Upon the success of the International War Crimes Tribunal’s work in The Hague depends the long-term peace of the Balkans, as well as the important opportunity to convince other dictators that they cannot oppress their own citizens or their neighbors. All the peoples of the Balkans need to see all of the guilty men, regardless of their background, answering for their crimes before the bar of international justice. The court ought to be alert at all times for any attempt to belittle its proceedings or bring its workings into disrepute.
But fallen Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic has just made complete fools of his judges, as he awaits trial in his cell in the tribunal’s detention center in The Hague. Using the telephone to which he has access, he conducted a long interview with the US broadcaster Fox News. He had earlier had a long talk with Russian communist leaders, during a telephone call, which was meant to be to his brother in Moscow. In his call to Fox News, Milosevic used every opportunity to refute the legitimacy of the International War Crimes Tribunal, protest his innocence of any wrongdoing and dwell upon the manner of his removal from Serbian jurisdiction to the Hague. He had the sheer effrontery to complain that his treatment was little better than that meted out to slaves and that it was inhuman and degrading.
And this from the man who introduced ethnic cleansing which drove hundreds of thousands of innocents from their homes, not to some comfortable jail cell in Holland, complete with telephone, but all too often to a mass grave. It was this man whose henchmen shooed the world’s media away from Srebrenica after Dutch “peacekeeping” troops had surrendered to Mladic’s thugs. Once the cameras had gone, the Serb troops set about the systematic butchery of all their male Bosnian prisoners. And now he appeals in person to a major news network to protest his innocence. The whole episode must have sickened all right-thinking people in the Balkans who want to see Milosevic called to account for his terrible crimes.
What on earth do the authorities in The Hague think that they are doing? They have protested that the rules state that detainees may not contact the media and they have warned Milosevic that some of his privileges may be withdrawn after his stunt. But this is surely not the point.
The international tribunal has lost considerable face by allowing itself to be tricked in this manner. Milosevic’s contempt for the court and its processes will give heart to his fellow accused, not least Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who are still fugitives from international justice. If Milosevic chooses to continue ignoring the court and refusing to plead, that is up to him. But he must not be allowed to finesse this stubbornness into some sort of performance conducted on his own terms. The tribunal is bending over backward to be fair and evenhanded in all of these war crimes trials.
All well and good. But fairness and evenhandedness do not mean that the tribunal should allow itself to be made a fool of. There should be no question of warning Milosevic that he will lose privileges if he repeats this antic. The man should be sanctioned now and be deprived of any further opportunity to make a monkey out of the court.
