http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/hagu-j16_prn.shtml
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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
The Milosevic trial
Pro-western Bosnian Serb leader
given exceptional treatment
By Paul Mitchell
16 January 2003
Back to screen version | Send this link by email | Email the author
The favourable treatment given an indicted Bosnian
Serb war criminal underscores the hypocrisy of
western claims to be upholding standards of
international justice at The Hague.
In 2000, the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted former vice
president of the Republika Srpska (RS) Biljana Plavsic
for her role during the 1991-92 civil war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The charges included "genocide
and complicity in genocide; crimes against humanity
(five counts: extermination; murder; persecution on
political, racial and religious grounds; deportation and
inhumane acts); a grave breach of the Geneva
Convention (wilful killing) and violation of the laws or
customs of war (murder)."
In December 2002 Plavsic pled guilty to the charge of
political, racial and religious persecution and the
remaining charges were dropped. Tribunal judges will
issue a sentence this month. Defence lawyers are
arguing for eight years imprisonment rather than the
usual life sentence.
Several international politicians appeared in court as
character witnesses for Plavsic, including Carl Bildt,
former Swedish prime minister, co-chair of the
Dayton Agreement (that ended the Bosnian civil war
in 1995) and High Representative in Bosnia and the
current pro-western RS Prime Minister Milorad
Dodik.
More extraordinary was the appearance of Madeleine
Albright, former US secretary of state, as a common
witness (for the defence and prosecution) and US
diplomat Robert Frowick, former head of the Bosnia
mission of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as a defence witness.
Albright told the hearing that Plavsic was "someone
who changed tremendously for the good during the
difficult history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She
clearly was a member of the Bosnian Serb leadership
in the early days of the conflict. Over the months she
not only broke with the others, but she also became
instrumental in the implementation of the Dayton
Agreement. It can be said unequivocally that without
her support we would not have accomplished all that
we did."
The current US administration has refused to ratify
the International Criminal Court and previously
prevented US citizens from testifying at the ICTY (in
the event a precedent is set for its own officials being
charged with war crimes). It endorsed Albright's
appearance in this instance, however, because it is
keen to bring the ICTY proceedings to a speedy end
and prevent a full exposure of America's role in the
Balkans conflagration.
Although Plavsic's guilty plea has effectively blocked
full details of her dealings with US officials from
coming to light during the trial, there is no doubt she
was a key asset.
In the 1970s Plavsic spent two years in the US on a
Fulbright scholarship, mixing in Serb nationalist and
Christian Orthodox émigré circles. On her return to
Bosnia, she became dean of the Sarajevo University
Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics-an usual post
for someone who had refused to join the Yugoslav
Communist Party.
Indeed Plavsic spoke openly of her anticommunist
and pro-monarchist sentiments, praising Second
World War Chetnik fascist leader Dragoljub
Mihailovic for his efforts to "cleanse the future united
Serb lands of all enemies of Serbdom and Orthodoxy,
as well as of anti-national elements" (Srbija,
September 1992).
Plavsic was a co-founder of the Serbian Democratic
Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDS) in 1990 and
for the next two years-the period covered by the
indictment-she was a member of the collective
Presidency and served as president of the Council for
Protection of the Constitutional Order overseeing the
intelligence services.
During the disintegration of Yugoslavia along ethnic
lines, the SDS campaigned for the creation of a
separate Serb territory in Bosnia. In 1991 the SDS
proclaimed a Serb Autonomous Region and four Serb
Autonomous Districts-the "Serbian Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina"-and set up a separate
Bosnian Serb Assembly.
In May 1992 the Assembly formed an army
commanded by Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide
by The Hague, and Plavsic regularly toured the
frontlines during the Bosnian conflict hailing Mladic
as a national hero. She has also described the former
paramilitary leader Arkan, who committed some of
the worst atrocities of the Bosnian civil war, as "a Serb
hero. He's a real Serb-that's the kind of men we
need" ( On, November 1996).
Plavsic openly boasted of her extreme nationalism,
deriding Muslims as "genetically deformed material
that embraced Islam" ( Svet, September 1993), and
denouncing the then Yugoslav president Slobodan
Milosevic as a traitor to the Serbs who had
"surrendered Kosovo [to the Kosovar Albanians]."
She also condemned Milosevic for trying to get her to
sign the first Bosnian (Vance-Owen) peace plan and
then because he signed the Dayton Agreement.
At the time, Plavsic was the trusted ally of Radovan
Karadzic-also wanted by The Hague-serving as the
war-time Bosnian Serb leader's vice president until
1996 and then nominated by him as Republika Srpska
president when he stood down.
Contrary to Albright's testimony, Plavsic never
changed her aim of a Greater Serbia. Rather she
became convinced that this was only possible by
cooperating with the US-brokered Dayton Accord
that had partitioned the former Yugoslav republic into
two ethnically based entities-that of the Federation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (the Moslem-Croat alliance),
and the RS.
