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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Desperately seeking Milosevic
By Gavin BowdThe end of the world's first-ever "humanitarian war" was always going to be a messy one. In the past weeks, the true extent of the environmental damage inflicted by NATO's bombardment has emerged, notably the pollution of the Danube, which will compound the misery of neighbouring Romania and Bulgaria. The staged withdrawal of the Yugoslav Federal Army has also shown how ineffective NATO's smart technology was against enemy hardware. While NATO inflicted massive damage on the country's infrastructure, the threat by Victor Chernomydrin, Russian envoy and head of Gazprom, to cut off Belgrade's fuel supplies, may ultimately have been more important in forcing a deal.
For the crusade against genocide, the reality is also infuriatingly complex. The ten-week war was in many ways a retroactive one, a war to end wars already waged. This was seen in the way NATO war aims changed to include the return of refugees expelled after the bombardment began. More broadly, the campaign had to make up for inactivity during the Bosnian conflict of 1992-95, as well as indifference to, if not complicity in, the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Looming over this, of course, was the Holocaust and the twentieth century's secular embodiment of evil, Adolf Hitler.
The prism of history, and especially the memory of the Second World War, influences perceptions of the war crimes issue in Kosovo. Just as the Russian army's seizure of Pristina Airport echoed the 'race for Berlin' 55 years ago, so crowds of journalists landed in the benighted province to seek out the biggest and best mass graves. Some Kosovars have been happy to oblige the Auschwitz-seekers: a journalist from the British daily The Guardian describes one as "having something of the pornographer about him," as he offers to take him to the site of an alleged atrocity. Repetitions of history have often failed to materialise: the Pristina FC stadium was never a "remake" of Pinochet's Santiago torture-centre; nor is there yet any evidence to prove the existence of crematorial ovens for Albanian massacre victims.
However, if the number of dead looks like being in four rather than six digit numbers, there is evidence enough of mass killing by the Serbs in areas of intense fighting with the KLA after 24 March.
The question remains how to fulfil the aims of the humanitarian crusade by capturing, trying and punishing those accused of war crimes, and in particular the "little Hitler" himself, Slobodan Milosevic. Experience gives little ground for optimism: of those indicted for crimes in Bosnia, fewer than one in three have so far been spirited to The Hague and fewer still convicted; the alleged architects of Serb 'ethnic cleansing', Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadjic, remain at large in "Republika Srpska," the Serbian component of the Bosnian federation. In Rwanda, the tellingly late and half-hearted investigation into the genocide has so far only seized an inflammatory Tutsi radio presenter. In Kosovo itself, KFOR has had to content itself with a couple of Serbs suspected of a handful of murders and rapes.
Yugoslav President Milosevic reaches out to his people after a devastating earthquake late last year. Could he be brought to book? (photo:AP)
Bringing Milosevic to "justice" will not be an easy task. Unlike Gen. Pinochet, he is neither out of power nor out of the country. Under the peace agreement, NATO has no military access to the rest of Yugoslavia. The territorial integrity of the Federal Republic, including Kosovo, is to be respected. Milosevic and his entourage would therefore seem safe from humanitarian snatch-squads which have had difficulty enough in partitioned Bosnia. Russia's hostility to an indictment that it condemns as a 'political act' further strengthens Milosevic's hand.
The best hope for the war-crimes prosecutors is that the "evil dictator" will be overthrown by the "democratic opposition" and handed over to The Hague. Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, has not hesitated to brand Milosevic a "war criminal" to be tried and punished. Djindjic has addressed large anti-Milosevic rallies, while the Alliance for Change has launched a petition calling for the President's resignation. Milosevic seems further isolated by the Orthodox Church's denunciation of his "anti-Christ regime", while Vuk Draskovic has ruled out rejoining his coalition government.
The optimist's scenario would be that, as winter beckons, and the sun and the pleasures of Marko Milosevic's newly-opened "Bambi Park" are no longer able to distract attention from the bombed-out infrastructure, dead fish and dead people, "Slobo" will be overthrown, flown off to Holland, and the Western aid tap duly turned back on. However, this scenario is not entirely realistic. Even today, the material well-being of the people that Milosevic and his wife preside over is incomparably better than that of Romanians under Ceausescu in December 1989. Most Serbs have been united against what they see, rightly or wrongly, as a flagrantly illegal aggression against their country. The opposition is vulnerable to the charge of "treason": if Djindjic was wildly applauded in Prokupje, he was assaulted by Kosovar Serbs outside a holy shrine in Gracanica.
It should not be forgotten that Milosevic, despite his authoritarian temperament and his demonisation by his critics, is a democratically-elected politician who still commands significant support. More importantly, in these interesting times, he has tightened his hold on the police and armed forces. Belgrade's proposal to integrate Montenegro's security forces into a federal police force presages a bloody final confrontation with his 'pro-western' enemies.
At the end of this month Bill Clinton will fly to Sarajevo for a summit on Balkan reconstruction. He may hope that the event will coincide with the arraignment of the "butcher of Belgrade" and the beginning of a trial that would symbolically exorcise the crimes of the twentieth century. But it seems more likely the self-destructive logic which Milosevic unleashed ten years ago on Kosovo's "Field of Blackbirds" l will simply pursue its course, with all which that implies for the banks -- be they of blood, or money.
