Slobodan Milosevic has had a bad few years. Transformed into one of the World’s Worst Bogeymen, he lost the war, lost his job, got tossed in jail, and has now been turned over to “justice” at the hands of his enemies. Question is this - does his public image represent an unbiased look at his actual actions, or is it possible that he is a victim of circumstances and bad press?
One factor that must be kept in mind is that it is very difficult to judge people involved in vastly different circumstances by standards that you base on your own. It is for this reason that I am generally uncomfortable with the whole notion of international law - they were imposed by Westerners (I think), whose societies differ in important ways from other parts of the world.
In the specific instance discussed here, I think it is very difficult to apply the same standards to a people engaged in a bitter struggle against a terrorist, separatist group, struggling to break your country apart, as you would apply in a circumstance in which your country is relatively safe and secure and facing only marginal threats. Furthermore, the Westerners who appear to be promulgating the standards for international law, have, despite their greater security, not necessarily adhered to these very same standards themselves - even when facing situations that were far less dangerous than was faced by Yugoslavia. They just tend to face them less often. We tend to try to be understanding with our Kerrys who commit atrocities - we consider the circumstances they were in and the dangers that they faced etc. but are far less forgiving when it comes to others.
It is very possible that I am simply misinformed in this, as I did not really pay much attention to the situation until the prospect of American military intervention became imminent. But from what I’ve seen since then, I don’t see any conclusive reason to believe that SM is really the bad guy he is being made out to be.
It appears to me that the bombing of Yugoslavia was done more out of sheer arrogance than any other reason. There was a complicated struggle consisting of governments and thugs on both sides of the issue. The US & NATO dictated terms to SM and threatened to bomb him if he didn’t listen. It was expected that he would cave, and when he didn’t, the bombing had to begin.
Once the bombing began, it became increasingly targeted at the civilian population. The ostensible purpose was to undermine the military purposes to which these civilian entities were being put or might be put. But it reality, the purpose was to punish the Serbs for their support for SM, or as one of the British Dudes (I think it was Cook) said, that the Serbs be shown the consequences of their support for SM. Of course, any attacks on any civilians could be justified by these means. In this they were successful. At the end of the war it became evident that the Yugo military had not been severely impacted by the bombing. But the country was in shambles and the people were fed up with SM for allowing it to happen. Keeping up the same pressure got things to the present situation.
One thing that was striking during the bombing campaign was the fact that Serb “propaganda” was invariably more accurate than NATO’s line, which had to be constantly modified to allow for the fact that yes they did kill all those refugees etc.
After the war, SM gets arrested, ostensibly for corruption and crimes against the Serbian people. After a few months, this charge fizzles because (According to a NYT article that I read last week), evidence for these charges failed to materialize. IOW, in contrast to the usual order, in which you find evidence and then arrest, here the arrest comes first and evidence later. The real truth is, of course, that the arrest was nothing more than an attempt to appease the war’s victor’s.
So now for the Hague trial. Articles are already starting to be written about how it may be difficult to find evidence directly linking SM to any of the atrocities committed. This was alleged (in a NYT article I read) to be due to the “cowardice” of Milosevic, who avoided putting his name on orders of this sort. But in truth, it may be that there never was an organized campaign of the sort that Milosevic is alleged to have engaged in. It may be that such atrocities as occurred are of the type that happen in bitter struggles of this sort. (NATO bombing propaganda estimates of the number of Kosovo victims were revised sharply downwards after the war ended). It is now being suggested that in order to convict SM it will not be necessary to link him to the actual atrocities - it will be enough to show that forces who committed them were under his ultimate command and that he could have prevented them. Under this standard, many fine US presidents could have been convicted of war crimes for crimes committed by forces under their ultimate command in Korea, Vietnam and probably everyplace else that the US has fought (possibly including Yugoslavia).
Despite all this, I don’t think SM has a fair shot at prevailing in his trial. The entire purpose of the tribunal that he now faces is to convict people like himself, and they will likely not blow their big shot. (Beyond this, the judges are likely members of countries that he went to war with - correct me if I am wrong in this).
I may be wrong in much of this. But this is how things seem to me.