Conflicts over the Transfer of Milošević
VESNA PEšIĆ
Member of Parliament of the Republic of Serbia*
The Druga Serbia debate had antecedents—elements of discord that prevented it from becoming an effective ally of the Tribunal within Serbia as might have been expected. The liberal intelligentsia involved in the debate had held different views about events and conditions during the crucial period from the fall of Milošević to his extradition in 2001. Those involved ignored the dangerous complexity of the situation, which contained strong pressures from abroad to extradite Milošević, while the new democratic government was too fragile and unstable to meet external expectations. Druga Srbia’s failure to grasp these ongoing tensions weakened the role it could have played in leading Serbia into a more genuine process of reckoning with the past.
Dragović-Soso has analyzed a debate that took place in 2002 within Serbia’s liberal intelligentsia, sparked by the Milošević trial. That debate had antecedents. This chapter further explores the causes and impacts of the discord within Druga Serbia, showing that, along with the debates over the Kosovo bombing that Dragović-Soso analyzes, it is rooted in different views regarding the events and conditions during the crucial period from 5 October 2000 through the transfer of Milošević on 28 June 2001. In the political arena, there were dramatic conflicts among the new authorities about the transfer, while at the same time the liberal intelligentsia failed to understand fully the complexities of the dramatically changed political situation after 5 October; instead, it became entangled in its own debates and divisions, overlooking the price that had to be paid for Milošević’s transfer to the ICTY. The enormity of this price became clear only after the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić. The divisions within the liberal intelligentsia showed that it did not succeed in becoming “the Tribunal’s natural all[y] within Serbia,” as Dragović-Soso says they should have been.1 This, in turn, represented a failure to recognize the political potential in Serbia that might have led to a more genuine process of reckoning with the past.
As regards the cardinal issue—the effects and the influence of the Milošević trial—from the outset the ideologically confused arrest and transfer of Milošević minimized the effects of his trial on Serbian society’s confrontation with war crimes perpetrated by Serbs. The country’s new authorities arrested Milošević under external pressure and by the skin of their teeth: there was neither public sentiment in favor of trying Milošević before the Tribunal nor any consensus among the new authorities about transferring him to the Tribunal. In order to arrest Milošević and then transfer him, the Serbian government, led by Đinđić, needed to disguise its actions, hiding them from DS archrival and new FRY President Vojislav Koštunica, who opposed transfer. Because the federal level had constitutional authority for extraditions, the only way to transfer Milošević was to “hijack justice,” which in itself served as propaganda against the Tribunal.2 Milošević’s transfer has almost experimentally confirmed the notion that confrontation with an appalling past—such as mass crimes committed in an armed conflict—may lead to internal conflicts so intense that they risk breaking up a fledgling democratic transition.3 Such serious tensions actually did develop in Serbia under the excessive pressure from the West concerning the fulfilment of Serbia’s obligations to the Tribunal, as well as from the strain of internal political conflicts and uncontrolled secret services.4 All of this suggests just how unrealistic—even absurd—were the tremendous expectations for the Milošević trial, having in mind the difficult situation in Serbia.
This chapter first looks at the views of the Druga Srbija from the moment Milošević’s transfer came to the forefront. It draws principally on an analysis of the transcripts of the radio program Peščanik, which had been a focal point for members of Druga Srbija and other like-minded people of the time.* It then examines the position taken by the new authorities who took control of the Serbian and federal governments after October 2000.†
Druga Srbija was practically the only critic of Milošević’s nationalist and war policies and the only support for the Tribunal during the 1990s and beyond. For this reason, as Dragović-Soso has demonstrated, any division within it was of consequence, weakening the group’s ability to call for a confrontation with the past and with war crimes. If we consider the attitudes expressed before Milošević’s transfer, we see that Druga Srbija had become divided over a political dilemma: Was what happened on 5 October a question of continuity or revolution? Two views became dominant: One held that there had been a change in government only, while the ideological framework remained unaltered; the other argued that there had been a momentous change, akin to a revolution.
This division, dominant at the time, influenced the participants’ attitudes about the Tribunal. Supporters of the latter view—the “optimists”—called for a constructive attitude toward the new government. They held that democratic Serbia, now free from Milošević, should be given some breathing space rather than be subject to merciless pressures. The other group—the “skeptics”—called for an unconditional confrontation with the past and the immediate fulfilment of all requests from the ICTY. In their view, this was the essential condition for Serbia to undergo a moral revival and become a normal country.
