The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s acquittal of Kosovo’s former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and two colleagues, on war crimes charges, has provoked predictable fury among Serbians.
That Serbs, Roma and Albanians were detained, tortured and killed in camps during 1998-99 fight for Kosovo’s independence, was not disputed at the tribunal. What the prosecution however failed to prove was that Haradinaj, then a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army and his fellow accused, were actually directly responsible for the war crimes. They were therefore yesterday cleared of all the charges against them.
This was the second time the men had faced the court. They were acquitted at a first trial but the verdict was overturned on appeal in 2008, on the grounds that key witnesses had been intimidated. No such suspicions appear to have been raised during the second prosecution.
For angry Serbs, the very fact that Haradinaj was a rebel commander, when the detention camps were established and the atrocities then took place, is proof enough of his involvement. Yet, those few Serb nationalists who have managed to bring themselves to admit that the Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims actually took place, have defended their hero, Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, himself on trial before the ICTFY, on the grounds that he could not be held responsible for the crimes of his troops. But clearly, in their distorted view, what is sauce for the goose, is not sauce for the gander.
What has marked all the trials that have been held in the Hague by both the ICTFY and the International Criminal Court, has been the exhaustive, even ponderous way, in which evidence has been presented and challenged by prosecution and defense lawyers. Though the ICC has so far confined itself to trying former African dictators, the fact is that because the concept of international justice is still a subject of dispute, both organizations have gone out of their way to try to be seen to be fair to the accused. Very often, this has been achieved at the expense of traumatized victims and their relatives, who as witnesses, themselves have little doubt about the guilt of the defendants. It must therefore be assumed, that this is a sound verdict. Privately Haradinaj may even have approved or simply not cared about the crimes being carried out by KLA members. Nevertheless, the prosecution was unable to establish that he had been involved personally in ordering them.
The Serbs need to take on board the message that has come from the ICTFY with this verdict. It is not, as so many Serbs disturbingly persist in believing, that theirs is a country that is being singled out for unfair treatment by vengeful Western powers and the peoples of Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Kosovo, who broke away from Serb domination. The lesson that Serbians must learn is that, in the Europe to which they aspire, the law operates without emotion, in a desiccated, even boring fashion, in a search to establish the truth.
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic was completely at odds with reality, when he said yesterday that the ICTFY had been formed to try the Serbian people. Croatians and Bosnians have also been tried and found guilty of war crimes during the bloody conflict to end rule from Belgrade.
He went on to say that the Haradinaj verdict would enhance Serbian euro-skepticism. Serbia has applied to join the EU. Membership would bring the country substantial economic benefits. But Brussels could do without another demented member. The Union is still trying to learn the lessons of the bitter political standoff in Romania and the unruly nationalism, economic rule-breaking, anti-semitism and dubious democratic credentials of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
So if Serbia chooses to turn its back on Brussels, not only will it be the loser, but the EU as a whole will be quietly relieved.
It is really hard to fathom how Serbians seem to thrive on their victim mentality. Instead of drawing a line under the brutal and bruising experience of the collapse of the old Yugoslavia, they maintain a dangerous, irrational sulk. Some have argued that this mindset was born in 1371, when the Ottoman Turks crushed the Serbian empire at the Battle of Maritsa. Unfortunately, the Serbs have long been sustained by their fellow Slavs, the Russians. Moscow may not have stopped NATO smashing Serbian power in Bosnia and Kosovo, but many Serbs still look to their old ally. We already know the risks of this relationship. When in 1914, Austria invade Serbia after a Serb called Princip had assassinated the Hapsburg heir in Sarajevo, Russia came to Serbia’s aid, and the first of two connected world wars began which would cost approaching 100 million lives.
Editorial: Serbia’s victim mentality
