Incompetence the Hague Style

Today's initial appearance of the aged and exhausted Radovan Karadzic (his time on the run has not been kind to him) felt like a small consolation for the years of suffering he and his henchmen caused Bosnia. Today's short hearing disturbingly shows that the Hague prosecutors have not learned their lesson from the Milosevic trial: make it as short as possible. Milosevic's masterful prolonging of the process made the trial into a mockery and robbed the victims and historical justice of the final verdict. Milosevic may have died alone in a small, metal cell of the Hague tribunal, but he left this world engulfed in the mystery which he had worked tirelessly to build: was he indeed a victim of an international conspiracy? While the question seems ludicrous to most rational people, the question mark that marked the end of his life threw the whole Hague process into doubt.

Karadzic seems to intent to do exactly the same. First, he insisted on defending himself despite the fact he has "an invisible adviser" as he put it. This means he has a whole team of experienced Serbian lawyers who will be directing his defense behind the scenes. Secondly, the behavior of his lawyer and Karadzic himself made it clear that he intends to prolong the trial, a strategy that just might work given the fact that the UN mandate for the tribunal expires at the end of the year. For the Tribunal to continue its work past this deadline, another approval by the UN Security Council is needed and Russia has vowed to veto any attempt to prolong the jurisdiction of the tribunal, if only to spite the West. Karadzic knows this very well as it was shown on the night of his arrest when he said to one of the police officers guarding him: "If only I could have waited this out until the end of the year. The Tribunal would be shut, and I would turn myself in to the Serbian authorities."

This would not be so worrying if the Hague prosecutors were up to the task, and from what they have shown in the Milosevic trial and in the beginning of the Karadzic trial, they seem intent to screw this up! Even though they had 13 years to prepare a polished, proof-read indictment against Karadzic, the prosecution said today that it would "amend" the indictment, giving Karadzic 30 extra days to enter a plea! Just to enter a plea! And this was not even something Karadzic had orchestrated. It was the prosecution handing him extra time on a golden plate. Hopefully, the amending of the indictment means that they will try him for each charge separately (this way his siege of Sarajevo would be dealt with separately from the Srebrenica genocide), making it possible to bring out several verdicts, for each charge in the indictment. But even if this is so, why the hell did they wait until today to announce this!

In the meantime, as he laughs in the face of international justice and any sense of human decency, Karadzic will be enjoying the amenities of the Hague Hilton: daily access to a range of newspapers in Serbo-Croatian; a separate kitchen for him and his inmate buddies in case they want to prepare their own traditional Serbian meals and not eat Hague food; a personal doctor; and even a conjugal bedroom where his wife (or his Belgrade mistress) can come and see him any time they want; they can also call him from 9-5 each day.

I am strongly supportive of international bodies of justice, such as the Hague tribunal, but the thought of this trial turning into another legal mess with no end in sight makes me think that it might have been better if the Serbian security forces had dropped Karadzic in downtown Sarajevo rather than a Belgrade jail. Of course, after cutting his hair and shaving his beard. Legal niceties aside, but a part of me thinks that this might have been a more just ending.