Criminals & Collaborators: Random thoughts on Karadzic’s capture

It was one of those synchronistic mornings: i put on Radiolina, sat down for the morning news scan and, lo and behold, Radovan Karadzic has been arrested. As reactions from various European entities slowly began to accumulate and the details of his arrest and litanies of his crimes started popping up on all international news sites, i’ve got Manu Chao filling the air space with POLITIK KILLS and i’m just thinking how true that is, no matter which angle of time one chooses to consider things from.

Various EU personages – notably all from the West of Europe – were lauding the Serbian government for catching this guy not merely because of his crimes, which are well-known and well-documented, but because of the commitment demonstrated in meeting a condition set by the EU for Serbia to move towards accession into their fracturing ranks. The same countries that basically let Karadzic carry on with his siege of Sarajevo for years and vacated Sebrenica just in time to miss the massacre, are now patting President Tadic on the back, saying ‘job well done’ by which i suppose they mean ‘thanks for catching a man who made our own negligence more blatant than we’re ever going to fully admit.’ Call me cynical, but everything i’ve ever read about what was happening under Karadzic’s vicious watch makes it abundantly clear that these events were happening on the EU/NATO’s watch, as well. If inaction is a form of action, then letting a war criminal execute his plans has got to qualify on some level as also being a criminal act. Need i add that some of these same individuals – Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown – are still digesting the 18 course meals they enjoyed alongside George Bush in Japan? Excuse me while i go ask my friends from Fallujah whether they agree that the worst of the world’s war criminals is finally behind bars.

However, far be it for me to rain on the parties underway in Sarajevo and elsewhere, since there is definitely cause for celebration. Aleksander Hemon wrote an excellent piece for Balkan Insight about the capture and had this to say about Karadzic:

He fully existed only when organising the genocide, he was invisible and irrelevant before it, and has been invisible ever since. Karadzic’s star shone only against the dark skies of a vast crime. This is why Karadzic is still popular among the Serbs in the Republika Srpska and Serbia proper: like a mythological being, he came out of nowhere to do what needed to be done—wipe out the “Turks” and create an eternal, heavenly kingdom, completing the mythological job started hundreds of years ago in the Battle of Kosovo. He did not care what the world might say—for the world is but a minor distraction in the eternal Serbian struggle to survive and live as the celestial people; he was ever willing to sacrifice even his moral well being for the people.

That there are still people who would publicly support Karadzic boggles the mind a bit, but even the most misguided mythological quests take a long time to lose their appeal (again, i’d note here W’s self-perception of being a superhero tasked with catching Islamic ‘evildoers’). According to al-Jazeera, "Heavily armed Serbian security forces were deployed around the war-crimes court in Belgrade where Karadzic was taken and dozens of Karadzic supporters were reportedly seen gathering near the building chanting 'Karadzic Hero!' and 'Tadic Traitor!' Several were arrested after attacking reporters." Really, what is there to say about this except that these folks should hunker down for the long haul, because their hero is most definitely going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Innocent until proven guilty? Hey, at least he's getting a trial, which is more than one can say for the 10,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.

In the film 9'11"01, a c ollection of 11 meditations on 9/11- all 11 minutes long – the contribution from Danis Tanovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina has always stuck in my mind as a very realistic look at where we are in the history of human affairs… or, perhaps, where we’ve always been? Tanovic’s piece shows the women of Sebrenica holding their daily march asking for justice; at a minimum, asking for answers. There are just a handful of onlookers, it seems little more than an meditative act. After watching them parade in funereal fashion with their signs and despairing lamentations, we see some of them in a little restaurant watching the news reports of the WTC attacks - in the most subdued way, as if they were seeing a car accident. Although the film concludes with these women standing again in the town square to express their sympathy for the newest victims of unbridled violence, the message seems pretty clear: ‘Hello? America? We are all suffering here. This is not a novel situation, it is simply more of the same.’

For these women - like so many others in the world where terrible atrocities continue to unfold, e.g. Burma - whatever happens to Karadzic is only going to put a dent in their grief. This is not to say that he shouldn’t be brought in shackles to The Hague, that the thousands of people who’ve survived his attempted genocide should be deprived of watching his demise in the official historical records. Personally, i would even suggest that before they lock him up for good and throw away the key, he should be made to run a gauntlet in which every survivor, or surviving family member, has the opportunity to spit on him and scream whatever they like in his face. Let’s just remember that war crimes trials are political trials, in which those most victimized are never those who hold the most power. Yes, there are more of these criminals from the Bosnian war still to be tracked down, and i do sincerely hope they are tracked down; it’s never too late to punish an evildoer - that includes Mssrs. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz. i suppose what i’m trying to say here is that as always, we must remain ever vigilant and remember that those who may be the most vocal admirers of the criminal court’s actions now may also be those most fearful of having their own crimes likewise turn up in the dock.