Milosevic in the Dock: At What Price?

By Charles Krauthammer

The deportation of Slobodan Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague last week was hailed as a triumph for the rule of law. "A momentous event for international justice," said David Scheffer, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war-crimes issues. "An affirmation of the importance of international justice," opined the New York Times.

It is nothing of the sort. Milosevic's deportation is testimony not to the power of international law but to the power of the U.S. The indictment that the Hague tribunal issued two years ago would be a dead letter today--and "international justice" an empty phrase--were it not for American power. It was the NATO bombing of Kosovo--overwhelmingly American--that expelled Serb forces, devastated Serbia and utterly discredited Milosevic.

And beyond military power there was raw economic power, dispensed twice. Milosevic was arrested by the new government on April 1. Why then? Because the U.S. Congress had stipulated that unless Serbia showed cooperation on trying Milosevic by that date, the U.S. would withhold $50 million in reconstruction aid. And then, just last week, Milosevic was spirited out of the country. Why precisely on June 28? Because on the very next day, a donors' conference of Western nations would be meeting to consider the Serbs' request for $1.25 billion in reconstruction aid. They knew they wouldn't get it--the U.S. was not even prepared to send a delegation--until it was clear that Milosevic would be deported. Money talks.

Moreover, Milosevic fell from power following his unexpected loss in elections. How did that happen? The U.S. poured millions of dollars into the democratic opposition. In an election run by a dictatorship controlling everything from the media to the ballot boxes, that aid was indispensable for creating a level playing field, and thus permitting the popular desire to be rid of Milosevic to find real political expression.

These are the forces that brought Milosevic to justice. His deportation has nothing to do with any new authority wielded by the Hague court or any sudden eruption of allegiance by the leaders of Serbia (or any other country, for that matter) to the shibboleth of "international legality."

The writ of the international tribunal does not extend beyond the sidewalk outside its chambers. Like many other international institutions, from the IMF to NATO, the tribunal is a subsidiary of Pax Americana. These institutions are granted more or less formal independence, but absent the U.S., they are powerless.

True, the American writ does not extend everywhere. The dictators of Iraq, Burma and North Korea, for example, are beyond its reach. But within the Western sphere, surely, there is no hiding from American power. Those who run afoul of it are not imprisoned on Elba or St. Helena; they are jailed in Miami (Manuel Noriega) or in more cosmopolitan quarters in the Netherlands.

Such raw power, however, must be exercised with great care. The U.S. may in time come to regret bringing Milosevic as a trophy to the Hague. Why? Because America's main interest in the Balkans is a democratic and stable Serbia, which in turn is the key to a democratic and stable Balkans. And Milosevic's deportation threatens to destabilize Serbia just as it begins its transition to democracy. The Yugoslav Prime Minister has already resigned (declaring "Yugoslavia is at the beginning of a crisis") and the government fallen.

Even those who are not Milosevic supporters resent seeing the former leader of their country, uniquely, put in the dock when so many other tyrants, from Fidel Castro to the late Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, have walked free. Vojislav Kostunica, the democratically elected President of Yugoslavia and hero of the people-power revolution that overthrew Milosevic, bitterly opposed sending him to a tribunal he regards as biased against Serbia. He called the deportation illegal and unconstitutional. It was. When the Serbian legislature, preferring that Milosevic be tried at home, declined to extradite him, the Serbian government ordered him extradited by decree. When the constitutional court put that decree on hold, the Serbian government simply ignored and overrode the court.

Kostunica charged that such methods are taken right out of "the arsenal of Milosevic's politics." These are hardly healthy precedents for a country trying to put down constitutional roots.

I too would rejoice to see Milosevic pay for his crimes. But what price justice? Judges may never ask themselves that question. Statesmen must always. And it is statesmen, specifically American statesmen wielding American power, who made the fateful calls that sealed Milosevic's future and may now be risking Serbia's.