THE handing over of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic by the Serbian authorities to the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague has set a dangerous precedent. It has elevated the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the West to the role of judge, jury and executioner in international politics. Two years ago they had imposed a war on Yugoslavia which was trying to preserve its national integrity and protect its Constitution. NATO had wrought an economic catastrophe on the country. But by surviving the brutal onslaught, the Yugoslav people showed to the world that NATO was not an invincible power.
Standing up to NATO was Milosevic's greatest crime in the eyes of the Western countries. From a negotiating partner at the 1995 Dayton peace talks, he was turned overnight into an ogre and put on the most wanted list of international criminals. Milosevic has become the first former head of state to stand trial for alleged war crimes before the International Tribunal. Milosevic has said that he does not recognise the Tribunal's jurisdiction and has refused to read even the court's indictment. He remains defiant and has told his lawyers that he does not feel guilty because his policy was to protect the interests of the Serbian people and that he would do so again.
The so-called impartiality of the International Tribunal has been exposed by its refusal to consider the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the use by NATO of depleted uranium and cluster bombs in the Balkans as war crimes. Franjo Tudjman, the Croatian dictator notorious for the ethnic purge of Serbs and Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s, was never accused of war crimes. After all, he was a close ally of the United States. Milosevic's another mistake is that he did not sign the treaty of Rambouillet, drafted by the U.S. State Department, which would have accelerated the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation.
The deportation of Milosevic was warmly greeted in Western capitals. What was puzzling was United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's endorsement of the move. Annan's exuberance may have been, to some extent, due to the West's whole-hearted endorsement of his bid for a second term in office. It is for the first time that the African continent has had three consecutive terms in the top U.N. job.
After Milosevic was taken to The Hague, Annan said that the "day will be remembered not as a day of vengeance but as a day of justice, when responsibility has prevailed over impunity".
IT was evident for some time that Milosevic would be handed over gagged and chained. A deadline was issued to the Yugoslav authorities by international financial institutions on behalf of the West. Belgrade was told that all credit lines would be closed if Milosevic was not handed over by the end of June. Billions of dollars in credit were offered as bait.
Reacting to , Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that the decision should have rested on sound legal basis. Ivanov said that there were grounds for presuming that outside pressure had been exerted for the purpose. He noted that some countries publicly linked their participation in a donor aid conference in Brussels on June 29 to render assistance to Yugoslavia, with the issue of .
Almost as soon as Milosevic was deposited in The Hague, the international donors conference in Brussels pledged $1.28 billion as immediate reward. The pledges exceeded the Yugoslav government's original request for $1.25 billion. The World Bank and the European Commission, which hosted the Conference, said that everything possible would be done to disburse the funds as early as possible. A senior World Bank official said that half the amount would be disbursed in a record six months' time.
The extradition has triggered political upheaval in what is left of Yugoslavia. Federal Prime Minister Zoran Zizic resigned in protest. Yugoslav President Borislav Kostunica went on television to tell the people that he was not consulted about the move. Kostunica has been consistent in his stance that Milosevic should be tried for his crimes, if any, by the judiciary of the country. He said that the decision to send Milosevic to The Hague was an "undemocratic one". He greeted the news, which he came to through the media, with anger.
Just days before Milosevic was extradited, Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court had frozen the Serbian government's decree authorising the transfer of Milosevic from his prison cell in Belgrade to The Hague. The court had said that it would not rule on the constitutionality of the move before July 12. One of the Judges hearing the case said that the court would also rule whether the Serbian government had violated the constitution. The Yugoslav government had also rammed through the decree approving the extradition of Milosevic and six others, accused of war crimes by the West. More than half the Cabinet was not present when the decision was taken on June 23.
Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia has announced its decision to quit the ruling coalition which consists of 18 Serbian parties and one Montenegrin party. Zoran Zizic's Montenegrin Socialists is a a junior partner in the coalition. Zizic said that the extradition of Milosevic had humiliated the nation and was a price "beyond the level of dignity".
Most observers feel that the last chance to keep Montenegro in the Yugoslav Federation has been lost with . New elections will have to be called, now that the Montenegrin party has quit the ruling coalition.
The man whom most Yugoslavs hold responsible for Milosevic's current fate is unrepentant. Zoran Djindjic, the Prime Minister of Serbia, whom Milosevic once described as the "poodle of Madeleine Albright", did not care for legal or political niceties. He had promised his friends in the West that Milosevic would be delivered as promised before the June 30 deadline. Neither the judgment of the Constitutional Court nor the criticism of President Kostunica mattered to him.
John CherianCOMMents
COMMents
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