The War crimes tribunal is a necessary step toward peace and justice.

Bringing about justice is a valid and noble goal, but the Hague tribunal was really set up for other purposes. Its selectiveness is obvious, for the list of those guilty in and for this war is large, and doesn't stop at the borders of former Yugoslavia. Yet almost all the indicted are Serbs, and until very recently nobody has been accused of any atrocities against Serbs. This further begs the issue of similar justice for numerous other recent carnages. And even evenhanded insistence on outside judgement in an unstable situation like now is counterproductive for a lasting peace. As practiced currently, the activities of the Tribunal serve the causes of justice and peace much less than that of thinly veiled political pressure, designed to influence the outcome of this, and possibly other conflicts.

"Critical jurists have pointed out that in its structure the tribunal had little to do with genuine legal principles or practices"

Who has the right to judge whom? - scene from The Final Judgement,
14c. monastery Decani, Serbia

"If the Muslims continue to murder their own people for the television cameras, appropriate officials should be arrested and charged with war crimes."

"Prior to leaving this section, one additional topic begs clarification -- namely, the media's gullibility in printing selective 'intelligence leaks'. At least twice, 'unidentified high-level officials' have treated journalists to reports of mass graves around Srebrenica and elsewhere which allege that such information proves the Serbs have been guilty of 90 percent of the atrocities in this war. Such information routinely receives additional credence from the media in that it has been derived from satellite (imagery) sources and therefore must be unimpeachable."

"The International Red Cross announced on Aug 11 that there was no evidence of the supposed mass graves in Srebrenica. Their report was largely ignored by the media."

"The hunt for evidence of war crimes and the braying for the heads of those responsible as virtually the first priority sends a chilling message to innocent Serbs and Croats: that the international force is there for vengeance, not peace. Their instinctive reaction, just as it was when Yugoslavia began to collapse years ago, is to retreat into ethnic politics. The consequence of such polarization, one fears, will be renewed violence, possibly on a massive scale, an injustice far worse than the law's delay."

"And it is not just journalists who have sensationalised the war and been selective in attributing guilt. Stories about atrocities committed by Serbs have been given the stamp of authenticity ny international bodies such as the UN and the EU human rights groups such as Amnesty International, and women's organisations like Maris Stopes. In their resolutions, factfinding missions (which usually manage to find no facts) official reports, advertisements and leaflets, these bodies have added to the popular perception that acts of extreme bestiality unseen for half a century have been carried out in Bosnia and Croatia, and that the Serbs have been responsible for most of them.

In an extraordinarily presumptuous statement in its final report to the Security Council, the Commission of Experts declared that the Serbs had committed war crimes in northern Bosnia and would probably be found guilty of genocide in court: ' It is unquestionable that the events in Opstina (county) Prijedor since 30 April 1992 qualify as crimes against humanity. Furthermore, it is likely to be confirmed in court under due process of law that these events constitute genocide.' What implications this will have for Dusan Tadic, who is charged with committing war crimes in Prijedor, is not hard to guess.

A consensus already exists that genocidal crimes against humanity have been committed in the Balkans, and that one side in the conflict is more guilty than the others. In this lynchmob atmosphere the idea of the accused in war crimes trials being presumed innocent until proved guilty, or of all persons being equal before the law, goes out of the window. When such a strong impression has been created of the entire Serbian people as a race of bestial, genocidal killers, any individual Serb who ends up in the dock will not stand much of a chance even if the prosecution does not have a leg to stand on.

All the signs are that the sort of legless evidence presented in Salzburg will be the stuff of cases at the Hague. No forensic evidence is likely to be presented; prosecutions will rely on personal testimonies, flimsy evidence given in the magnitude of the alleged crimes. In a civil war in which all sides have suffered grievously, the danger of people testifying in order to exact revenge is considerable. The chances of hearsay evidence, which has been a recurring feature of media reporting of alleged atrocities in Bosnia, being used to damn the accused are high."

"Which brings us to the most important questions of all what is a war crime, and who decides? Atrocities are committed in all wars, but they are not always classed as war crimes. In practice, whether an atrocity is defined as a war crime depends on who is doing the killing and who is doing the judging.

Many ugly things have happened in Croatia and Bosnia, atrocities have been committed by all combatants. But why should they be singled out as war crimes? The war crimes lobby argues that the atrocities in Bosnia and comparable to those of the Nazis. There is no evidence to support this view. The crimes for which people will stand trial in the Hague are not peculiar to the war in Yugoslavia. They are the staple of most wars in the twentieth century which begs the question why a Serbian soldier can be prosecuted as a war criminal for committing atrocities, while a British soldier who executes an Argentinean prisoner and cuts off his ears as trophies is regarded as a hero?"

"[...] But something less edifying also is happening in the Hague, something that ought to make the United States and other nations backing the tribunal a little nervous. A 62-year old Serb general is sitting in jail under indictment for a crime that could be charged against a long list of respected leaders around the world. In its accusations against Gen. Djordje Djukic, the Bosnian Serb army's logistics chief, the Hague tribunal has staked out a precarious position - not legally, but politically.

This is not because he is the highest-ranking soldier from Bosnia yet charged, but because the indictment cites deeds that can be imputed to many other generals and politicians in many other wars who will never see the inside of a courtroom. As a consequence, the tribunal has made itself vulnerable to already heated contentions among many Serbs that it is an instrument of revenge and political expediency rather than justice. For a court navigating largely uncharted judicial waters - an effort to set a precedenct that war criminals anywhere will be held responsible for their atrocities by the United Nations and not just their opponents - the decision to prosecute Djukic seems imprudent at best.

[...] Did Harry Truman order the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "in order to kill, injure, terrorize and demoralize the civilian population" of Japan? Of course he did, and for the most part, history has treated him kindly for it. Winston Churchill ordered the firebombing of Dresden for the same awful reason. The list goes on. Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli general and minister, might be on it for the bombing of Beirut in 1982. His neighbor, President Hafez Assad of Syria, could have earned a place with the destruction of an entire neighborhood in Hama. Closer to home, Robert McNamara could be included for bombing Vietnam. And even now, one could make a case against President Boris Yeltsin and his Russian Generals for their scorched- earth tactics in Chechnya.

Unless the tribunal prosecutors know something they have not yet revealed, the chief difference betweeen Djukic and those named above is that Djukic was captured and put in jail to face charges while others march on through history."

"[...] In the spirit of Balkan intrigue, the jurist [Prof. S. Cohn of Georgetown Law School] also contends the Djukic case can still rebound to the tribunal's credit - if he's acquitted, thereby demonstrating impartiality and encouraging Serbs to cooperate in subsequent cases."

Serbian Unity Congress Home Page Editor's note: Gen. Djukic was never acquitted. Without dropping any charges, the court temporarily released him from prison on health grounds in mid-April. He died of prostate cancer on May 19, 1996.