The Prisoner 039

This time the whole operation was packaged in a clever way and was executed quickly and efficiently. Security was maximum and no one had any information until the helicopter carrying Milosevic left the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It turns out that the Government, the police and the courts are willing and able, when they want to. From the moment that the decision was reached to the moment of approaching the entrance door to the prison at Schevinnengen, all together it took under six hours; about as long as the actual trip lasts...

Everything was made more difficult by the scheduling of the Donators Conference on June 29, so that all those who had a vested interest, had a deadline within which to operate. Until the very last moment, there was hope that the Socialist Peoples' Party (SNP) of Montenegro will vote in the Draft Law on Cooperation With The Hague Tribunal in the federal parliament. If they had voted, the whole issue of extradition would have been postponed until Fall, given all the possible constitutional and other appeals, available legal antidotes, etc., that is to say everything that went with the Proposal For The Law on Cooperation With The Hague Tribunal, whose adoption was initiated by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica. This way it turned out that the SNP practically voted in the immediate extradition of Slobodan Milosevic, all with enormous patriotic passion that - as is well known - reduces the capacity for making correct political assessments. The correct political assessment is that DOS opted for cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, come what may, with the Draft Law on Cooperation With The Hague Tribunal being all the concession it was ready for. It appears that the SNP figured that the further fate of Serbia is of little concern to them, so that they can afford to be bigger Serbs than Serbs themselves, at the expense of Serbia; at home they have to keep their supporters, and since they are keeping them at someone else's expense, it is easy for them to vote against the Draft. It is indicative that President Kostunica opted to ignore the demand put forth by DOS for him to address the federal parliament personally and to use his authority to force the SNP to vote in the Draft Law. The possibility for this probably existed, given that a call was made for a public vote to be held... Be that as it may, it seems that the SNP missed the last opportunity to salvage the Yugoslavia which was created by the Convention in 1993.

Then the federal government opted to use its DOS majority of ministerial seats in order to vote in favour of the Decree on Cooperation With The Hague Tribunal, as the lesser of two evils, but also as the last concession, which was probably understood by SNP, but not by the Federal Constitutional Court. That deplorable Court, a remnant of the ancien regime and the cause of the October 5 revolution, itself on the edge of legality, only just waited for its moment in the spotlight. Whether this team of Milosevic sympathizers were aware of the consequences of a decision to suspend the Decree adopted by the federal government and to reassess its constitutionality is not known. In any case they had nothing more to lose... Some analysts think that the Federal Constitutional Court acted spontaneously, in instinctive, desperate hope that they will manage to protect Slobodan Milosevic's interests; others suspect the Federal Constitutional Court judges of acting with forethought.

Well, the rest is history.

PETTY THINKING: The decision reached by the Federal Constitutional Court, correctly interpreted as sabotage of the joint approach adopted by leaders of DOS was the trigger which initiated plan B that the ruling coalition in Serbia had in store. Djindjic called a session of the parliament for 3:30 p.m., but postponed it for 4:00 p.m. at the request of Minister Obren Joksimovic (from Kostunica's DSS) who had "prior obligations." The nature of his obligations is not known, but he later voted against. At the very, very closed session of parliament, a vote by all present, as well as absent ministers (23:1) accepted the Statute of the Hague Tribunal (Article 29, Paragraph 2) on the basis of Article 135 of the Serbian Constitution and Article 16 of the Yugoslav Constitution. This decision was seconded by DOS ministers in the federal parliament. Reliable people in the police, state security and the justice system were informed of the decision; it is very likely that the Yugoslav Army was also informed of this decision. After this, an argument arose between Kostunica and Djindjic: Kostunica claims that he was informed of the decision too late to do anything about it; Djindjic directs him to Obren Joksimovic who was present at the parliamentary session, even though he is trying to backtrack now. Be that as it may, Djindjic's message is: "Mr. President, you knew everything, don't try to deny it; it's too late and cannot be of any help to you." Kostunica was no too convincing in his denials, and this did no help him too much: the Radicals and the Socialists unanimously proclaimed him for a traitor. This is of little surprise: he kept given them false hope all along, from his initial, denigrating statements on the relevance of the Hague Tribunal for him and Yugoslavia, to the "love-me-love-me-not" dithering he indulged in recent times.

In practice the entire matter went far more smoothly than during the debate. With its closed session, the Serbian Government attracted public attention to itself and away from the Central Prison. A smaller number of suspicious individuals perambulated around the Central Prison: reporters, Milosevic's supporters, curious spectators and powerful looking youths with ear equipment. Suspecting the "coming days of my solitude" Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife, drove around the Central Prison in her BMW with tinted windows. At that time the Director of the Central Prison was already in Slobodan Milosevic's prison cell, making ready for his departure. Now the time came to take him out unseen.

