27.08.2009 Pyotr ISKENDEROV
Serbian Administration Betraying Karadzic? The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is bracing for the key trial in its history – the hearings for the case of former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina R. Karadjic are due to open in September. Presiding judge of the trial chamber A. Bonomi said the case was ready for the trial. Actually, Bonomi is a lame duck of the Hague Tribunal. According to the UN Security Council resolution 1877 of July, 2009 he is going to be discharged on his own request. His resignation makes the trial situation even more uncertain as Christian Chartier and other representatives of the Hague Tribunal are unable to clarify his future role in the trial of Karadzic. However, he is known to have prepared a set of written recommendations for the next president of the Tribunal laying out his vision of the coming hearings. The lack of confidence among the representatives of the Hague Tribunal and their desire to safeguard themselves from any unexpected developments do not come as a surprise. Judging by the information which has leaked from the Tribunal, quite a few international scandals are going to erupt during the trial of Karadzic. In his laconic interviews he says there are documents at his disposal unveiling the international mechanism behind the disintegration of Yugoslavia and, in particular, the scenario of organizing and maintaining the ethnic-civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was written by “the international centers of force” and implemented by Western powers in close cooperation with Muslim countries. Following Karadzic's request the Tribunal already had to officially ask the government of Pakistan about the country's weapons sales to Bosnian Muslims, which were carried out in breach of the UN embargo. Documents containing likewise inquiries are going to be submitted to Egypt and Jordan in the framework of a probe into their arms transactions with the Bosnian Muslims as well as into the activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina of such organizations as the Muslim Brothers and the Bosnians of Jordan. Most of the struggle during the trial is going to revolve around the 1995 Srebrenica events. The Western propaganda dwelled extensively on the theme and claimed that some 8,000 Muslims had been butched when the city was seized by the forces of the Serbs. Actually, exhumations of the remnants made it possible to document 800 deaths and the post-mortem forensic analysis produced no evidence concerning the nationalities of the victims and the circumstances under which they died. The Srebrenica events were condemned as genocide on the basis of allegations. In particular, in January, 2009 the European Parliament equated the Srebrenica events and the Holocaust, quite naturally drawing the ire of international Jewish organizations. The European Parliament's Resolution calls for nothing less than declaring July 11 the Srebrenica genocide remembrance day. What really surprises in the context is the position of the Serbian officialdom. The impression is that the Serbian leadership is making efforts to maximally distance itself from the trial regardless of the truth that it is not Karadzic but all Serbs, the Serbian statehood, and the Orthodox Christianity who are going to face it. During the more than six months since the above resolution was passed neither Serbia’s President B. Tadic nor the Serbian government or foreign ministry have expressed their opinions regarding the Karadzic case. Could the explanation be that they endlessly, using every imaginable opportunity, reiterate that integration into the EU is Serbia's strategic objective? Then it is no wonder that for the Serbian ruling elite the European Parliament holds the monopoly on truth even if it equates the Serbs' struggle for national survival and Hitler's crimes. The monstrous allegations based on falsifications and the statements made by Kradzic to expose the scheme somehow leave the official Belgrade unperturbed. In a recent interview to Reuters, Karadzic told he was not personally interested in the post of the President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, but acted strictly in the people's interests when serving as one. He expressed deep regrets concerning the war but said it was not the choice of the Serbs. All pertinent documents needed to formulate an explicitly defined position on the events that took place during the war in Bosnia and on the trial of Karadzic are available to the Serbian leadership. Among other materials there is the evidence collected by the Holland-based Srebrenica Historical Project. Its activists suggested that the Serbian parliament should pass a resolution assessing from the legal standpoint the resolutions of the European Parliament, the Hague Tribunal, and other international institutions which directly affect Serbia's national interests. It is suggested in the document draft to remind that thousands of Serb residents of the area surrounding Srebrenica were massacred by the Bosnian Muslim forces led by N. Oric (who was acquitted by the Hague Tribunal in July, 2008) and that their villages were destroyed and burned. The document also invokes operation Thunder jointly launched by the Croat and Muslim forces in the Krajina some two weeks after the Srebrenica events which led to a much higher death toll but never drew the attention of the European Parliament. One more point from the draft resolution suggested to the Serbian parliament by the Srebrenica Historical Project deserves to be cited. It calls the Serbian leadership to acknowledge the declarative position of the EU countries and institutions that the Serb nation belongs to Europe and their call to the Serbs to chose the European way, but to state that in case the EU talks to the Serbs in the language of undeserved insults and humiliations, the Serbian people can easily chose to altogether avoid this way. Obviously, the stance presents a severe threat to the current Serbian ruling elite coupled to the West by its special financial and political interests. This is the reason behind the cowardly attitude of the Serbian authorities in what concerns the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal in general and the Karadzic case in particular. Karadzic said in his final pre-trial interview that it would be possible to assess his contribution to history only after a long period of time. The current Serbian leadership's contribution to the history of Serbia can easily be assessed already at present – sadly, there is nothing to praise it for. _______________ Dr. Petr A. Iskenderov is a historian, the senior researcher at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science, and the Vremya Novstey international politics commentator. http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2420