One of Albright's first acts as Clinton's newly
appointed secretary of state was to meet Plavsic in
June 1997, where she warned her that future
economic aid and political backing to the RS
depended upon full implementation of the accord.
What they agreed has never been made public, but the
events that followed have all the characteristics of a
coup d'état encouraged by the high-level US
representatives-including US Senator Joseph Biden
and Special Envoys Richard Holbrooke and Robert
Gelbard-who flocked to Bosnia in the following
weeks to back Plavsic.
Within a month, Plavsic had launched an offensive
against her former associates Karadzic and Momcilo
Krajisnik, who opposed the Dayton Accord, using the
pretext of a campaign against corruption. Plavsic
suspended the Assembly and called for new elections.
Acting on secret indictments from the ICTY, British
special forces arrested Plavsic's opponents. The new
High Representative Carlos Westendorp ordered
NATO troops to replace police chiefs loyal to Karadzic
and hand over pro-Karadzic TV stations to Plavsic's
supporters. Rallies by Karadzic's supporters were
banned and only OSCE-approved candidates were
eligible to stand for election. Millions of dollars were
given to municipalities loyal to Plavsic. The
Western-backed Milorad Dodik was voted prime
minister after opposition members had left, following
the assembly's adjournment. NATO troops
surrounded the assembly to ensure a "peaceful
transition". Planned presidential elections were
delayed.
David Binder in the Washington Times (August 29,
1997) was moved to point out, "Mrs. Plavsic could not
possibly win Republika Srpska elections unless they
were rigged by the United States; she has virtually no
constituency and no party organisation."
In December 1997, Clinton also met with Plavsic.
Clinton reported later that they had held "a very open
discussion about the situation which she faces in
Republic of Srpska and the importance that we place
on her support and implementation of the Dayton
process and the work that she is doing."
Soon thereafter media reports suggested that the
ICTY had cancelled a warrant for Plavsic's arrest.
The ICTY Prosecution issued "the clearest possible
statement that Biljana Plavsic has never been indicted
by this Tribunal nor has any warrant of arrest ever
been issued by this Tribunal for her arrest" and
rejected the suggestion that the Tribunal and its
prosecutor were "influenced for political reasons to
withdraw a warrant of arrest in respect of Biljana
Plavsic."
Albright visited Bosnia again in August 1998 to give
her support to Plavsic's presidential election
campaign. Again, candidates were disqualified by
OSCE supervisors and bribes offered. Albright toured
an electrical power station with Plavsic and Dodik
reminding Bosnia's voters that they relied on
electricity supplied by US aid and promised $100
million more in aid if they voted the right way.
However, Plavsic suffered a resounding defeat in the
elections by the Serbian Radical Party candidate
Nikola Poplasen, and further defeats in local elections
in April 2000 forced her resignation.
In January 2001, ICTY officials announced that
Plavsic had voluntarily surrendered after receiving a
"signal ... from United States and British diplomatic
circles in Bosnia" that the tribunal had issued a secret
warrant for her arrest the previous year. At her first
appearance in The Hague Plavsic pled "not guilty on
all counts".
Prosecutors stressed there had been "no negotiations,
except over the technical and logistical details of
surrender" and any deal such as plea-bargaining was
not "an option open to them".. However, Plavsic left
the United Nations detention unit in September 2001
after several closed court sessions and returned to
Serbia on bail.
Plavsic's favourable treatment stands in sharp
contrast to that handed out to Milosevic, despite their
similar nationalist backgrounds. Although Plavsic had
previously said she would not testify against Milosevic
her statement in court in December implicated the
former president in the central charge the prosecution
have been trying to prove against him-that he
masterminded the campaign of ethnic cleansing in the
Balkans. Plavsic told the court that the "ethnic
separation of the peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina
was planned and executed in cooperation with the
authorities of Serbia by permanent and forced removal
of non-Serbs, including numerous crimes, from the
territories the Serbs considered their own."
Whilst blaming others for ordering such crimes,
Plavsic admitted to the tribunal that she had known of
the ethnic cleansing directed against non-Serbs, but
"at the time I convinced myself that this [was] a
matter of survival and self-defence".
Albright also told the tribunal that "obviously, she
[Plavsic] was involved in horrendous things" during
the Balkans conflict but praised her role in upholding
the accord.
The Hague supported such reasoning. Announcing
that it would drop the more serious charges against
her, Judge Richard May remarked, "Very well. The
position is this: Mrs. Plavsic, we're going to take a
wholly exceptional course in your case because these
are wholly exceptional circumstances."
When it comes to human rights abuses, exceptions
are indeed made for those who have shown their
willingness to act as loyal appendages of NATO
foreign policy.
