Comment of DJGB Popadich on MIsha Glenny`s article
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/glas_dijaspore/2004-02-20.html
Srdacno, i Best Wishes,
DJGB Popadich
Feb., 18, 2003

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IHT- February 16, 2004.
Misha Glenny
Arming the radicals

LONDON Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, announced last week that Belgrade had become a safe haven for fugitives. Even Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader indicted by the Tribunal, has now found refuge in the Serbian capital, she said. Del Ponte offered no evidence for her dramatic claim except to say that it came from a confidential source.
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The statement comes at a delicate time in Serbian politics as leaders of the so-called "democratic bloc" make a last-ditch attempt to form a minority government that would save the country from new elections. New elections could well further bolster Serbia's hard-line nationalists, the Radicals, already the biggest party in Parliament and committed to territorial expansion.
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The government in Belgrade is exasperated by Del Ponte's latest statement. Since assuming power from the former dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, in October 2000 after a popular uprising, the Democratic Party-led government has handed over several key indictees - including Milosevic himself.
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Every time Del Ponte makes such claims, the government warns that this strengthens the resurgent Radicals, whose notorious leader, Vojislav Seselj, awaits trial in The Hague. The Radicals' rise in popularity is chiefly the result of the lack of visible economic progress.
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But Del Ponte's actions reinforce another popular belief, that Serbia has been singled out for punitive treatment by the international community, a fear that the Radicals use to make considerable political capital.
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A Western intelligence officer voiced a second concern to me when he described how hunting Karadzic is "like hunting a stag." "We have got close to him several times only for the whole operation to be ruined because Del Ponte starts jumping up and down and shouting 'I can see him! I can see him!' before we can strike."
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Del Ponte has frequently pointed out that she does not interfere in politics, because her role is exclusively judicial. This is fair enough. But for her not to recognize that her often unsubstantiated public claims have an enormous political impact throughout the former Yugoslavia is naïve to the point of irresponsibility.
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The question she should be asking herself is this: Does my public statement about Karadzic advance my goal of seeing him in The Hague? Or will it prove a valuable fillip to the Radicals in their quest to enter government in Belgrade? If the latter is more likely than the former - and I would aver that it most definitely is - then both the region and the international community potentially has a very big problem on its hands.
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The current political uncertainty in Serbia takes place as the United Nations is desperately trying to keep afloat talks that will eventually seek a solution to the thorny issue of Kosovo's final constitutional status - whether it will become independent or remain in some respect part of Serbia.
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If the political mood in Belgrade darkens or if the Radicals enter the government, then the United Nations and the international community can kiss any progress in Kosovo goodbye.
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This is not a prospect that the UN administration or the NATO-led KFOR troops there especially relish because the Albanians of Kosovo are becoming extremely frustrated with the lack of progress and, in the absence of a Serbian overlord, focus their unhappiness on the international regime in the province.
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A shift to the right in Serbia would also place a significant burden on the country's already tortured negotiations with the European Union over its path to modernization and European integration. One thing that nobody needs at the moment is a wounded, unstable Serbia and an angry, impatient Kosovo. Mixed together, these two elements would form a highly volatile compound.
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There is no doubt that democratic and reform-minded politicians in Serbia can help themselves and their country immensely by cutting out the unseemly squabbling that has characterized their lamentable attempts to form a government over the past six weeks.
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But this is also a time when everybody in the international community should be engaging in a positive and encouraging manner with Belgrade in order to ensure Serbia's continuing commitment to reform and democracy, and its long-term cooperation with institutions like the War Crimes Tribunal.
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Britain and the United States have in the past expressed their concerns in private to Del Ponte and her employers at the United Nations about her public appearances. Washington and London have also been the toughest in their insistence that Serbia, Croatia and other former Yugoslav countries hand over their indicted war criminals. Now there are signs that other officials in the European Union are also growing worried about the impact of Del Ponte on regional stability.
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This is not a call on the chief prosecutor to resign, nor do I question the important work of the tribunal. But it is an urgent appeal for Del Ponte to take a hard look at her working style and its impact on southeastern Europe.
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The writer's most recent book is "The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999." He is director of SEE Change 2004, which promotes regional cooperation in the Balkans.

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Comment:

Surprise, Surprise!

Surprise, Surprise! The book royalties are over and it looks ‘The Balkan: etc.,’ is a sale’s item no more. Sadly redundant, overstretched, confused, wordy, boring above all, it is a little wonder if it gets a serious reader at all; unless would be an angry Arbalist care to keep it up, dust free on the shelf.

In the past we had a pleasure of enduring the typically British sermons. The one in a long lineup is Captain Leake’s report of 1806; Seton-Watson culture laments of 1911; MG venomous diatribes of 1914, to Blair’s WMD torments of the present, chance to kill legally still stands: the favourite pastimes in islands’ political psyche, top to bottom.

This week of February 16, a charitable Herald has opened the door, and Misha coughs through again. He does not cry monster-crow-army, but a zealous tribunal losing its jest. Laughable a bit even so the institution is in a need of some fresh infuse, from whom but from Misha?

To begin, Misha does not suggest the Tribunal stop the game that Keystone Police Force so playfully mastered for a century. At the end of a rolling chain he wants to see ‘this and that’ only, hanged for good. To this, an OS and his fellowship ought to stay aside, as the WMD swagger is not over yet.

If a biology course might be of some help, Misha is not slow to count that in. Nothing personal, re the Prosecutors or the whole of Tribunal retirement, he would like to see them go. This or the other way the clock is ticking for both, and before the bell’s toll he seems ready for another long shot. Perhaps, ... perhaps!

To the Arbalists Misha has seemingly attached himself by the force of Byronic nostalgia. Did he get it? Where Via Egnatia and the dry bone arts flow, no questions asked? Then, if these ‘extremely frustrated’ Arbalists, if they fell short of the mark: a hundred more churches, graveyards, homes, people of old, ... to vandalize, play arson, pillage, bulldozing, bombing, and homicide; would it be Misha, the one to give himself up as collateral, in the name of the British Naval Supremacy?

We, numb and dumb, unable to deliver a hundred new churches on a short notice, regrettably we must default. In such a case we owe a big and humble, ... So Sorry! Via ... Ignominia! -- to the Tribunals and Reformists, Internationalists and Occultists, and to Misha Glenny.

DJGB Popadich
Feb., 18, 2004.

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