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The late Serbian ex-President Slobodan Milosevic
died of a suspected heart attack in his prison cell on March 11,
2006, less than two months before his trial at The Hague war crimes
tribunal was set to conclude.
Nevenka Tromp, the principal researcher on the
team prosecuting Milosevic before the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the time for alleged
war crimes and crimes against humanity, has revisited evidence from
that trial to determine what this massive store of documents can
tell us -- about the man and his role in the Yugoslav wars of the
1990s. The result is her book Prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic: The
Unfinished Trial (Routledge, 2016).
The trial produced an extensive archive of
testimony, expert reports, and other evidence. It lasted 467 days,
creating almost 50,000 pages of transcripts and 5,759 exhibits of
evidence. Yet there was no conclusion, no verdict.
"His death was by no means entirely unexpected.
His ill-health was well-known and his medical condition was not
helped by his choice to represent himself in court. Acting as his
own advocate, he had read, watched, and listened to every piece of
evidence presented against him," says Tromp, who is currently a
lecturer in Eastern European studies at the University of Amsterdam.
She says of her return to The Hague tribunal's
archive for a six-year investigation in her new role as academic, "I
narrowed my examination of the trial record to the exploration of
three major topics: the leader, the ideology, and the plan."
Tromp's book notes the high expectations at the
start of Milosevic's trial and the bitter disappointment when it
ended prematurely as a result of the defendant's death. Such dismay
is arguably highest among survivors and victims' families hoping to
learn why the atrocities had occurred and who was ultimately
responsible. Nearly two decades after the Yugoslav wars (1991-99),
there is no entirely conclusive answer to those questions.
Many Serbs still believe that the unfinished trial
and the absence of a guilty verdict are sufficient proof that
Milosevic was not responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia or
the mass atrocities. In August, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic
gleefully latched onto claims that The Hague tribunal's verdict in
the case of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic also exonerated
Milosevic of charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Milutin Mrkonjic, another old associate and member
of Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party, even called for the erection
of a monument to their former leader. "We all knew that Milosevic
was not guilty. He should get a street [named after him] and a
monument in Belgrade. I'm going to make that demand at his grave, on
his birthday, August 20," Mrkonjic told reporters in Belgrade.
This was just one of a number of attempts to
rehabilitate Milosevic, his policies, and his role in the wars of
the 1990s, which the country has never truly come to terms with.
Claims that Milosevic had been exonerated by the
UN court became a hot topic in Serbia following the publication of
an article on Russian state broadcaster RT's website that quoted a
previous article by Andy Wilcoxson on a pro-Milosevic portal. That
piece, in turn, was based on a highly tendentious reading of a
single passage in a verdict of 2,500-odd pages.
His Own Worst Advocate
In her book, Tromp argues that all the evidence
gathered in the course of a trial for mass atrocities -- regardless
of whether or not it is brought to a conclusion -- establishes a
record of past events, contributes to the interpretation of a
historical period, and influences a shaping of collective memory.
With admirable clarity and attention to detail,
Tromp takes the reader inside Hague courtrooms, through the maze of
legal, political, and historical aspects of a complex case.
One of her conclusions is that Milosevic's
decision to represent himself in the trial did him no favors, and
frequently undermined his denials of guilt.
Tromp cites the court's viewing of a video
recording from a Kula concentration camp of a 1997 celebration in
honor of the so-called Red Berets, a Serbian paramilitary unit
deployed in the Croatian war. The video remains one of the
prosecution's strongest pieces of evidence against Milosevic. It
shows Milosevic listening without complaint to speeches that detail
the crimes committed by the Serbian Red Berets in 1991. He knew that
this constituted evidence of his complicity that he could neither
justify nor explain. Yet Milosevic could not refrain from noting
that the commander of the Red Berets was wrong about the date of the
unit's creation.
The video -- and Milosevic's reaction to it in the
courtroom -- suggest that by May 1991 the Serbian state was
financing the Red Berets and was fully aware of the nature of the
paramilitary unit's operations. This involved the use of
paramilitary force in Croatia and Bosnia with the apparent objective
of carrying out ethnic cleansing through mass violence.
According to Tromp, a lawyer would have advised
Milosevic to say nothing. Instead, he appeared to reveal the extent
of his own knowledge of, and role in, a criminal operation.
In Serbia, on the other hand, Milosevic's
courtroom performance was seen in a particularly positive light. No
doubt this was due mainly to his readiness to put up a good fight
against the international community and The Hague tribunal.
'Heart Of Stone'
The way Milosevic challenged the veracity of some
of the victims' accounts also revealed his lack of empathy for their
suffering. Commenting on that topic a year later, principal trial
attorney Sir Geoffrey Nice recalled a woman who testified to having
witnessed the killing of her own children. Milosevic was said to
have shown no feelings whatsoever for her. In a 2007 interview with
the Croatian newspaper Jutarnji, Nice stated that "Milosevic had a
heart of stone."
According to Tromp, "the trial proceedings
revealed Milosevic as a man who refused to see the consequences of
his political actions, defending in court the very views that had
led him to engage in multiple conflicts." Indeed, she gives us a
vivid portrait of a man seemingly capable of running a war with one
hand while signing peace agreements with the other.
The international community, or its
representatives for the Balkans, including Lord Carrington, Jose
Cutileiro, and Lord Owen, do not escape criticism in Tromp's book.
They are depicted as having supported the ethnic division of Bosnia
from the very beginning, and thus effectively furthering the Serbian
nationalist project.
Tromp's book documents the last six years of
Milosevic's life in a Scheveningen detention unit, where he appears
to have enjoyed the respect of other prisoners. Notably, ethnicity
did not appear to matter much among these alleged Serbian and
Croatian architects and perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and mass
crimes. Upon Milosevic's death, some of his fellow detainees signed
a joint condolence letter. They included former foes like Croatian
General Ante Gotovina and several Bosnian Croat commanders.
Tromp's book is certainly not meant to finish what
was interrupted by Milosevic's death -- there can never be a final
verdict in a court of law. But it does provide unique insight into
key decisions and turning points on the road to war in Yugoslavia,
and Milosevic's undeniable and direct role in those events.
"The record of the trial provides material from
which individuals can draw their own conclusions and be untroubled
by the lack of a rubber stamp," Tromp concludes.
Her book is a remarkable achievement, an inside
account of arguably the most significant war crimes trial since
World War II, and should prove crucial in countering the culture of
impunity that still predominates in the Balkans.
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