These two positions, analyzed by Dragović-Soso in another context, are also made clear in statements made by two protagonists of the polemic in the weekly magazine Vreme—Stojan Cerović, a journalist, and Srđa Popović, a lawyer. Cerović represented the moderate optimists. In an interview with Peščanik, he argued that Serbs should start thinking anew, from scratch, because major changes had taken place, not only through the fall of Milošević, but also through previous events related to the NATO bombing. The Serbs were not the sole villains anymore; they, too, were now victims. All, therefore, were equal, and no one owed anything to anyone any longer.
Cerović thought that one should not relate to the new government in the same way as one did to Milošević. No absolute justice should be demanded from the new government, because it was “now made up of the best people we have, the people we had been rooting for all these years[.]”5 Those in the West are not any better:
I watched how they formulate their own policies and I realized that there’s nothing special about it, […] it is neither in a moral nor politcal way something especially superior or something that we would really have to admire and accept as God’s will.6
This exaggeration of the moral changes in post-Milošević Serbia led Cerović to suggest that Serbia did not have much reason to accept the pressure coming from the West, especially in the moral arena. He therefore felt that the pressure concerning the Tribunal was unjust:
[…] [Now, we’ve got that court in the Hague which is saying—come on, these are the terms, these are the deadlines, these are your obligations … and that represents the agenda that was given to us, which now seems to me to be not quite fair … I am no longer with those who […] would speedily fulfil all those requests with great enthusiasm.… Personally, I feel stupid if this looks like, for those reasons, I would now defend Slobodan Milosevic, that’s not the real point; the point is that the charges were brought because of the war in Kosovo. So, that international court…is basically financed by America in the first place, and in a way I have a feeling that America can after all greatly affect its accusatory policies.7
Cerović was not suggesting that Serbia refuse to cooperate with the Tribunal, but he felt uneasy with it, as if the Tribunal were offending Serbian national dignity. Serbs “should not now rush into our opposition of the Hague court,” argued Cerović, but,
You know, I saw many very serious criticisms of the court in America. I again feel a little bit uncomfortable saying that. I’m afraid that if I also spend a lot of time on criticizing the court, I would encourage people here to reject the Hague tribunal for the wrong reasons or in a wrong way, and think that it can be so easily overcome. Well, it can’t be: We should not now rush into our opposition of the Hague court, but at the same time we could be aware of the fact that that isn’t really what they claim it to be, that that is not really some real court, rather that it is to in large measure a political court.8
To Cerović, Serbs must be aware of this and maintain a degree of self-respect so that, when it comes to policy toward the Tribunal, they should be more restrained.9 Cerović’s view about the NATO bombardment assumed the traditional Serbian anti-Western position, and in this context provided emotional support for a reserved stance toward Western pressure to cooperate with the ICTY and arrest Milošević.
