Selected Misdeeds

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, May 31 1999

That's already become a rule. The Hague indictment of Slobodan Milosevic was greeted on the Croatian side only by the foreign minister Mate Granic (he emphasized that he was doing it on behalf of the government!), while Tudman again only voiced his loud silence, although he had a chance to react the day after the indictment had been issued. However, Tudman used the opportunity to state that today Croatia can defend its sovereignty with the strong NATO shield, even though that sovereignty has been questioned by all sorts of enemies, from mindless foreigners to twenty percent of domestic cabalists.

On the same day, Vjekoslav Vidovic announced shocking news that HHO had been in position to obtain form the colleagues from Serbia evidence about Serb crimes in Croatia. However, when that was offered to Penic [minister of Police] and his [secret] services they responded that they were not interested. Based on this, it seems that the indictment against Milosevic is a triumph of all those who demand as full as possible legal accounting of war crimes, as well as the unmasking of dirty political games used to hide the war crimes. However, aren't those who spare no time to hurry to comprehend and joyously greet news from the Hague naive?

The immediate question is how come that the evidence which turned out not to be interesting to Penic, also isn't interesting for the Hague prosecutor Arbour? She based Milosevic's indictment only on the most recent events in Kosovo, while the his role in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, according to Arbour, is still being investigated(!). As if the crimes in question are tens of years old and teams of experts equipped with magnifying glasses and fine brushes still need to carefully analyze and investigate the evidence. Thereby, a clear conclusion must be that the Hague Tribunal, and in this case it is nothing but the personification of the International Community led by the greatest world power, has demonstrated very selective interest in Milosevic, only as much as it concerns "their" war, while obviously "our" war does not interest them in the least.

And what else can be said about it, except that it is a new political game whose goal is to hide something, and it is easy to guess what. The NATO intervention fell into an unbearable moral crisis when, unable to explain to itself what its goal was, it declared everything for a target, including civilians, bridges, factories, hospitals, jails, and increasingly mostly them. True, aim was taken at Milosevic as well, and not only with bombs but also with worst expletives ("Hitler"), but with shallow oversight that the Furher came to power after WWI among other because the Western allies in WWI wanted not only to defeat Germans but also to humiliate them. Therefore, they wanted to defeat them not only militarily but also "collaterally".

All in all, the indictment against Milosevic hardly has any connection with legality and justice, but has a lot to do with the search for an exit from a dead-end street in which Western diplomacy had thrown its military, only to be taken deeper into the trouble by the military in return. There, far away from all precisely defined legal norms, everything is possible, including an already emerging compromise of the Western allies with Milosevic. Besides, he has so far only been accused, but not sentenced, hasn't he?!

Translated on 6/20/99