Balkanalysis.com

Milosevic to the West: Be Careful What You Wish For

For the prosecutors at the Hague, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic represents a golden opportunity. For years, they have salivated at the thought of bringing to justice the reviled ex-Yugoslav president.

Indeed, for those already convinced of Milosevic’s guilt, the recently-begun war crimes trial is a mere formality, one which they must wait out impatiently.

Yet the ferocious anti-Milosevic campaign in the media, both now and in the past, may actually play right into his hands.

Popularly perceived as a latter-day Hitler, Milosevic is clearly not worried about the further blackening of his name.

Thus his unpredictable, sarcastic courtroom orations, which have already taxed the patience of presiding judge Richard May.

Yet Slobo’s Socratic performance is clearly not just a prank. Whereas the Greek gadfly chose to drink hemlock rather than live with his accusors, Milosevic seems to relish putting them on the spot.

He has refuted his image as the Devil- by adopting that of devil’s advocate. Milosevic, presumably, wants to live to fight another day.

And indeed, his enemies may just have given him the weapon with which to do so.

In granting Milosevic a podium, the Hague Tribunal has risked opening up a veritable Pandora’s Box, in regards to the West’s Balkan interventions.

In a trial that is expected to last two years, Milosevic will have plenty of time to try and tarnish NATO’s legacy. For figures such as Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Tony Blair and General Wesley Clark, who would like to remembered for their good intentions, this must be a disconcerting thought indeed.

If not really understood, Milosevic’s new strategy has at least been noted. In the last few weeks, dispatches from the Hague have smugly feigned disbelief at his comments.

Milosevic is so clearly guilty, they imply, that the publication of his testimony will provoke nothing more than a wry chuckle.

Yet though Milosevic will inevitably be sentenced on at least some of the charges, he may be the one who laughs last.

Simply put, Slobodan Milosevic has absolutely nothing to lose. For his accusors, on the other hand, everything is at stake. While the trial will certainly dredge up many details which Milosevic would prefer to forget, it will also raise to the spotlight many things- such as NATO’s use of depleted uranium, and its killing of both Albanian and Serbian civilians- for which Clinton, Blair and Co. would rather not be remembered. Especially if NATO’s “mistaken� bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade again faces scrutiny, more than personal reputations may be at stake.

Speculation was rampant at the time that this was a veiled threat to Serb-friendly China. As one American soldier in Turkey told me, “something that big does not just happenby mistake. We knew what we were doing when we took that thing out.�

Yet Milosevic is not merely out to embarrass. He clearly believes that he is right. His prospects largely depend on how his fundamental arguments are taken. Whereas the prosecution claims Milosevic was bent on a campaign of territorial aggrandizement, he argues that he was swept up in a complex, multi-faceted civil war.

In this he might be aided by recently published telephone transcripts, secretly recorded five years ago by Croatian intelligence. The transcripts portray a Milosevic who was on cordial terms with Bill Clinton, and who looked on the Bosnian Serbs as a nuisance and an obstacle to peace. This characterization is fundamentally at odds with the prosecution’s depiction of the Bosnian Serbs as proxy army of Milosevic.

In response to the “Greater Serbia� charge, Milosevic will undoubtedly bring up the “Greater Albania� championed by the KLA and its successors in Macedonia. One of these, the Albanian National Army, has declared it will fight for “total conquest.�

As such, Milosevic can easily point out the negative fallout of NATO intervention. He has already signalled he will do this on two fronts: the nurturing of organized crime, and increasing Islamic terrorism in the Balkans.

According to recent reports citing Swiss police, the Albanian mafia controls close to 90% of the European heroin market; this money is now being used partially to buy weapons for Albanian militants active in Macedonia, Kosovo and South Serbia.

Furthermore, Bosnia and Kosovo, both of which benefitted from NATO intervention, have been linked with Islamic terrorism. A recent American sweep operation in the former state netted several alleged Al Qaeda members, and a terrorist plot to blow up the American embassy in Sarajevo was narrowly averted last Fall.

In Kosovo and Macedonia, persistent reports have claimed the presence of Arab mujahedin. The NATO war in Kosovo, meant to be an antiseptic operation without “side effects,� instead spilled over into Macedonia- spawning a crisis which threatens still. If Milosevic is able to portray NATO’s legacy in this unflattering light, he may achieve a moral victory.

Whether or not he goes free, he will have undermined the validity of Western intervention- in the process indicting everyone involved with it. Calling the West’s bluff is a risky, impetuous strategy- which is exactly why it may work, for a disgraced politician with nothing left to lose.

The key to how this Balkan drama plays out, perhaps, will be presiding judge Richard May. The British judge’s disdain for the defendent is already apparent. If May does not allow Milosevic all of the evidence and witnesses he demands, certainly no one will complain.

In this sense, Milosevic must walk a fine line between presenting a robust case, on the one hand, and endangering his whole testimony by offending the judge, on the other. The press has also parodied Milosevic’s self-appointed role as the victim in the break-up of Yugoslavia. By playing for sympathies that clearly aren’t there, Milosevic may make a difficult case even more vulnerable.

With nothing to lose, and faced with an array of opponents deeply conscious of securing their own legacy, Milosevic remains unperturbed. Presumed guilty until proven innocent, Slobodan Milosevic is, paradoxically, in his strongest position since his 1989 inauguration. The prosecution would like to link that event, and the allegedly “inflammatory� speech Milosevic uttered then on the historic battlefield of Kosovo Polje, with the beginnings of one man’s ten-year mission to single-handedly destroy the Balkans. Such a grandiose charge could only be supported, to be sure, by the production of a great many witnesses.

This is precisely what Milosevic has asked for, in demanding that Clinton, Blair and other involved parties show up.

Slobodan Milosevic would like to show that by asking for justice, the Hague and its Western backers are in danger of getting just what they asked for. It will be interesting to see how things transpire.