This view was taken most strongly by Aleksa Đilas.* In his interview with Peščanik, he said that “the main reason for the West to insist on Milošević’s transfer is that he is a man who opposed them and they now wish to teach him a lesson so that everyone may see what happens to people who oppose them. It is nothing but the politics of force.”10 According to Đilas,
… no worse reason exists to hand over a man to a court than for cash. You know, I consider the court in the Hague to be unjust. Still, it is what it is, unjust. If NATO were to threaten to tell us—if you don’t extradite Milosevic, we’ll give you a billion dollars, and if you do extradite him, we won’t give you a billion dollars—well I would say that maybe we should extradite him. But like this, if we extradite a living man, our President—such as he is, but people voted for him; the elections weren’t as they should have been but there were some type of elections—to now extradite him in order to get cash in hand, I think that that isn’t the way to some national healing, toward historical consciousness and some higher social moral. That I really don’t like.11
The skeptics opposed the optimists on all counts. Their proponent, Srđa Popović held that no revolution had occurred on 5 October. Instead, on that day, the Demokratska opozicija Srbije (Democratic Opposition of Serbia or DOS) came to power with U.S. help in a deal with Milošević’s security services, which guaranteed that no blood would be shed in the transfer of power. The new government’s reluctance to initiate a confrontation with the past ensured that no substantial changes took place. “What worries me the most[,]” said Popović,
is that I see all this talk about European integration, about ties with the world, and it seems that there is also incomprehension of the fact that the predominant image of this country is a country which started aggressive wars, which committed genocide against other nations, and which, if it wants to re-enter the community of nations, must accept that community’s justice, and that community’s justice is The Hague. There is an obvious unwillingness to do this, and the chief engineer of all those crimes [i.e. Milošević] sits a few kilometers down the road, as a tumor still present in this body.12
According to other skeptics, the old nationalist block had been consolidated within the new regime. Sonja Biserko, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, noted that
[u]nder the name of Vojislav Koštunica, there was a consolidation of the nationalist block (the Church, the Academy, the Monarchy, the Army), which has always dreamt of a Greater Serbia and which is now attempting to consolidate Serbian ethnic territory, acquired in the recent wars, by “democratic means.”13
By avoiding a confrontation with the past, by rejecting lustration and protecting officials of the old regime, the new authorities acted in the interest of Milošević’s power structure of war profiteers, security services, the Army, the Church, and all those who had supported Milošević. Petar Luković, the well-known Serbian journalist and one of the leading figures against Serbian nationalism, summarized the sense of disjointed bitterness experienced by those who had expected revolution, not merely transition:
I believed that Milošević’s departure was to be definite. That the departure of this whole crowd … who had poisoned our life for the past 13 years was to be definitive, therefore final and complete. But something happened which I really didn’t expect.… All these people, who I sincerely believed were to end up in prison in The Hague, indicted, when democracy arrived—all of them managed to wash themselves clean in the past two months.… I must say that I am obsessed with one topic. That topic is war crimes and what was done in the past ten years. In these two months, that topic simply is not on the agenda. And as far as I can tell, it shall not be on the agenda. There is a conspiracy of silence at work here … and it does not matter who slaughtered who, who killed—it is all over, finished.… How many of us are ready to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal? What shall we do with Milošević?14
Later, Popović claimed that at the time he had wished for an attempt “to finish the beast off through some form of cultural revolution”15 and located the symbolic center of the tensions among the liberal intelligentsia about Serbia’s direction within the question of cooperation with the ICTY:
The split [within Druga Srbija] developed over a non-critical approach to the nature of the October changes and to the “new government” itself, its intentions and the unity within the DOS. The test-case was the attitude about the Hague Tribunal. That was what caused the disintegration of the DOS and that was the reason for the assassination of Đinđić. I often wonder whether Stojan [Cerović] would have changed his views had he lived to see the subsequent developments.16
Popović insists that, after 5 October, the new authorities would have genuinely changed the nature of the Milošević regime only if they had immediately shown a positive attitude toward cooperation with the Tribunal in words and deeds. This did not happen in a positive and clear way, but in fact cooperation with the ICTY had begun: Milošević was arrested and transferred to the Tribunal within six months after the Đinđić government was created. This was achieved under strong external pressure and amid dramatic internal conflicts over Milošević’s transfer which, surprisingly, passed almost unnoticed among members of Druga Srbija.
The new authorities encountered great difficulties in arresting Milošević and transferring him to The Hague; ultimately, they proved unable to delegitimize Milošević’s war policies.* The DOS coalition never talked about the Tribunal, before or after 5 October. Serbia’s obligation to hand over individuals indicted for war crimes was never mentioned in the electoral campaign. It was not deemed to be an issue to ponder over, and, if anyone did consider it, it was a very unpopular stance. The elections could not have been won by opposing Milošević’s war and nationalistic policies—it is well established that the electorate knew next to nothing about Serbian war crimes.† The new authorities’ ability to support the Tribunal was also severely undermined by the deal they had made with the security apparatus before 5 October in order to prevent violence against demonstrators, thanks to which the heads of security forces also secured their survival under the new government; as a consequence, the new Serbian government, led by Đinđić, remained weak, never managing to establish full control over the security forces.‡
The new authorities found themselves in an impossible situation: They did not know what to do with Milošević and were unable to reach any consensus over this issue. This was not strange in view of the composition of the DOS coalition and the major ideological differences within it.§ No plan had been prepared in advance to deal with Milošević. It is known that the Chief of General Staff, Nebojša Pavković, took Koštunica to see Milošević on 6 October. Although the details of their meeting are not known, it appears that Koštunica offered guarantees that Milošević could remain in the presidential residence with his family, as well as certain guarantees concerning security and some technical matters; it also seems that the two made some political deals concerning key individuals in the Army, the police, and the state security.17 Through his treatment of Milošević, Koštunica confirmed his own campaign promise that there would be “no revanchism.”18 Thus a situation was created in which Milošević would be able to continue a relatively normal life as leader of the largest opposition party.
