jovic Stanisic (whose trial may never happen due to “ill health”) were genuinely part of a criminal conspiracy to ethnically cleanse large swathes of multi-ethnic Bosnia to create a new ‘state’ called Republika Srpska, and in so doing they were responsible for the vast majority of the 100,000 or so deaths in the war. That is worthy of prosecuting, and as Carls says, a big step forward for international law.
Regarding long trials, Sir Geoffrey Nice, who prosecuted the Milosevic trial, gave an interesting talk last night in London where he observed that allowing Milosevic to defend himself had the advantage of giving the man a stage on which to reveal his true personality, rather than allow a smoothie US lawyer to make him appear a victim of hypocritical (some merits to that argument, of course) victors’ justice. However, those in the know don’t predict the Karadzic trial will last much more than a year or two at most. Thank God he is defending himself too, because in the process of trying to build his own brand in Serb mythology, he will also show his truly delusional and warped mentality.
Just because Bush and Blair will not face justice does not mean we should ignore a prima facie case of crimes against humanity.
Lee Bryant has drawn attention to the interesting point that Milsoevic was allowed to “reveal his true personality.” However, I would still maintain that he was given far too much leeway to do just that!
Having said that, the ICT for FY has achieved good results overall despite the immense difficulties (political and legal) which have been in the way. I hope that the Karadzic trial will be done “in a year or two at most” but somehow I doubt it. At the same time, I continue to hope that I am wrong about the time it will take.
Lee Bryant types an interesting note in response to my victors justice comments.
“If you actually study the immense body of evidence from the Hague, it is clear that Karadzic, Milosevic and people like Jovic Stanisic (whose trial may never happen due to “ill health”) were genuinely part of a criminal conspiracy to ethnically cleanse large swathes of multi-ethnic Bosnia to create a new ‘state’ called Republika Srpska, and in so doing they were responsible for the vast majority of the 100,000 or so deaths in the war. That is worthy of prosecuting, and as Carls says, a big step forward for international law.“
I would respond by asking, ‘what if you don’t study the immense body of evidence from the Hague’ but instead look elsewhere? Bearing in mind that the defence was curtailed by the death of Milosevic and hence one isn’t seeing a balanced view.
For instance, wasn’t it Germany that precipitated the war by recognising former world war II allies Croatia? Who shipped in the mujahideen in order to help prosecute the war (as reported at the time by the Canadian ambassador; the fighters are now slowly being deported from Bosnia as reported quite recently in The Times)? Isn’t the region a NATO vassal state? Wasn’t P Ashdown a viceroy of said state? What about NATO’s ethnic cleansing of Serbs?
I could go on, (and on, and on etc …): I ask, is it wise to argue against the contention of ‘victors justice’ by citing evidence from the victors court? When citing evidence, why not cite what the defence (Christopher Black) had to say? Milosevic’s in particular, didn’t he write a book about the trial?
The debate could run for ever (I haven’t mentioned Kosovo, gangster/narco states etc).
Out of respect and admiration for Solzhenitsyn, lets leave the last word to him, “When I returned to Russia in 1994, the Western world and its states were practically being worshipped. Admittedly, this was caused not so much by real knowledge or a conscious choice, but by the natural disgust with the Bolshevik regime and its anti-Western propaganda.
This mood started changing with the cruel NATO bombings of Serbia. It’s fair to say that all layers of Russian society were deeply and indelibly shocked by those bombings.“