Yesterday, Dr Radovan Karadzic, 69, the former leader of Republika Srpska, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina, was scheduled to have wound up his closing argument in his trial at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
The former psychiatrist turned politician turned New Age healer (the latter during 13 years on the run until his arrest in 2008) conducted his own defence against 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities, perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces, in the Bosnian war of the 1990s, against Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Croats, including the infamous massacre of more than 7,500 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.
The defendant was allocated 10 hours by the ICTY and up to the time of writing, he had denied ordering any killings, arguing that there was no evidence at all to convict him although, in a written statement, he had accepted “moral responsibility,” as a political leader, for crimes committed by Bosnian Serb troops and citizens. There was, however, no indication of remorse or any hint of the spirituality associated with the persona he had assumed while in hiding, during his lengthy oral presentation. According to a BBC report, he “seemed more like a politician outlining his policies than a war crimes suspect facing life in prison.”
One has to suppose that Dr Karadzic believes in the axiom of the Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, that war is the continuation of politics by other means. If so, this was the most extreme articulation of politics possible, as the Bosnian war was particularly horrifying for its inter-ethnic savagery and carnage, giving rise, moreover, to the notorious euphemism “ethnic cleansing,” the policy for which Dr Karadzic stands accused of being the “driving force” – the intellectual author, if you will. Paradoxically, for someone who accepts “moral responsibility,” Dr Karadzic appears to be a curiously amoral person.
The ICTY’s verdict is not expected for another year. Meanwhile, the legal case against Dr Karadzic appears to hinge on whether the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Bosnian Serb troops acted on their political leader’s orders. This follows two acquittals in 2012 and 2013 when the ICTY ruled that “specific direction” had to be proved with regard to the committing of atrocities and even in respect of the charge of “aiding and abetting” war crimes by military or paramilitary forces. It seems that “moral responsibility” or even complicity may not be enough to secure a conviction.
There are, of course, countless examples in history of soldiers and assorted underlings going beyond their remit to commit criminal acts to carry out the unspoken bidding of their leaders, whether to ingratiate themselves with said leaders or simply because of their own pathological compulsions. But the buck has to stop somewhere and it should stop at the top.
In the court of public opinion, with people already appalled by the gruesome revelations over the past two decades of the atrocities accompanying the Bosnian Serb policy of ethnic cleansing, for which the Bosnian Serb military leader, Ratko Mladic, is also facing trial and for which others, lower down the totem pole, have already been convicted and sentenced, it matters little how Dr Karadzic portrays himself. Nevertheless, it bears remembering that, as Jim Morrison of the 1960s rock group The Doors sang, people are strange. After all, to this day, there are some who would seek to absolve Adolf Hitler of any part in the genocide of the Jews during World War II.
So, until the verdict is delivered, we would do well to consider the real lesson of the Bosnian experience. As we have repeatedly warned in these pages, people should be very wary of leaders and politicians who advocate and encourage extreme solutions to deep-rooted historical, social and cultural problems and who sow divisiveness based on ethnic insecurity or perceptions of racial superiority. Sadly, there is really no limit to the evil that resides in the breasts of some men.