On 22 October 2000, negotiations started about the creation of a transitional government, which was to include the DOS, and about preparing for parliamentary elections. During the negotiations, representatives of Milošević’s SPS routinely sought their leader’s instructions on how to proceed.19 In November 2000, barely a month after the fall of Milošević, his party held its Congress, well covered by all the media, and reelected him as its president. In January 2001, President Koštunica officially received Milošević in the latter’s capacity as the head of the strongest opposition party.
All of this demonstrates that Milošević’s road to The Hague was paved with nothing but conflicts and obstacles. The first obstacle was Koštunica’s view that there should be no extraditions or transfers to the ICTY, consistent with what he saw as an autonomous policy. Appearing briefly in front of gathered demonstrators on the night of 5 October, he said: “We need neither Moscow nor Washington. We shall be autonomous and independent. We shall have our own policy, we shall choose our own way.”20 In his first interviews after 5 October, Kostunica made his notorious statement that the Tribunal was “deveta rupa na svirali”—the last of his worries.21 In many subsequent statements he reiterated that “there are many more important issues for the country”22 and that cooperation with the Tribunal was “neither a priority nor a vital political interest.”23 In his legalistic manner, he argued that cooperation with the ICTY would be possible only if a special Law on Cooperation was introduced, but then proceeded to obstruct passage of this law.*
Koštunica proposed putting Milošević on trial in Serbia, which many believed to be a good idea, as this would have strengthened the domestic judiciary and influenced the public much more than a supposedly American and anti-Serbian international tribunal would. This idea also appeared acceptable to Đinđić, as a way to avoid domestic conflicts. However, it was soon rejected when it became clear that no trial of Milošević could be organized in Serbia† and that the United States would never agree to it,24 as Đinđić came to realize after his first U.S. visit in February 2001. It was then that he was told in no uncertain terms what was expected from the Serbian government—the first item on the list was the arrest and transfer of Milošević to The Hague.‡ Đinđić was also given a deadline: If Milošević were not arrested by 31 March, the U.S. administration would not certify to Congress that Serbia was cooperating with the ICTY, a certification necessary for continuation of America’s hundred million dollars in annual aid to Serbia.
One month later—within the U.S. deadline—Đinđić had Milošević arrested and then, on 28 June, transferred to the ICTY. Đinđić did this because it had to be done, for the sake of Serbia’s credibility and the expected financial support for Serbia’s destroyed economy; at the same time, it was a way to get rid of Milošević, as no one knew what else to do with him. Ultimately, however, it was also this decision that led to Đinđić’s assassination.*
The impetus for this chain of events came not from Serbia’s new authorities, but rather from external factors, especially the United States, and from the frequently unpopular NGOs within Druga Srbija, whose views regularly coincided with those of the international community. By contrast, not a single Serbian political leader attempted to overcome the differences between the Serbian point of view and that of the West. At the time, anti-Western attitudes were a living heritage of Serbian nationalism and of Milošević’s rule; they were difficult to overcome. Serbia and the West each held to its own version of the truth, and the gap between the two was considerable. Đinđić chose to use American pressure as an excuse for transferring Milošević; for domestic consumption, he argued that Serbia was forced to do so in order to avoid new sanctions and obtain financial support. As a consequence, Milošević’s arrest and transfer were perceived by public opinion—including, as we have seen, a part of the liberal intelligentsia—as “selling Milošević for cash.”25
But there was more to the arrest than this financial dimension. It also demonstrated just how weak the Serbian government was, as it proved itself unable to control its own security services, let alone the military, which notionally was under Koštunica. It is not an overstatement to say that Milošević’s arrest turned into a veritable drama, with the abject failure to arrest Milošević playing out in full view of both a domestic and international audience. Police officers, for example, failed to serve the summons and bring Milošević before the investigating judge because they were not admitted to Milošević’s residence, prevented from entering by a military unit brought there to protect him.
