Milosevic on holiday

Whether retribution comes at his own hands or at the hands of ex-friends — the television images of Romania’s Ceaucescus shot dead by allies are just over a decade old — or at the Hague, Milosevic has been allowed to cheat justice. The question is: have the rest of us become more civilised or simply more indifferent?

His successor, Vojislav Kostunica is determined that Milosevic should remain in Serbia like some ageing statesman. There are countries only too willing to provide him asylum, buttressed no doubt by the mouth-watering prospect of dipping into the tyrant’s booty of nearly half a billion dollars. Milosevic’s three unsuccessful wars and ethnic cleansing programmes have left over a million dead, devastated or displaced. But he was in the process of smuggling out of the country its entire gold reserves, and that must count for something in countries which don’t mind what happens to a Bosnian Muslim or two.

So why should we get all worked up about a Balkan butcher or a Chilean dictator so far removed from our daily experience? The philosophical answer was provided by John Donne four centuries ago when he wrote: Any Man’s Death Diminishes Me/For I Am Involved in Mankind/Therefore Send Not to Know for Whom the Bell Tolls/It Tolls for Thee.

The number of ex-tyrants in Africa and Europe and Asia living depressingly normal lives (like Uganda’s Idi Amin in Saudi Arabia) is a slap in the face of our justice system. Crimes against humanity are now defined — yet few are brought to trial and even fewer actually convicted under its terms. We must create a system where tyrants have no place to hide. For long, the humanitarian argument was used against Chilean killer Augusto Pinochet. He is too old to stand trial, it was said, and in any case in his own country he had bought his freedom. It is possible for a politician to whip up anti-West feelings by pointing to the fact that a Pinochet or a Milosevic being tried outside their countries is an insult to nationalism.

The counter to such arguments is credibility. The War Crimes Tribunal must be seen to be above politics, and hand out its judgements regardless of political considerations. If Milosevic does not stand trial, there can be only one reason for it: political convenience. The pragmatists will argue that it is better to leave Milosevic alone and inspire Serb confidence than to insist on his being handed over to The Hague and stoke the paranoia of a people the majority of whom feel they are being constantly picked on. The Serbs, historically, have seen themselves as victims — a feeling that Milsevic tapped into while coming to power — and, the politician will tell you, it is better to let sleeping tyrants lie. In other words, peace at any cost. The Hague thus loses out. But this need not be the end of the matter.

Human Rights activists, who have succeeded in bringing to book many a petty (in comparison) criminal will have to raise their voices. It is now accepted that one of the reasons Milosevic capitulated in the course of his war on the Albanians in Kosovo was the formal charge laid at his door by the War Crimes Tribunal. In May last year he was charged with "crimes against humanity for his role in the atrocities and mass deportations carried out by the military forces under his command in Kosovo."

There are others charged with similar offences who are still at large: Milan Milutinovic, President of Serbia, Ratko Mladic (former Bosnian Serb military commander) and Radovan Karadzic (Bosnian Serb leader), to name three. When will they get their comeuppance if at all?

Or is the concept of crimes against humanity too large and therefore ultimately unenforceable? When the US bombed a building manufacturing medicines in Sudan, was that a crime against humanity? Civilians were killed, but no one who made what was later described as a mistake ever paid for it. Is there a caste system in operation here, one that states that Africans and Asians are somehow more murderous, less human, and therefore in need of greater corrective action than Europeans and Americans? Are the massacres in Rwanda, for example, better examples of man’s inhumanity to man than those in Kosovo? The Western powers move with greater alacrity to bring an African despot to book than they would a Milosevic. Is that the attitude that throws a bridge across indifferent and civilized behaviour?

The War Crimes Tribunal performs a dual task. It hands out punishment; by definition, therefore, it also serves as a warning for future tyrants. If the first task is not performed with integrity, then the second will not happen. And that ultimately is the reason to bring Slobodan Milosevic to trial.

Reconciliation must be preceded by truth, as South Africa showed during a period of much emotional blood-letting in that country. Given his track record, particularly in recent years, the truth may not save Milosevic. But the families of those he destroyed, and, by extension, the larger family which includes all of us must be given a chance to put the man in the dock. Crimes against humanity know no borders — likewise, punishment for crimes against humanity.

Is there a caste system under which Africans and Asians are more murderous, less human, and therefore in need of greater corrective action than Europeans and Americans?