Falling In Vain

There is still some excitement and tension at the end of Radovan Karadzic's career. Not nearly as much as when he was getting started or when he was at his peak but almost enough for everyone interested in ending his career to feel relieved and declare victory. It’s clear that there is nothing big or important waiting to happen. The only real success would have been an end to that monstrous career at its start and the finale, whatever its appearance, can’t come close to what we’ve seen already. In any case, we have to prepare for disappointment.

Milosevic, Lilic and Bulatovic sent a suicide message to Pale. They invoked their competencies as guarantors of the implementation of the Dayton agreement and the interests of the people which means the same thing here as international pressure. Concern for the people appears as an argument only when sanctions are a threat, and it appears that the people are secretly plotting with the world powers.

If there were no people, no one could do anything to Milosevic and Karadzic. To them their people are a sorry obstruction which the world uses unscrupulously for threats and blackmail. That is no longer a case of the interest of the people but of avoiding the greatest damage and saving their own skins. Unlike well-ordered states where power is lost by everyone who does not raise overall living standards, we had to reach a catastrophe, international intervention and sanctions for the leaders to see at least that there is a connection between their own and the interests of the people.

Milosevic has been threatened with renewed sanctions which in Karadzic’s case would not be enough. Even with that threat he refused to step down and threatened to run in the elections. The end of the letter from Belgrade includes a polite remark that "all measures will be taken, both towards institutions and individuals whose behavior obstructs...". That would have to be enough. The two comrades of war know each other too well, and Karadzic won’t be wrong if he sees this as the last warning before a "total recall".

If he could, Karadzic would pay Milosevic back in kind and if he didn’t win in that clash it could be taken as certain proof that God exists. But since God rarely shows himself that clearly, since the balance of power doesn’t indicate that outcome, believers will have to keep up their blind faith and the rest of us will have to look for moral advantages in the winner and loser. It’s fairly certain that Karadzic won’t wait to see how serious Milosevic’s threat is. Although a session of the Pale parliament has been scheduled for St. Vitus day (June 28), which is usually a sign that the Serbs are preparing for heroic deeds, this time it will probably boil down to Karadzic’s resignation. He will get a chance to show great sacrifice which means we won’t see the gun pressed into his back. That is how the demands he is setting should be seen: the RS should get something for his withdrawal. He remembered to compensate the people for the loss of their leader.

In any case, the resignation certainly does not seem like an effective end to his work. That signature is incomparably smaller than the one he put under the Bosnia war and I think his appearance before the Hague tribunal wouldn’t improve appearances. I have nothing against the tribunal doing its job as well as possible but there is no punishment possible for that war and that many crimes, at least not in this world.

If that happens one day, I believe the spirit of vengeance in everyone who wants to see Karadzic at the tribunal will remain unquenched. We’ll see a creature without horns and a tail and hellish misdeeds will get puny, human explanations and justification. Let no one go unpunished but even if all the guilty go to the Hague, from the top to the bottom ranks, that scene could not turn out any different to what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" when she described the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.

The Hague Tribunal will probably have to wait a while longer for Karadzic. The elections are coming, probably the strangest the world has ever seen. Some voters will be brought in by special buses from across Europe and return as soon as they vote. NATO troops will guard ballot boxes. The only thing missing is barbed wire around everything, voting by night with passwords and countersigns.

Despite all that, realistic pessimists predict, the outcome will be the same as before the war. It would really be a miracle if things turned out differently and I don't see how anyone can expect more votes for the multi-ethnic idea after this war than before it. How many refugees will come in from Germany to express the will to live side by side with the people who expelled them while they want to stay in Germany.

Compared to pre-war conditions, the difference now is that the Serbs won’t be able to vote for Karadzic since that was agreed in Dayton. The international community told them: we know you would prefer him but let’s have the second worst now, for example Biljana Plavsic. From the standpoint of implementing the Dayton agreement a victory by the socialists, who were organized hastily by Milosevic, would be better. Possibly that would be more practical but from a moral viewpoint, the choice is nil.

The others in Bosnia have not good alternative either and that means the Dayton agreement is hanging by a thread. Prospects would be better if a ban had been placed on a number of the best known people on all sides not just Karadzic. The world has started organizing this eccentric and expensive show but there were other safer ways of giving birth to post-Dayton Bosnia. For example, letting one ethnic group only vote for the representatives of the other two ethnic groups. Then they would certainly choose the best.

Despite everything, even after the same nationalist parties win, it isn’t certain that the force of inertia will lead to a final division of Bosnia. Other forces will be at work there in the form of international troops which will remain in place for a while to come. On the other hand, inertia tends to change course in peace, especially if it is pushed from neighboring countries.

I believe Belgrade and Zagreb will soon start burying their Bosnian adventure and denying even hidden territorial pretensions. The war and ambitions of division didn’t result in the start of a new series of historic processes in Europe but were more a lonely and horrifying excess. In an embarrassingly quiet environment, Serbia and Croatia can’t stick out for long not even with the strongest wills of Milosevic and Tudjman.

A complete about turn in relation to Bosnia and his henchmen there is perhaps harder for Tudjman than Milosevic. Tudjman was a firmer believer in expanding Croatia and it’s possible that policy will be abandoned by his successors. In his own perverse way, Milosevic has acknowledged defeat, proving that he had nothing to do with the whole thing and falling back on communist rhetoric. He would do away with Karadzic anyway and international pressure comes as a convenient excuse.

In that imagined context of a brighter future, the fate of Radovan Karadzic would not be an exception but the model for everyone like him if there are any of those. In the final analysis, it’s not important what form his fall will take. The most important thing is that he fell in vain.