When the police retreated, the drama degenerated into a farce.26 The Đinćic government was forced to negotiate Milošević’s surrender. In the end he agreed to it, but only after an agreement was signed and guaranteed by Koštunica for the FRY, Đinđić for the Serbian government, and Milan Milutinović, who was still president of Serbia. They guaranteed that the arrest was not based on any warrant issued by the ICTY, that Milošević would not be transferred to the Tribunal, and that he would be tried in a Serbian court in accordance with the Serbian Penal Code. In addition, Milošević was guaranteed favourable conditions of detention, including daily visits by his family, and, once imprisoned, Milošević was regularly visited not only by his family, but also by his political friends and allies.27 The farce was perfected by the legal grounds used to arrest Milošević: The Serbian government chose to discredit him in public as a thief—he was charged with misuse of his official position to acquire substantial sums from the federal budget. Not a word was heard about any war crimes.28
Immediately after the arrest, Đinđić came under mounting pressure from Koštunica and the opposition to ignore the requests to transfer Milošević. Koštunica repeatedly insisted in public that no plans were under way to extradite Milošević; when Milošević was eventually transferred, Koštunica called it a coup d’état.29 This was not simply rhetorical—the “Hague question” continued to destabilize the country, as witnessed by the attempted coup by the Crvene Beretke (Red Berets) in November 2001.*
The issue of the Tribunal became the cause of deep-seated conflicts because it reflected fundamental ideological differences among the Serbian authorities after 5 October. Koštunica wanted to continue with the old national policy, albeit by more moderate means and with some international support, whereas Đinđić was trying to solve the Serbian national question once and for all by promptly integrating Serbia into the EU. The two diametrically opposed political positions formed two centers of power that divided between them the police and military services that were supposed to bring about Milošević’s arrest and his transfer to the ICTY. In this way, the services received the message that they themselves were threatened, as many members of the military, the police, and the SDB had participated in the war and some had committed war crimes as well. This pluralism of power and control over the armed services brought Serbia to the brink of a civil war during Milošević’s arrest and the two attempts at a violent restoration of the old regime—the Crvene Beretke’s rebellion and the assassination of Đinđić—both of which went under the motto “Stop The Hague.”30
The liberal intelligentsia, plagued by its own internal divisions over the events of 5 October, failed to understand the real political situation in the country and was therefore reduced to conducting abstract debates within itself. This was to be expected, as Druga Srbija had never really influenced any political decisions regarding the ICTY and the transfer of Milošević. In addition, it was internally divided on the issue of “realism.” Some of its members wished to create a widespread social awareness of the crimes committed by the Serbian regime, precisely because no such awareness existed in real life; that is why they kept pressuring the new government to address the issue of war crimes. Others argued that account had to be taken of the new reality created by the events of both 5 October and the NATO bombing of Serbia; they desired to situate the confrontation with the past within an evolutionary perspective and within the framework of the general development of Serbian society.
Those who argued that nothing of consequence had happened on 5 October—that the ideological matrix remained unchanged after the fall of Milošević—were firm in expecting and advocating a true confrontation with the past, cooperation with the Tribunal, and the transfer of Milošević. They supported all forms of pressure against Serbia, without reservations. In fact, they acted as if a revolution had really taken place, while at the same time arguing that it had not yet. Overcome by a deep-seated feeling of guilt, which had always plagued Druga Srbija, they failed to perceive the small window of opportunity opened by Đinđić.
On the other hand, those who believed that a crucial change had taken place—and who were deeply affected by the bombing of Serbia—argued that the Serbs had both expiated a part of their guilt and opened a new door to the future. Being deeply offended by the bombing, they were psychologically responsive to Koštunica’s defense of national dignity and his anti-Western stance, and that is how they too overlooked the same window of opportunity. Before his assassination, both groups had failed to fully comprehend Đinđić’s standpoint and the importance of his decision to cooperate with the Tribunal. After the assassination, the remainder of Druga Srbija became focused on the need to explain how it came about and to push Serbia toward Europe.