Milosevic on trial
Bush's eulogistic words for Putin in their first encounter appear to have ushered in a new era in the global game. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed comments
The trial of Slobodan Milosevic before the United Nations war
crimes tribunal, which began on 3 June in The Hague, has ushered in a new stage
in the history of international legality. While Panama's Manuel Noriega was
seized and tried by the United States and Chile's Augusto Pinochet spent a year
and a half in British custody on a Spanish warrant before being allowed to
return home for health reasons, Milosevic is the first former head of state to
be apprehended and tried for crimes against humanity in an international court
of law since the end of World War II. The closest thing to a precedent is the
Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders held in the immediate aftermath of the war, but
these were conducted before an ad hoc court set up expressly for that purpose
while the Milosevic trial is being conducted within the framework of post-World
War II legislation, including the UN Charter.
Milosevic is facing charges of crimes against humanity committed by his forces in 1998 and 1999, when hundreds of defenceless Kosovar Albanians were slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of others evicted. The charges in the original indictment are being expanded and the amended indictment linking Milosevic to war crimes carried out in Croatia and Bosnia and not only in Kosovo is expected to be ready next October. Washington has released documents implicating Milosevic in crimes -- described as "horrific" -- committed under his supreme command in January, February and May 1999, that is, during the six months preceding NATO's military intervention in the Balkans. The chief prosecutor in the trial, Carla Del Ponti, accuses Milosevic of having perpetrated acts of genocide in Croatia and Bosnia. She is particularly interested in proving his personal involvement and guilt in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
At the opening session of his trial, Milosevic declared that he did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court. He described his trial as a smokescreen aimed at diverting attention from the war crimes committed by NATO during its intervention in Yugoslavia. But the fact remains that the status of the war crimes tribunal has been greatly enhanced following the handover of Milosevic. Its credentials are no longer only due to the fact that it has examined the cases of "ordinary" war criminals. It is now conducting a case against Yugoslavia's former top decision-maker. Moreover, the trial is expected to go on for a period that could well exceed a year. Thus, Milosevic will hold the forefront of the world stage for a long time to come. It has become imperative to dissipate all ambiguities and misunderstandings concerning the tribunal's prerogatives, and to what extent challenging sovereignty and calling for intervention is acceptable in the name of human rights.
If the Pinochet case is shrouded in a certain amount of ambiguity, this is no less true for the Milosevic cases. Even if the prosecution succeeds in establishing that Milosevic did in fact commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, should he have been handed over to the war crimes tribunal without the consent, even the knowledge, of Yugoslavia's head of state? Does the newly consecrated right of intervention extend to the right to try a former head of state of a country without the express consent of the elected leader of that country? Vojislav Kostunica, Yugoslavia's elected president, denied that he had ordered Milosevic's extradition and claimed that he had not been apprised of the move. The decision was taken by Zoran Djindjic, the head of the Serbian government, in the absence of Kostunica and despite his opposition. Because the decision was taken in this irregular manner, Djindjic exposed the Yugoslav government to the risk of dislocation. Demonstrations exploded in the streets and confusion reached a critical stage.
What is odd is that Djindjic, while by-passing Kostunica, insists that the latter remain at the head of the state, despite the acute crisis between the two men on the issue of delivering Milosevic. Djindjic is keen that Kostunica help overcome the growing gap between the two federal republics of Serbia and Montenegro. The Federal government resigned in protest against Djindjic's step to deliver Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal.
Djindjic defended his government's decision to extradite Milosevic, in defiance of a Constitutional Court ruling and without bothering to inform the elected federal president, as a gesture aimed at improving Yugoslavia's chances of joining the European Union within the time-frame of the coming decade. He believes the Europeans will eventually come to realise that including Yugoslavia in the European Union is infinitely preferable to leaving it out, if only because of the need to avoid problems such as massive immigration from Yugoslavia, the propagation of organised crime out of Yugoslavia, etc.
But even if Djindjic's gamble pays off, it raises a number of troubling questions, not least of which is whether delivering a former head of state to the jurisdiction of an extra-national tribunal in exchange for material benefit is morally justifiable. The more immediate incentive for extraditing Milosevic was the promise of 1.28 billion dollars for Yugoslavia by the US and European donors as a reward for handing him over. Are state sovereignty and national pride marketable commodities to be sold when the price is right? And is the price on offer sufficient when we consider how heavily Yugoslavia's infrastructure was damaged by NATO's bombing campaign? With an external debt exceeding $12 billion, unemployment running at 30 per cent and inflation at 80 per cent, the proposed sum to remedy Yugoslavia's ills is no more than a drop in the ocean.
Moreover, not all international parties are happy with the way the Milosevic affair has been handled. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the abrupt handover and the very public trial can only further destabilise Yugoslavia and its government. It is also expected to provoke widely divergent reactions in the Arab world. Some Kuwaitis and Iraqi Kurds are already calling for a similar trial against Saddam Hussein. More generally, the Milosevic trial is a signal to the leaders of states described by Washington as "rogue states" that they will eventually be called upon to answer for acts they have allegedly committed at one time or another.
But the real question is how Milosevic's trial will affect the future of Ariel Sharon, the key actor in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. Washington's attitude towards Sharon, at a time when the American administration is virulently opposed to Milosevic, is a graphic illustration of double standards. Bush has already received Sharon twice in the White House, a favour he has so far refused to extend to Arafat.
Europe's attitude is less categorical. Belgium's judiciary has admitted a
case filed against Sharon by survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a
Belgian court. A first step has been taken, though the road is still long before
it will become possible to indict Sharon. Nevertheless, Sharon, who decided this
week to visit a number of European capitals, was unable to visit Brussels.
Instead, Belgium's foreign minister, Louis Michel, moved to Berlin to meet
Sharon. Michel made it clear to Israel's prime minister that the judiciary in
Belgium is totally independent from the executive branch. A meeting between
Sharon and the Belgian foreign minister is possible, provided it happens outside
the jurisdiction of Belgium. But there is no guarantee that if Sharon were to
visit Belgium, he would not be arrested.
