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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
In her Thursday afternoon press conference, Judge Arbour said the five men were accused not just of "command responsibility" for the crimes that have occurred in Kosovo -- that is, that they had knowledge of the crimes and failed to prevent them or punish those responsible. Instead the tribunal found the five men had direct personal criminal responsibility for the war crimes. Arbour said the tribunal has evidence that Milosevic and his deputies were personally criminally responsible for "ordering, planning, instigating, executing, aiding and abetting the persecution, deportation and murder of Kosovo Albanians," and with violating the laws and customs of war. She said in particular the tribunal was in possession of evidence that showed the five men were responsible for the deliberate deportation of 740,000 Kosovo Albanians from Kosovo, and the murder of 340 Kosovo Albanians.
A press release issued by the tribunal specifies that "between 1 January and late May 1999, forces under the control of the five accused persecuted the Kosovo Albanian civilian population on political, racial or religious grounds. By the date of the indictment, approximately 740,000 Kosovo Albanians, about one-third of the entire Kosovo Albanian population, had been expelled from Kosovo. Thousands more are believed to be internally displaced. An unknown number of Kosovo Albanians have been killed in the operations by forces of the [former republic of Yugoslavia] and Serbia. Specifically, the five indictees are charged with the murder of over 340 persons identified by name in an annex to the indictment."
Saying she could see no lasting peace for Yugoslavia if it was built on granting immunity to Milosevic, Arbour, a Canadian known for her fierce independence in a job that is strained by intense political pressures from Western governments, addressed the question of whether an indictment of Milosevic will make it awkward for NATO leaders to conclude a peace deal with him.
"No credible, lasting peace can be built upon impunity and injustice," Arbour concluded. "The refusal to bring war criminals to account would be an affront to those who obey the law, and a betrayal of those who rely on it for their life and security."
In recent weeks, Arbour has pestered NATO governments, particularly the United States, to turn over to the tribunal evidence the governments have collected via satellite, human intelligence, wire taps and witness testimony, so that the panel could proceed with war crimes indictments against those responsible, including Milosevic. On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador for war crimes, David Sheffer, announced that the United States was turning over such evidence to the body, known as the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia). Britain, Germany and France are reported to have turned over evidence of war crimes to the ICTY earlier in the NATO campaign.
Until recently, the ICTY has primarily focused its investigations on those suspected of war crimes in the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia (1991-1995) -- and has a dismal record in getting people facing war crimes charges to The Hague for trial. Of 84 war crimes suspects indicted by the ICTY, only one has been sentenced, two have died in prison and several have had their charges dismissed, but most have not been captured at all. Many Bosnians point to the fact that although the Bosnian Serb leaders considered most responsible for atrocities and massacres in Bosnia -- former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and general Ratko Mladic -- were indicted years ago, the two men remain free. That, critics say, is a grim portent that the indictment of Milosevic may not mean very much.
"Milosevic has played the key role in creating the catastrophe that has engulfed this region for the last decade," Bosnian presidential advisor Mirza Hajric said from Sarajevo. "But the fact that someone like Karadzic, who has been indicted for four years, is still free, casts a shadow over this indictment, which I support. NATO should arrest Karadzic if they want to send the right signal to Milosevic."
Elected as president of Serbia on May 8, 1989, Milosevic began his career almost exactly 10 years ago. Perhaps it is fitting that it was in Kosovo -- the place where he is accused of perpetrating crimes against humanity -- that the young communist apparatchik discovered that Serbian nationalism could be his ticket to gaining popular political power in a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia that was beginning to disintegrate. Four years ago, after presiding over the war in Bosnia that killed 200,000 people and forced more than 2 million from their homes because of their ethnicity, Milosevic was invited to Dayton, Ohio, to participate in U.S.-led peace talks that ultimately brought an end to the Bosnian war.
But since 1998, Milosevic has shed the image of peacemaker to again employ the ruthless tactics of a dictator. The U.S. State Department estimates that 1.4 million Kosovars -- out of an original population of 1.8 million -- have been forced from their homes by Serbian troops and police under Milosevic's control, and another 4,000 murdered since March 24. Reports of systematic rapes and satellite images of mass graves contribute to a harrowing picture of the violence unleashed by Milosevic in Kosovo.
President Clinton, in a radio address Thursday to the 840,000 deported people of Kosovo, promised them that they would have justice.
"On the eve of a new century, we refuse to be intimidated by a dictator who is trying to revive the worst memories of the century we are leaving," Clinton said. "The United States and NATO are with you, and we will stay with you long after you return home."
