Belgrade Instead of the Hague

Truly, what are we to do with Milosevic? After all those years when he was the only one who was questioned on what to do with us, this change of roles comes as a pleasant refreshment and maybe no decisions should be hastily made but rather, let’s say, a competition should be announced for the best idea, and the expert jury should make a short list, which would go on for some time, while he waits…

In actual fact, some sort of auction for his hide is already ongoing. The domestic and The Hague prosecutors are debating over who has more rights over the most desirable culprit in the world. Whoever gets him, he will be something like a first prize, a lifelong dream, a crown of any prosecutor’s career. It goes without saying that word is of a serious violator, domestic and international, which means that a large court spectacle is guaranteed and from that standpoint, as the greater stage, The Hague would have an advantage over Belgrade. But Belgrade has its arguments too.

First of all, I believe that Milosevic is more innocent in The Hague court than in a domestic one, although both could come up with a maximal sentence. In The Hague he is charged with war crimes, primarily in Kosovo, and subsequently in Bosnia as well. There is no doubt that a lot more valid evidence against him can be found in Bosnia, but the trouble lies in the fact that the court is rather late for that, since Milosevic was practically granted amnesty in Dayton. A good three years after the war in Bosnia, The Hague had nothing against Milosevic, and then, during the NATO intervention, it discovered that certain irregularities existed there as well.

The Hague indictment was simply support to NATO’s war efforts and through this that court has lost a lot of its credibility. Beside that, charges against NATO have been rejected, although Amnesty International believes that the bombardment of RTS’s building was a war crime. This affair over depleted uranium is additionally complicating Ms. Del Ponte’s life who, naturally, has no intention of biting off the hand which feeds her. Finally, The Hague tribunal could lose some of the US support as well when a change of government occurs in Washington, since the republicans there are preparing to disavow Clinton’s agreement to establishing a permanent court for war crimes. If it is stated that Americans cannot be tried outside of the US, then it isn’t easy to say that that doesn’t apply to anyone else.

Belgrade might be forced to extradite the indicted to The Hague, but that will be more a question of recognizing force than justice. Unlike Milosevic, the new government accepts reality, they are aware of the relation of strength and won’t come into conflict with those who are stronger, but justice is a completely different thing and would have to be independent from force. In spite of this, I don’t in the least doubt that The Hague’s investigators have amassed a lot of good evidence against the indicted, with certain exceptions like the indicted Milan Milutinovic who can hardly be deemed responsible even for the shoelaces on his feet. However, the problem remains that a sentence from The Hague, even if the entire proceedings are perfect, wouldn’t be accepted as totally just due to the enormous influence which the US has on that court and which is, practically, one of the parties in the case.

For Serbia, however, war crimes aren’t Milosevic’s greatest sin. Anyway, it is also debatable whether The Hague could prove his direct responsibility for the greatest crimes such as Srebrenica. Yet, if he was tried in Belgrade, his guilt would consist of war policies, and war crimes would only be one of the consequences of those policies. On top of that, there are also his plundering policies, and the policies of internal violence and holding on to power by force. Naturally, it is difficult to phrase an indictment against a policy, even if it is obviously fatal and to also find the basis for it in the existing laws. It would also be difficult to organize such a trial and to find prosecutors and judges worthy of such a task. But, Serbia is practically begging for such a trial. Without it, it is practically impossible to truly close Milosevic’s chapter, reemerge out of the nightmare of the last decade and move on.

In an ideal case, that should be a historic trial, legally exemplary, which would commence the establishment of an independent judiciary and in which the future standards of legal proceedings would be set. At the same time, the trial should uncover the very roots of Milosevic’s policies, the political technology of his rule and its collaborators. That trial should help us discover the historic truth, even though that is an overly high demand and maybe an impossible task for any court. However, even if it wouldn’t lead to a direct establishment of guilt, it would be good if all those who had, in various periods, in this or that way, supported that lost cause appeared in court and told their stories.  

I don’t doubt that there would be a lot of excuses, extenuating circumstances and shared guilt. The entire story is anything but simple and compact. Even Milosevic himself and many others could defend themselves from the charges and should have a fair chance to do so. Yet, only here would it have any sense and reason to raise some, for Serbia, historically important questions, which The Hague tribunal probably isn’t interested in nor would anyone there know how to pose them.

The official history of Milosevic’s epoch will have to be written here, from which generations will have something to learn. It won’t be enough for them to know only what we know today, that at a certain moment people, due to all sorts of reasons, had turned their backs on Milosevic. They will want to know how it happened that those very same people had previously believed in him so much. Milosevic is, namely, a chapter in the history of Serbia which no one can throw him out of, but that chapter can be described and explained, and a just trial would be an important part or the beginning of it all.  

I don’t have the impression that history is ever written totally impartially, nor that people find it easy to face up to unpleasantness, but Serbia would have to make an effort in that direction now. It might be that a thousand technical and all other difficulties exist for Milosevic to be tried here as he deserves. There is no experience with such trials for former heads of state and maybe it is easiest to extradite him to The Hague, and let them decide for what and to what extent he is guilty. However, it would be better if we do this ourselves. Not only in order to defend dignity and sovereignty, nor only because of a lack of trust in The Hague, but so we wouldn’t allow ourselves to be easily let off the hook and to have others mete out justice for us and write the history which we could afterwards discard as a foreign body.