Justice through Bribes

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Of course NATO behavior will never come to trial before the Hague Tribunal.
She (Albright et al...) who pays the piper call the tune.


Cheers, Ken Hanly

The Guardian June 29, 2001

Huge aid promise prompted handover

By Julian Borger in Washington and Ian Black in Brussels

It is no coincidence that Slobodan Milosevic's first full day in a Hague
prison cell will be the same day that international donors convene to
pledge up to $1.3 bn to help prop up the war-crippled Yugoslav economy.

Policy analysts in Washington described the delivery of the deposed Serbian
leader to the war crimes tribunal as a triumph for the US-led use of
economic sanctions and incentives as tools to bring war criminals to
justice.

At a meeting last month in Washington the US secretary of state, Colin
Powell, told the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica that Washington
would boycott today's donors conference unless action was taken on
Milosevic's handover.

According to Daniel Serwer, a former US envoy to Sarajevo who is now a
Balkans specialist at the US Institute of Peace, the ultimatum tipped the
balance in Belgrade against Milosevic.

"Kostunica did not want this to happen," Mr Serwer said.

"Kostunica takes as his power base the same base as the Milosevic regime.
The people who decided this were in the Serbian government, who weren't
going to make economic progress dependent on Milosevic."

Since Milosevic's fall from power in October, the US had been criticised by
European officials for its insistence that war criminals should be handed
over to the Hague before the "outer wall" of financial sanctions against
Yugoslavia could be lifted.

Critics of the policy said it would undermine the new government, and
therefore help Serbian Socialist party activists attempting to restore
Milosevic to power. However, Britain, France and Germany stood with
Washington to present a united front.

Ivo Daalder, a Balkans specialist at the Brookings Institution and a
co-author of Winning Ugly, a book on Nato's war in Kosovo, said Milosevic's
handover represented a vindication for the policies of Mr Powell's
predecessor, Madeleine Albright.

"Albright won the debate, in that she made Milosevic the problem," Mr
Daalder said.

"From early 1999, there was a very conscious effort by the US supported by
most European states, to make Milosevic the point man.

"It has happened quicker than everybody thought. There had been a sense
that the new government should be given a breathing space," he added.

"But this is vindication that measured conditionality was the right
approach - The important thing is that the US and the EU fundamentally
agreed on this, and it changed the debate in Yugoslavia to: Do we want
Milosevic or money?"

The full removal of sanctions is also dependent on the handing over of 14
other senior Serbs indicted for war crimes.

Europe has long been keener than the US to restore Yugoslavia to
international respectability and its Balkan stability pact has acted as a
magnet for other countries in the region.

Slovenia, the first Yugoslav republic to break away, is deep into
negotiations to join the EU. Croatia and Macedonia both have special
relationships with Brussels and may also one day join the union.

Yugoslavia's economy has been devastated by 13 years of of Milosevic's
economic mismanagement and the international sanctions imposed over the
wars that started with the break up of the communist country in 1991.

Last night's handover seems likely to make pledges of aid from the
international community more rather than less generous. The European
Commission has already set aside $190m in its 2001 budget for Serbia and
Montenegro, a sum that could rise with contributions from the 15 EU member
states and European Investment Bank.

Diplomats in Brussels have said Washington might put up some $106m,
comprising $65m for Serbia, $33m for Montenegro and the remainder to help
refugees.

The World Bank is expected to provide nearly $600m over a three-year period
and might frontload some of that aid to help kick-start the Yugoslav
economy.