Victor Zamiatin

"Kommersant-Daily" No 212 (685), November 9, 1994, p. 1

Since the end of Nurnberg trial (year 1946) and Tokyo trial (year 1947) that judged leaders of Hitler's Germany and its ally Japan, there were no such an international trial in the world. Nearly half a century of oblivion was interrupted yesterday in Hague, where just established International Tribunal on war crimes in former Yugoslavia has gathered to carry out its first public hearings. However, not the very case was considered yet, but an appeal to German authorities on engagement of Serbian Dushko Tadich into the trial.

They in UN have begun to think about the appropriate investigation of war crimes in former Yugoslavia and punishment of criminals two years ago, when the war in Balkans was far out of present scale. So, in October of year 1992, resolution of UN Security Council has created a special Committee. It was stipulated then, that mentioned body must not become "the second Nurnberg". But a year later a Tribunal on war crimes was established. To the point, they say that the leader of Serbians in Bosnia Radovan Karadzhich and his commander in Chief Ratko Mladich must take their seats at the dock.

Apparently, the case of Dushko Tadich has become the first one, because it seems easier to bring him to the mentioned dock: in February German authorities, who were addressed by the Tribunal, have arrested Tadich because of completely different reasons, so he is imprisoned in Germany now. Other criminals are either at war now, or rely (not ungroundedly) on absence of extradition mechanism. Indictments submitted to Tadich by the Tribunal can hardly make him optimistic. Among of them are listings of Moslem intellectuals to be demolished, imprisonment of non-Serbians in concentration camps, tortures and beating, murders of prisoners.

Still there are doubts concerning propagandist value of Hague trial: Serbians are quite capable to recognize Tadich as a national hero, while Moslems and Croatians won't be scared of his tragic example too. So, the very idea of international court, like other attempts of world community to intervene into the problem of Southern crisis, tends to become doubtful. Hague can not have full similarity with Nurnberg: first, Nurnberg trial has begun just after the victory of allies against Germany; second, that war was a world war, not a civil one. The Hague Tribunal, as we can see, is about to fail while peace is not achieved in former Yugoslavia, and until new states will recognize each other and develop a mechanism of extradition of war criminals. It is worth to remember, that many Nazi bigwigs were lucky to avoid the Nurnberg trial -- it is another evidence of insufficient efficiency of such tribunals.

Translated into English by A.Prishchenko, November 14, 1994