Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Justice land

After the controversial, time consuming and ultimately unsuccessful trial of Milosevic, the UN war crimes tribunal at the Hague has its second big catch - Radovan Karadzic. His arrival at the Hague today provides an opportunity of justice for some of worst crimes in Europe since the second World War, but as Milosevic's trial showed, this can be an arduous process. Lower ranking individuals with less responsibility and blood on their hands have been prosecuted successfully, but those further up the Serb food chain have thus far escaped justice. Croat, Bosnian and even Kosovar idictees have faced the Hague, but none of the very unholy trinity of Milosevic, Karadzic or the still at large Ratko Mladic, who were responsible for the vast majority of the carnage, have faced a final reckoning. Although the ICTY is 15 years old, without a full and complete prosecution of these three, the court will be perceived as under-achieving.

Karadzic's crimes are numerous. As leader of the
Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka) in Bosnia, he assumed the commanding military role, as Bosnian Serb forces sought to preserve their territory at the expense of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. Beyond the relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing, Karadzic oversaw the cruel siege of Sarajevo, then is alleged to have ordered the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. Milosevic's take on Serb nationalism was manipulative and opportunistic, and was also from a distance in Belgrade with every effort to avoid culpability. But Karadzic sought no veil of guilt, his pronouncements at the time were unflinching: "In just a couple of days, Sarajevo will be gone and there will be five hundred thousand dead, in one month Muslims will be annihilated in Bosnia and Herzegovina". The ICTY has a compelling case for Karadzic.