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
The Milosevic trial
Pro-western Bosnian Serb leader
given exceptional treatment
By Paul Mitchell
16 January 2003
Back to screen version | Send this link by email | Email the author
The favourable treatment given an indicted Bosnian
Serb war criminal underscores the hypocrisy of
western claims to be upholding standards of
international justice at The Hague.
In 2000, the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted former vice
president of the Republika Srpska (RS) Biljana Plavsic
for her role during the 1991-92 civil war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The charges included "genocide
and complicity in genocide; crimes against humanity
(five counts: extermination; murder; persecution on
political, racial and religious grounds; deportation and
inhumane acts); a grave breach of the Geneva
Convention (wilful killing) and violation of the laws or
customs of war (murder)."
In December 2002 Plavsic pled guilty to the charge of
political, racial and religious persecution and the
remaining charges were dropped. Tribunal judges will
issue a sentence this month. Defence lawyers are
arguing for eight years imprisonment rather than the
usual life sentence.
Several international politicians appeared in court as
character witnesses for Plavsic, including Carl Bildt,
former Swedish prime minister, co-chair of the
Dayton Agreement (that ended the Bosnian civil war
in 1995) and High Representative in Bosnia and the
current pro-western RS Prime Minister Milorad
Dodik.
More extraordinary was the appearance of Madeleine
Albright, former US secretary of state, as a common
witness (for the defence and prosecution) and US
diplomat Robert Frowick, former head of the Bosnia
mission of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as a defence witness.
Albright told the hearing that Plavsic was "someone
who changed tremendously for the good during the
difficult history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She
clearly was a member of the Bosnian Serb leadership
in the early days of the conflict. Over the months she
not only broke with the others, but she also became
instrumental in the implementation of the Dayton
Agreement. It can be said unequivocally that without
her support we would not have accomplished all that
we did."
The current US administration has refused to ratify
the International Criminal Court and previously
prevented US citizens from testifying at the ICTY (in
the event a precedent is set for its own officials being
charged with war crimes). It endorsed Albright's
appearance in this instance, however, because it is
keen to bring the ICTY proceedings to a speedy end
and prevent a full exposure of America's role in the
Balkans conflagration.
Although Plavsic's guilty plea has effectively blocked
full details of her dealings with US officials from
coming to light during the trial, there is no doubt she
was a key asset.
In the 1970s Plavsic spent two years in the US on a
Fulbright scholarship, mixing in Serb nationalist and
Christian Orthodox émigré circles. On her return to
Bosnia, she became dean of the Sarajevo University
Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics-an usual post
for someone who had refused to join the Yugoslav
Communist Party.
Indeed Plavsic spoke openly of her anticommunist
and pro-monarchist sentiments, praising Second
World War Chetnik fascist leader Dragoljub
Mihailovic for his efforts to "cleanse the future united
Serb lands of all enemies of Serbdom and Orthodoxy,
as well as of anti-national elements" (Srbija,
September 1992).
Plavsic was a co-founder of the Serbian Democratic
Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDS) in 1990 and
for the next two years-the period covered by the
indictment-she was a member of the collective
Presidency and served as president of the Council for
Protection of the Constitutional Order overseeing the
intelligence services.
During the disintegration of Yugoslavia along ethnic
lines, the SDS campaigned for the creation of a
separate Serb territory in Bosnia. In 1991 the SDS
proclaimed a Serb Autonomous Region and four Serb
Autonomous Districts-the "Serbian Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina"-and set up a separate
Bosnian Serb Assembly.
In May 1992 the Assembly formed an army
commanded by Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide
by The Hague, and Plavsic regularly toured the
frontlines during the Bosnian conflict hailing Mladic
as a national hero. She has also described the former
paramilitary leader Arkan, who committed some of
the worst atrocities of the Bosnian civil war, as "a Serb
hero. He's a real Serb-that's the kind of men we
need" ( On, November 1996).
Plavsic openly boasted of her extreme nationalism,
deriding Muslims as "genetically deformed material
that embraced Islam" ( Svet, September 1993), and
denouncing the then Yugoslav president Slobodan
Milosevic as a traitor to the Serbs who had
"surrendered Kosovo [to the Kosovar Albanians]."
She also condemned Milosevic for trying to get her to
sign the first Bosnian (Vance-Owen) peace plan and
then because he signed the Dayton Agreement.
At the time, Plavsic was the trusted ally of Radovan
Karadzic-also wanted by The Hague-serving as the
war-time Bosnian Serb leader's vice president until
1996 and then nominated by him as Republika Srpska
president when he stood down.
Contrary to Albright's testimony, Plavsic never
changed her aim of a Greater Serbia. Rather she
became convinced that this was only possible by
cooperating with the US-brokered Dayton Accord
that had partitioned the former Yugoslav republic into
two ethnically based entities-that of the Federation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (the Moslem-Croat alliance),
and the RS.