The Serbian Government opted for the tactic of "petty thinking": all afternoon there was a constant coming in and out of the prison by various police vehicles and vans so that observers naturally dropped their guard. Every police van with civilian license plates had in it two prison guards in the front seat, for some reason in good spirits. Peering into the police vans was not permitted, nor is it considered desirable behavior. With the general flow of incoming and outgoing vehicles, a police van departed from the Central Prison, heading to the outskirts of Belgrade with civilian vehicles in attendance because the cargo was too valuable.
FLYING AND LANDING: The police van carrying Slobodan Milosevic headed to the Police Academy and Institute for Security in Belgrade's Banjica district, where two helicopters were awaiting - Bell 212 and Gazelle. Also there were officials of the Hague Tribunal. When he got out of the police van, Slobodan Milosevic headed toward the helicopter Bell 212, accompanied by his prison guards, and was read his rights at that point. He became at that moment a prisoner of the Hague Tribunal, according to articles 55 and 58 of their statute. When he got onto the helicopter, it took off and headed toward Zivinice, near Tuzla, a SFOR military base in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was 6:30 p.m. local time.
It can be assumed that the helicopter carrying Slobodan Milosevic did not fly in a straight line from Belgrade to Tuzla, because the objective was to depart Yugoslav air space in the shortest possible time, before the news brakes. A probable route was across northern Serbia, over Srem to north of Bijeljine, and then southwest to Tuzla. At the Zivinici airport, a NATO airplane was awaiting, probably a C-130 Hercules, because it needed a lot of time to reach Holland and because such planes are usually used for such purposes. At around midnight, the C-130 landed at the Fokenber airbase in Holland. By that time, the entire world was teaming with the braking news, so that the Dutch police had its work cut out: thousands of reporters and spectators gathered around the Hague Tribunal and the prison at Sheveningen, along with a few Milosevic supporters. According to a VREME correspondent at the scene, the Dutch behaved much like the Serbian authorities: they released conflicting information about where Milosevic will be coming from, diverting attention in the wrong direction. In all that confusion, at half past midnight, three helicopters arrived at the prison in Sheveningen: two of them circled around the prison and continued on, while an MBB Bo-105 landed in the yard where the prison sport facilities are located. The VREME correspondent reports that earlier, during the afternoon, firemen came to the prison and cut the high metal poles in the yard; those poles precisely served the purpose of preventing landing by helicopters in the case of attempts at flight or prison braking by prisoners. One man came out of the prison building, while two men escorted Slobodan Milosevic in handcuffs, from the helicopters, across the sports field and into the prison. By chance, only one man managed to shoot the entire drama on video, a certain Eric Stigman who lives close by at a higher location than where the prison is located. With a home video, VHS camera he managed to shoot truly good footage, given the darkness and the distance. He sold the footage to a TV station NOS from Hilversum and donated the money to a humanitarian organization. Thus Slobodan Milosevic, precisely after twelve years, on the same date, St. Vitius' day, repeated his helicopter landing, but this time not at Gazimestan, but on prison grounds.

In Serbia the news broke already by dusk. The Socialists and the Radicals went mad, even though Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia was hardly ambivalent to the situation. While the national-socialist wing shouted "kidnapping", "lawlessness" and "treachery" at the top of their voices, pointing to historical figures in Serbian history like Karadjordje, the Brankovics and other mythological figures, calling on St. Vitius' Day and the honorable cross. The legalists took on superfluous argumentation. In a public statement, Kostunica immediately expressed astonishment at Milosevic's extradition and the "serious threat to the constitutional system of the country" which this signifies, calling on the decision passed by the same Federal Constitutional Court which denied his election victory on October 4, 2000, and only admitted on October 6, that nothing but October 5 happened in the interim. For its part, DOS bit the bullet and backed its own decision - down to the last man.

A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE: The Serbian Government based its decision on certain constitutional points which are worth looking into. Namely, the Serbian Government is calling on the Serbian Constitution and in keeping with this, as the next logical step, on the Statute of the Hague Tribunal. What is at issue here? First, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ratified in 1992 at Zabljak, the joint handywork of Slobodan Milosevic, Momir Bulatovic and Milo Djukanovic, stipulates in its Article 16 that all international agreements, conventions, etc. will automatically be considered part of our constitution. Based on the fact that Yugoslavia is the founder and undisputable member of the United Nations, the Serbian Government concluded that by default Yugoslavia must adopt UN decisions. Since the federal state of Yugoslavia refused to fulfill precisely those obligations which are required of it as a member of the UN, the Serbian Government drew on Article 135 of the Serbian Constitution which Slobodan Milosevic adopted in 1990 precisely in order to be able to separate constitutionally Serbia from the former Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and by usurping various federal jurisdictions (from broadcasting rights to defense and foreign affairs, and further on), to state that Serbia will ignore decision passed by the federal government if it concludes that they go against interests. In this way Slobodan Milosevic got a chance last week to get the taste of his own medicine, cooked up over a decade ago. Namely, the Serbian Government decided to follow Article 16 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to act according to the statute of the International Court for War Crimes Committed on the Territory of Former Yugoslavia, better known as the Hague Tribunal.
Article 8 of the Statute of the Hague Tribunal refers to territorial jurisdiction (ratio loci) of the "territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", and to temporal jurisdiction (ratio temporis) to "the period beginning on January 1, 1999. Article 29, Paragraph 2 of the same Statute reads as follows: "Without unnecessary delay, states will fulfill demands for assistance or will execute warrants issued by the tribunal committee, including, but not limited to: ... d) arrest and detainment of individuals; e) extradition or transfer of the accused to the international Tribunal."

