War Crimes

A Bosnian war crimes court indicted a former commander of the Bosnian Serb army for a 1995 missile strike that killed 71 people in the United Nations safe zone of Tuzla. It seems the commander, Novak Djukic, ordered a single artillery shell into western Tuzla hitting a group of boys – ranging from 3-years-old to 25-years-old – in the town’s central square.

Frankly, this is getting a bit boring with these less-than-Srebrenica charges being announced here and there. What happened to Carla del Ponte’s claim way back in June 2007, I think, that the big guys, Gen. Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, would be arrested in a “in a few weeks?” On Dec. 18, I reported that Raffi Gregorian, a U.S. administrator in Bosnia, said, “Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica can solve the issue of their arrest with just one phone call.” What happened with that, huh huh huh?

(Carla del Ponte is the chief prosecutor at the U.N. war crimes prosecutor and former lead prosecutor at International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.)

There was some hoo-ha earlier about an independent Kosovo emerging from that troubled mess, but it seems Russia and her friends put the ol’ kibosh on that one. Kosovo did say it would go it alone, but so far, I don’t see anything like that developing. It’s troubling that we’re still dealing with this crap and all these petty dudes keep getting charged. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s part of the reconciliation process to bring these guys before the courts to answer for their crimes, but war crimes charges for a shelling? Hell, that puts that majority of the U.S. military in jeopardy of war crimes charges in Iraq if that’s our threshold.

Everyone and their brother knows that Mladic and Karadzic are hiding out in Serbia somewhere, but the political will on part of the Serbians prevents them from emerging to face justice. Why the hell did we invade the region if there is no ultimate resolution to the conflict? NATO et al went in to put regional reconciliation into practice, but with superficial arrests and charges being announced while the real perpetrators are on the loose seems to reflect a lack of general development in that troubled region. Come on guys, hand over the big fish and lets get on with it.

Raila Odinga with Kenya’s opposition Orange Democratic Movement called the recent “alleged” political killings by the ruling government there “genocide on a grand scale.”  Various reports out of Kenya have children piling up in morgues and I remember hearing reports from local priests this week (Tuesday maybe?) of children setting churches ablaze with scores of people trapped inside and stalking the capital of Nairobi with machetes. The BBC had reports this morning of people being “machete-ed” to death. Now, I’m not going to sit here in my office with my dog laying beside me and pretend I’ve seen it all, but there is nothing more frightening that a drug-crazed teenage boy juiced up on aggression and god knows what else circling a hut with a machete looking to get his rocks off.  But I digress …

Apparently, Odinga feels the same way, though, telling journalists “what we have just seen defies description” (he’s referring to the children’s bodies piled up I’m assuming from the church blaze earlier this week). This comes as Odinga was preparing for a large rally against the apparent vote fraud by incumbent President Mwai Kibaki.  I was following this during the weekend.  Friday, Odinga had a huge lead, by Saturday it was down slightly, but on Sunday the Election Committee in Kenya called it in Kibaki’s favor, so who knows what’s going on with that.  So, anyhow, Odinga was preparing for this huge protest, but decided against it in the face of roving police on horseback intimidating gathered citizens and firing live rounds over everyone’s heads. “There are fewer protesters here than there are guards,” said one journalist. Now Odinga hopes to reassemble in Friday in protest of the election results.

Washington is paying lip-service to the issue by sending Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer to put pressure on officials to stop the escalating conflict.  Oooh!  Say it isn’t so!  Not the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs!  Now, I realize there are loads of these guys and some of them have some damn impressive backgrounds, but lip-service is lip-service regardless of its originating kisser.  I don’t want to put too much credibility into cries of genocide in Kenya, which until recently served as a model for African development, but I also have my International Diplomatic brackets all drawn up for January madness waiting for someone in Brussels or New York to start up with the “never again” speeches.  We have someone crying genocide while observing dead babies piling up in the morgue, widespread condemnation of the election results and a whole lot of blather.  Someone!  Please – send a team in there and let’s get this resolved before the fit hits the shan.

Ya know, I was talking to a colleague once on several things here.  One is this theory that this sort of thing is natural for an emerging nation.  The United States did it to the Indians, the French did it to themselves, Germany gave it a go and on and on. We will see a Sudan on par with, say, oh, Lebanon in a decade?  I can live with that.  Another question raised here is the notion of child soldiers.  On one hand, it’s pretty vile how these warlords conscript these kids with heroin and all that (ever see Blood Diamond?), but one also has to consider these kids are getting married at 11, so an “adult” in Africa for all intents and purposes is a 14-year-old kid.  But still, that doesn’t make seeing one of them wandering around wielding a machete any less frightening, and I suppose that level of exploitation and terror is exactly the point.

What a way to spark off the New Year not only with a nice piece on the International Criminal Court, but a nice piece about the ICC and the presidential candidates!  And all this the day before the Iowa caucus.  Was I a good boy last year, or what?

So, it seems the San Francisco Chronicle petitioned the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle about their perceptions of U.S. membership into the court.  Some background; Bush has been largely opposed to the ICC, citing concerns over sovereignty and the murky murky waters of bilateral arrangements. There is the one glaring exception with the referral of the Sudanese case to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council, but that was more of a U.N. measure and less so an ICC one, so I’ll give W a “by” on that one.

Sens. McCain, Clinton and Obama took the soft “wait and see” approach, saying they would embrace the court if there were more provisions protection U.S. personnel.  But, things get sticky when we consider the “Hague Invasion Act” that allows military intervention to free would-be U.S. prisoners from the Hague.  In that one, the hawks Clinton and McCain jumped on board (military invasion good) and so did Mr. Hair Cut himself, John Edwards, but Biden, Kucinich and Dodd opposed the measure, to no great surprise.

Now, some see this as something of a sign of the times.  Is the U.S. going down the multi-lateral route that would suggest the once High And Mighty United States is in the same league with, god forbid, the French?  Or do we all jump on the Ron Paul magic carpet ride with this little gem; “America must either remain a constitutional republic or submit to international law because it cannot do both.” (the Supreme Court ruled in the Paquete Habana case that “international law is part of our law”  – good job DOCTOR Paul. Heidi Klum would “out” you for that, ya know!)

It seems this is one of those contentious issues in international law.  Yes, certainly there should be an independent forum to examine atrocities, but can we give it jurisdiction over the affairs of sovereign states?  No, and I don’t think the ICC does that.  One of the tenets of the court is that it requires either state permission or some other mandate to intervene in the affairs of state, as in the Sudanese case.  I think the U.S. is afraid that incidents such as Abu Ghraib et al will land the Marines and Co. in prison as show-trials at the international court.  With the albeit jaded trials at Camp Pendleton and so on, it seems the candidates should take a page out of the Clinton (and I mean Bill) playbook and play nice with the international community to re-build the American legacy that ol’ W seems to have forgotten.