FOR SEVEN years, the victims of Serbian aggression in the Balkans have looked at the international court in The Hague and wondered if it was anything more than that a political band aid, which would be totally useless at covering the deep and massive wounds inflicted on hundreds of thousands of innocents by a barbarous regime in Belgrade.
There was mild comfort in the procession of individuals accused of war crimes and a further satisfaction in the fact that it was not merely Serbs who stood accused: Croats too were indicted for their brutality to Serbs as well Bosnian Muslims. And international investigators also made it clear that they were examining a few allegations against Bosnians.
At least it seemed that The Hague tribunal was pursuing justice in an even handed way. But it was the caliber of the accused, their relatively low level of seniority within the murderous command chains, which caused many in the Balkans and beyond to wonder if there really was the international will to pursue the really big fish.
Well now, it seems, we have the answer. Slobodan Milosevic is sitting in a cell in The Hague at the start of what promises to be a long judicial process, during which he will be called to answer allegations of war crimes, the like of which have not been seen in Europe since the Nazi Germans, 56 years ago.
It is hardly possible to doubt Milosevic’s guilt. He was the dictatorial head of a regime which unleashed three brutal campaigns, in which ethnic cleansing, the wanton slaying of whole non-Serb communities, became so frequent that it simply had to be part of official policy.
Had Milosevic been truly appalled by international evidence of the butchery by Serbs troops, (never officially engaged in any of the campaigns), and militias, he could have mounted his own convincing investigations and published their findings in detail. But he did not. Belgrade merely denied that any genocide had taken place. Not a single Serb soldier or militiaman was brought to book.
This will no doubt be a telling detail in the prosecution case against Milosevic. But how many other telling details, this time about how the Europeans and Americans and Russians were prepared to work with the Serb dictator, even after his loathsome policy of genocide became crystal clear, will be revealed in the trial?
It may suit the Western powers to have the prosecution focus purely on what Milosevic and his henchmen did. But what should also interest international opinion is how he was allowed to do it by world leaders. The ultimate benefit of the trial of Milosevic and the other Serb top brass is that it will send a message to dictators everywhere, in power now and in the future, that they can and will be called to account for their crimes.
But the investigation ought to be more than this. It should also be taken as an opportunity to examine how pernicious “realpolitik” — the application of pragmatism by world leaders — can in fact be. The question should be asked how, in the face of clear and mounting evidence of terrible crimes, the international community sat on its hands for so long?
There was a time when Milosevic was treated almost with reverence as a man with whom the big powers could do business. International politicians said publicly that he represented the solution to the genocidal campaigns in the collapsing husk of the old Jugoslav Federation, when in fact their intelligence services had already made it plain to them that Milosevic was in fact the cause.
Ironically, even though the prosecution will probably seek to avoid the issue, if for no better reason than the claim that it is irrelevant to their case, it is highly likely that the Milosevic defense team will not. Perhaps in the hope of a plea bargain, they may threaten to reveal embarrassing details of deals and promises made to the Serb leader by world statesmen. In one sense therefore, it will not only be the fallen Serb dictator who will be in the dock at The Hague, but the unpleasant realities of pragmatic international politics. There will be lessons for us all, and we should learn them well.