Article 58 of the same Statute goes even further: "Obligations described under Article 29 of the State will have greater legal weight than any national law or international agreement of the country in question which could prevent the extradition or transfer of the accused (emphasis ours)."

In this way the Serbian Government assumed responsibility for its cause-and-effect line of constitutional reasoning ("if..., then..."). It is understood that there wont be any legal haggling or dispute over this. In his latest novel, "Single & Single", John le Caree writes: "For lawyers, facts exist in order to be questioned. All facts. The more evident a fact appears to a novice, the harder a conscientious lawyer will work to deny it." This is what lawyers are used for and this is why they exist.

EITHER HIM OR US: The political arguments invoked by both sides are interesting. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Federal Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus were brutally sincere: either this way, or we will go to utter ruin; either Milosevic goes to the Hauge or Serbia has no future; either extradition or isolation of Serbia and the return of the dictatorship by the Socialists and the Radicals - all in chorus with remaining leaders of DOS. In support of their decision they quoted very impressive (but also horrifying) figures, with the general sentiment in DOS being "enough with Milosevic; he's there; have you forgotten everything he did all these years; he is the past." The nationalists and socialists naturally intoned a lugubrious lament, with distinct strains of our ancient epic poetry; extreme radicals are invoking curses; the Socialists and Milosevic's daughter Marija are sobbing and accusing the Hungarians, the Muslims, the Turks, the Jews and others for this development, revealing their true faces. Everyone suddenly remembered St. Vitius' Day, as if they celebrated it their entire lives; Milosevic has been made into a new Tzar in 1989 in Kosovo through this association, with the minor exception that he was taken to the Hague by force, instead of choosing the Kingdom of Heaven of his own accord. During public protests called in a hurry, various slogans were shouted: the death of Djindjic and other traitors, with reporters getting battered, which is worth examining separately. The Radicals amassed the few street rubble they could gather, thus marginalizing the Socialists and JUL; and that is historical justice - that's where they belong. The argument that Milosevic is the only head of state in history to be delivered to a foreign tribunal was also being invoked; some remembered Buonaparte, who admittedly did not show up before a tribunal, but was exiled to St. Helena by the decision of the forces. In this sense, Milosevic faired better: he has years before him in order to argue with Carla del Ponte in the Hague. Following Milosevic, the main loser in all this is Vojislav Kostunica: Djindjic dismissed him outright by publishing the content of their conversation before the decision was made. Djindjic: "What should I tell him [William Montgomery]?" Kostunica: "Slow down a little. Let's not create conflicts." Djindjic: "Well, what should I tell him - yes or no?" Kostunica: "Yes." In other words, no one believes Kostunica any longer that Milosevic's extradition unfolded without his knowledge and approval - even if this is not the case, he himself is to blame.

On Tuesday, July 3 Slobodan Milosevic showed up before the Hague Tribunal, angry, elegant, sporting a tie with the colors red, white blue (like the Yugoslav flag, but also possibly the Dutch or Croat flag). He called the tribunal "false", designating the indictment as "false" and refused to hire any lawyers in his defense (hoping for an opportunity for political speeches). Everything he had to say was not addressed to the Tribunal but to Serbia (and most probably his wife Mira Markovic). In short, he is being judged because he went against NATO, and now that alliance is trying to save face. Judge Richard May, an unpleasant Englishmen, was hardly impressed: he explained to Milosevic with tact and sarcasm that he will be given ample time in due course of procedure for political speeches, and asked him to state whether he considers himself guilty or not according to the indictment. He asked him to be cordial enough to answer because the court's procedure demands this, and asked him if he wants to hear his indictment. Milosevic responded by stating: "That's your problem!" in the best tradition of his past statements full of arrogance. Upon leaving the courtroom he commented with pride and in the English tongue, "Gosh, this took thirteen minutes only." At that time the Tribunal decided to give Slobodan Milosevic an opportunity to weigh all counts against him until August 27, in his prison cell in Sheveningen; they are in no hurry to go anywhere.