Justice arrives, slowly but steadily

Mar 15th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Kosovo’s prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, has resigned and surrendered to the UN’s war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. It is the latest sign of the tribunal’s slow but steady progress in bringing to justice those accused of atrocities in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But several big fish remain at large, including the Bosnian Serbs’ former leader, Radovan Karadzic

FOR the past couple of years, the United Nations’ war-crimes tribunal in The Hague, set up to investigate atrocities committed after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991, has been getting a bad press. Much of this is due to the international media’s focus on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, which has been proceeding at an excruciatingly slow pace.

However, Mr Milosevic’s case is but one of more than a hundred ongoing or completed trials aimed at bringing justice to the victims of the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s. To mention just one, Vidoje Blagojevic, a colonel in the Bosnian Serb forces, was jailed in January for 18 years for his part in the slaughter of thousands of Muslims from the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
In recent weeks, the tribunal’s efforts have received a boost. Suddenly, indicted former military leaders from all over the former Yugoslavia seem to be pouring in to stand trial, not one of whom has even had to be arrested. Of these the most prominent is Ramush Haradinaj, the prime minister of Kosovo, who flew to The Hague on Wednesday March 9th after resigning the day before and announcing he would surrender to the tribunal.

Mr Haradinaj has been indicted over alleged crimes against Serbs, including murder and rape, during his time as a senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which waged a war against Serbian rule in the late 1990s. Since then Mr Haradinaj, still in his thirties, has swapped his fatigues for smart suits and his reputation as a hard man for that of an able young politician. He had hoped to lead Kosovo’s struggle for full independence from Serbia but last Tuesday, surrounded by weeping ministers and protesting his innocence, he announced he would present himself to the tribunal.

Prosecutors in The Hague have been after Mr Haradinaj for years. They are aware that most Serbs regard the tribunal as an anti-Serb kangaroo court. It is thus important for them that it is seen to be serving up justice blindly, trying not only Serbs but those accused of crimes against Serbs. In fact, the prosecution problem until now has not been in assembling evidence against Mr Haradinaj but in getting witnesses prepared to risk their lives in testifying against him.

The history of Kosovo’s conflict is long, complex and bloody. To Serbs, the province is the birthplace of their national culture. But during the centuries in which this part of Europe was under the Turkish Ottoman empire, Kosovo came to be inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians, who now make up more than 90% of the province’s population of almost 2m. After the second world war, Serbia, with Kosovo as one of its provinces, was absorbed into the newly formed communist federation of Yugoslavia. When this collapsed in the early 1990s, Albanian leaders in Kosovo seized the opportunity to declare independence, prompting Mr Milosevic to send in troops. NATO bombings forced the Serbian leader to withdraw his tanks and gunmen. Mr Haradinaj’s KLA was disbanded and Kosovo became a UN protectorate, patrolled by 20,000 NATO troops. He formed a political party, which now governs in coalition with the party of Kosovo’s pro-independence president, Ibrahim Rugova.

Talks are supposed to be held this year to decide whether Kosovo will be given independence or remain part of Serbia, but there remains the constant threat of violence: in March last year, ethnic violence in the province caused 19 deaths and destroyed hundreds of homes. To avert similar bloodshed in the wake of Mr Haradinaj’s surrender, hundreds of extra British and German troops have been sent to reinforce the NATO peacekeeping contingent. Announcing his resignation, the prime minister appealed to his fellow Albanian Kosovars to remain calm, and so far they have done so.

However, Kosovo remains on a knife edge. On Tuesday, a bomb exploded in a dustbin just as Mr Rugova was being driven past in Pristina, the Kosovan capital, on his way to a meeting with Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy chief. Though the president escaped unhurt, the incident underlined the precariousness of the province's politics.

Three big fish still at large

Arriving at the UN tribunal’s detention centre, Mr Haradinaj will be joining two Bosnian Serb former generals who recently presented themselves to The Hague, along with Momcilo Perisic, the former head of the Yugoslav army (who pleaded not guilty when he appeared before the tribunal on Wednesday), and Rasim Delic, head of the Bosnian Muslim forces during the Bosnian war. Last Wednesday, a new war-crimes tribunal opened in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, to ease the burden on the tribunal in The Hague. All this is good news, but more than a dozen of the tribunal’s indictees remain at large, including three big fish: Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serbs’ wartime leader; General Ratko Mladic, who led the Bosnian Serb military; and General Ante Gotovina, who led the victorious campaign against the Serbs in Croatia in 1995.

So far, Serbia and Croatia have resisted handing over these wanted men. But it has been made clear to both countries that, until they do, their paths to membership of the EU and other European and transatlantic bodies are blocked. On Tuesday, the UN’s chief war-crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, sent a damning assessment to the EU, accusing Croatia of failing to do enough to arrest and hand over Mr Gotovina. As a result, Croatia’s entry talks are unlikely to start this week, as had been planned. Ms Del Ponte has also fired another broadside at Serbia, telling Reuters news agency that the country’s authorities know exactly where Mr Mladic is hiding.

However, given that several Serbian and Bosnian Serb generals have given themselves up in recent months, Serbia may still get a green light to begin talks shortly about a “stabilisation and association agreement” with the EU—a stage on the long road to membership. Even if this happens, no one has any illusions. In the end, Mr Karadzic and General Mladic must go to The Hague, because otherwise Serbia will not be going to Brussels. The UN tribunal will not go down in history as having achieved true justice unless the remaining big names are brought before it.

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