Ignoring The Big Elephant: Carla del Ponte’s Book
Carla del Ponte is coming out with a book, but you would never know that from the lack of coverage in the Western media. It’s an odd story to over-look in the international headlines: former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) writes a tell all book. It would appear that truth, that first casualty of war, is far from dead in the Balkans; it’s just a badly injured victim locked up in a hospital under constant threat of having a pillow suffocate what claims contrary to popular myth are made. And Ms. del Ponte has just poked at a sore spot.
Undoubtedly, Ms. del Ponte’s book comes at a particularly annoying time for the international community. Kosovo was recently made independent with much fanfare; NATO welcomed Albania and Croatia into its fold; and Ramush Haradinaj, former Prime Minister of Kosovo, was acquitted on war crimes charges. Who in the West would want to hear of Ms. del Ponte’s allegations that Serbian men were kidnapped by Albanians to harvest human organs or that gathering evidence against NATO’s campaign in Serbia was made impossible? Such admissions, from one who enjoyed the high profile with the ICTY that Ms. del Ponte did, are certainly embarrassing.
Ignoring Ms. del Ponte’s book, however, won’t make the problems of partiality inherent in the International Court, indeed in the international system, disappear. Ms. del Ponte, who was a poster-prosecutor for going after alleged Serbian war criminals, is perhaps best informed to make the claims she has: there was pressure to ensure that desired outcomes did, in fact, come to fruition.
Ms. del Ponte’s attempts to prosecute Albanians involved in the organ trafficking ring were repeatedly thwarted by the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); allegations supported by her former assistant Florance Artman. Ms. del Ponte’s hopes of investigating and potentially bringing NATO to court for its role in attacking Serbia were dashed, stating that ”…I was informed that I became a persona non grata at the Pentagon. Until 2005 I could not interview anyone there,” as a result of her intentions.
These are not the only difficulties indicated by workers at the ICTY. Regarding the case of Ramush Haradinaj, Ms. del Ponte faced political pressure from Western diplomats in bringing the former Prime Minister to court due to claims that indicting a Kosovar politician would destabilize the region. (An interesting claim given the eagerness of the West to prosecute Slobodan Milosevic, indeed, bombing Serbia in order to bring about his fall not to mention the numerous Bosnian-Serb political figures indicted.) Judges as well as prosecutors on the Haradinaj case complained about the difficulties of having nearly 100 witnesses testify, of which the identity of 34 were hidden from the public. Several witnesses for the prosecution were killed including Tahir Zemaj, his son and nephew who were shot during the investigation and Kujtim Berisha, who was hit by a car in Montenegro two weeks before the trial.
The unwillingness to reassess the situation in the Balkans, and perhaps more importantly the Western role in those conflicts, smacks of a bureaucratic and political stubbornness to hold steadfast on a crash course. The precipitous side-taking of Western powers in the conflicts, which were not beyond preventing before Germany, followed by others, acknowledged Slovenian and Croatian independence, was quite likely the spark that ignited the powder keg, which was the Yugoslavian economic and political troubles of the 1980s and early 1990s.
In an attempt to absolve itself of any involvement, the West sought and found a group to blame for the conflicts: the Serbs. This appears much to be the case considering the disproportionate number of Serbs and Montenegrins who have been brought up on war crimes versus Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians as well as the consistently negative imaging of Serbs in the Western media. There is no other way to explain this unbalance. Having been to the region and seen the destruction, it is so very apparent that atrocities were committed by all sides against all sides. Ms. del Ponte is not the first high-level person to suggest that our approach to the Balkans has been biased.
Having backed the Albanians and bestowed upon them the status of victims, the international community, set in its course, is determined to prove this to be the case. Difficulties, as reported by Ms. del Ponte and others who have worked at the ICTY, arise when the current course is challenged or cannot be supported because facts contradict prevailing perceptions. Instead of admitting an error in judgement, the system charges along bullishly. It’s a bureaucratic problem; changing course is difficult for the big machine and despite the pending disasters staying the course is always the preferred option. It’s easier and poses fewer threats of implication in ugly affairs. If I had a dollar for every ill-conceived measure or plan pushed ignorantly forward by bureaucrats with the support of politicians, I’d be a very rich woman.
Such is the nature of the beast, that big elephant in the middle of the room. Shh! Maybe if we just ignore the prejudice of the international system it might all just go away.
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