So, Radovan Karadzic is having his day in court here in The Hague. I have been following his Opening Statement in between editing draft chapters all morning; his overall defense seems be to a pretty classic ‘blame the victim’ approach (Karadzic: “Their conduct gave rise to our conduct, and that is 100% true”).
But the crimes he is charged with are not ones I “lived through” – obviously not directly, but also not indirectly the way I have with Darfur. So I thought that better than sharing my thoughts would be to share the thoughts of a dear friend in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muhamed Mesic. I wanted to know if Muhamed was following the hearing today; the following was what he wrote back and has given permission for me to post:
Didn’t he just say: “They’re trying to convict us for something we never did”? No, if [troops commanded by Karadzic and Mladic] didn’t “do” Markale, didn’t “do” Kapija (in Tuzla, on May 25, 1995), didn’t “do” Keraterm, Omarska and Manjača, didn’t “do” Godinjske Bare, didn’t “do” all the raped women and all the mass graves, didn’t ultimately “do” Srebrenica, it was either the Bosnian Muslims (and/or Croats) who did this themselves (in a very elevated, conspirative attack of masochism aimed at obviously demonising the Serb nation), or one must blame, say, the Borg or the Romulans (both of Star Trek fame).
And yes, we’ll bring experts to prove it, warp spaceship landing tracks which prove a Bosnian Muslim-Croat-Vatican-US-UN-Borg-Romulan conspiracy, experts who, my oh my, will prove that poor little old doctor Dabic just wanted peace, love, tolerance and freedom for all. And so he commanded his troops to practice lovingkindness, his troops like Ratko Mladic, who once commanded a certain Vukasinovic to turn this into action by opening “fire towards Velusici [a part of Sarajevo actually called Velesici] (…) as there aren’t many Serbs there (…) so that they [the Bosnian Muslims and Croats] can’t sleep and we spread their minds apart…”.
His “opening statement” – with the poor little old me arguments – is ridiculous to the point that it’s disgusting. What’s even more disgusting is that he’s trying to elevate himself as a martyr, a fighter for a just cause (how can raping women and slaughtering men, for Heaven’s sake, be a tool of a just cause?!!), a victim of an unfair global conspiracy (a new Milosevic of sorts). But then again, I guess nobody ever expected anything different. It’s not even refreshing or entertaining, and all dejavu in the ICTY courtroom. Which is why I’m not gonna spend the rest of this beautiful sunny March day by listening to it.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe in a fair and due trial of law. And I believe that Karadzic, like any other human being, has the right to present arguments against any accusations that may be made against him. Every human being is entitled to personal convictions, too, and that goes for Radovan Karadzic as well. This is almost as important as the decency to now, eighteen or more years later, stand by the “heroism” he then displayed and all the death, pain, havoc and mayhem it ultimately caused.
And as for me, I believe he made his opening statement in the hall of the Bosnian parliament in late 1991, when he cautioned that independence – today is, oddly enough, March 1, celebrated by (one half of) Bosnia and Herzegovina as independence day as it marks the anniversary of the 1992 referndum – would be taking “Bosnia and Herzegovina on the same path of hell and suffering Slovenia and Croatia have taken.” In another act of his lovingkindness, he cautioned that independence would take the “Muslim people into extinction.” Extinction by whom? Oh yes, I forgot. The Borg and the Romulans.
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