One of Albright's first acts as Clinton's newly
appointed secretary of state was to meet Plavsic in
June 1997, where she warned her that future
economic aid and political backing to the RS
depended upon full implementation of the accord.
What they agreed has never been made public, but the
events that followed have all the characteristics of a
coup d'état encouraged by the high-level US
representatives-including US Senator Joseph Biden
and Special Envoys Richard Holbrooke and Robert
Gelbard-who flocked to Bosnia in the following
weeks to back Plavsic.
Within a month, Plavsic had launched an offensive
against her former associates Karadzic and Momcilo
Krajisnik, who opposed the Dayton Accord, using the
pretext of a campaign against corruption. Plavsic
suspended the Assembly and called for new elections.
Acting on secret indictments from the ICTY, British
special forces arrested Plavsic's opponents. The new
High Representative Carlos Westendorp ordered
NATO troops to replace police chiefs loyal to Karadzic
and hand over pro-Karadzic TV stations to Plavsic's
supporters. Rallies by Karadzic's supporters were
banned and only OSCE-approved candidates were
eligible to stand for election. Millions of dollars were
given to municipalities loyal to Plavsic. The
Western-backed Milorad Dodik was voted prime
minister after opposition members had left, following
the assembly's adjournment. NATO troops
surrounded the assembly to ensure a "peaceful
transition". Planned presidential elections were
delayed.
David Binder in the Washington Times (August 29,
1997) was moved to point out, "Mrs. Plavsic could not
possibly win Republika Srpska elections unless they
were rigged by the United States; she has virtually no
constituency and no party organisation."
In December 1997, Clinton also met with Plavsic.
Clinton reported later that they had held "a very open
discussion about the situation which she faces in
Republic of Srpska and the importance that we place
on her support and implementation of the Dayton
process and the work that she is doing."
Soon thereafter media reports suggested that the
ICTY had cancelled a warrant for Plavsic's arrest.
The ICTY Prosecution issued "the clearest possible
statement that Biljana Plavsic has never been indicted
by this Tribunal nor has any warrant of arrest ever
been issued by this Tribunal for her arrest" and
rejected the suggestion that the Tribunal and its
prosecutor were "influenced for political reasons to
withdraw a warrant of arrest in respect of Biljana
Plavsic."
Albright visited Bosnia again in August 1998 to give
her support to Plavsic's presidential election
campaign. Again, candidates were disqualified by
OSCE supervisors and bribes offered. Albright toured
an electrical power station with Plavsic and Dodik
reminding Bosnia's voters that they relied on
electricity supplied by US aid and promised $100
million more in aid if they voted the right way.
However, Plavsic suffered a resounding defeat in the
elections by the Serbian Radical Party candidate
Nikola Poplasen, and further defeats in local elections
in April 2000 forced her resignation.
In January 2001, ICTY officials announced that
Plavsic had voluntarily surrendered after receiving a
"signal ... from United States and British diplomatic
circles in Bosnia" that the tribunal had issued a secret
warrant for her arrest the previous year. At her first
appearance in The Hague Plavsic pled "not guilty on
all counts".
Prosecutors stressed there had been "no negotiations,
except over the technical and logistical details of
surrender" and any deal such as plea-bargaining was
not "an option open to them".. However, Plavsic left
the United Nations detention unit in September 2001
after several closed court sessions and returned to
Serbia on bail.
Plavsic's favourable treatment stands in sharp
contrast to that handed out to Milosevic, despite their
similar nationalist backgrounds. Although Plavsic had
previously said she would not testify against Milosevic
her statement in court in December implicated the
former president in the central charge the prosecution
have been trying to prove against him-that he
masterminded the campaign of ethnic cleansing in the
Balkans. Plavsic told the court that the "ethnic
separation of the peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina
was planned and executed in cooperation with the
authorities of Serbia by permanent and forced removal
of non-Serbs, including numerous crimes, from the
territories the Serbs considered their own."
Whilst blaming others for ordering such crimes,
Plavsic admitted to the tribunal that she had known of
the ethnic cleansing directed against non-Serbs, but
"at the time I convinced myself that this [was] a
matter of survival and self-defence".
Albright also told the tribunal that "obviously, she
[Plavsic] was involved in horrendous things" during
the Balkans conflict but praised her role in upholding
the accord.
The Hague supported such reasoning. Announcing
that it would drop the more serious charges against
her, Judge Richard May remarked, "Very well. The
position is this: Mrs. Plavsic, we're going to take a
wholly exceptional course in your case because these
are wholly exceptional circumstances."
When it comes to human rights abuses, exceptions
are indeed made for those who have shown their
willingness to act as loyal appendages of NATO
foreign policy.
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved