Credibility on line when Milosevic comes to trial

BELGRADE - The West promises justice will be done if Slobodan Milosevic is sent to the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague on charges of war crimes in Kosovo.

But Serbia, Russia and some independent Western analysts believe such proceedings would be more of a show trial to vindicate Nato retroactively for its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

"It can't be justice, because justice has to be based on just principles," said Massachussetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor Noam Chomsky.

"The tribunal instantly discredited itself in the Balkan case by excluding crimes committed by Nato. That doesn't mean that Milosevic isn't a criminal but it does mean that you can't take the proceedings seriously," Chomsky said.

In Moscow's view, pressure to have the former Yugoslav President delivered to The Hague is simply "Nato bullying."

Dmitri Rogozin of the Russian duma said: "Milosevic's surrender will play into the hands of the United States, which would like to see him in The Hague and thus legalise the spring of 1999 and justify Nato's aggression against Yugoslavia."

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic wrote to tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte a few days ago, demanding that ethnic Albanians also be indicted for executing Serb civilians.

"The scales of justice must be equal for all because all sides have committed crimes," Batic said.

"How come not a single leader of another nationality was indicted? Something is wrong here.

"It looks like selective justice."

The tribunal's supporters would say that what is wrong here is Serbian attempts to purvey "moral equivalence" between victim and aggressor, which glosses over the facts showing who inflicted the worst crimes and who suffered most.

Nato Secretary-General George Robertson said: "It is nonsense to say Milosevic cannot get a fair trial in The Hague. The judges are of the highest reputation and are 100 per cent independent.

"Anyone who has seen the proceedings will know that the cases have been tried to the best and most painstaking international standards."

But some argue that it is not the trials that are unfair but the targets chosen by the prosecutor's office.

Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac, a mild-mannered law professor who normally avoids polemics, argued last year that the court itself was clearly made up of respected judges but the prosecutor's office was a political institution.

Critics say it is little wonder that some Western powers, including the US, seem unenthusiastic about a permanent International Criminal Court which could, in theory, be turned on themselves.

"Putting foreigners on trial for war crimes is a satisfying pastime. We can exercise our self-righteousness at someone else's expense," said the Yorkshire Post on this subject. But if others can put us on trial "it could all blow up in our face."

What if Tony Blair were indicted for Yugoslavia, John Major for the Gulf War, Margaret Thatcher for the Falklands, Henry Kissinger for Cambodia?

Writing in the Guardian, London solicitor Dragan Plavsic said: "The call for Milosevic to be tried in The Hague is arrogant and patronising because it is based on the belief that only the West knows how to administer justice."

Chomsky pointed out that the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had indicted Milosevic in the middle of the Nato bombing for alleged crimes in Kosovo.

"He had committed his biggest crimes in Bosnia and wasn't indicted because the West was dealing with him [to obtain the 1995 Dayton peace accords]," he said, calling the May 1999 indictment a clearly political act.

Chomsky said the US and Britain gave the tribunal secret intelligence for the indictment.

When Nato started bombing Yugoslavia in March 1999 it was not for humanitarian reasons but to show who was boss because the credibility of Nato was at stake.

"Ask any Mafia don and he'll tell you. If someone doesn't pay his protection money you don't just get the money, you beat them to a pulp so that others will understand.

"That's credibility, and it's a very significant element in international affairs. Action after action by great powers is taken to protect their credibility and it makes sense. Others have to be afraid of them."

Chomsky predicted the bid to create a world war crimes court would fail because no great power would ever submit to such a forum.

Canadian Philippe Kirsch, a driving force behind the idea, says 139 countries have signed the United Nations statute for such a court and 29 out of the 60 needed have ratified the document. The US is not among them, nor is China.

- REUTERS

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