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Flawed system aided dictator's
atrocities
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON -- The death of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic brings back
bitter memories. Here was a man shaped in the mold of a 20th century European
dictator, obsessed by dreams of racial superiority, unconcerned about the
methods his subordinates might use to fulfill his will, oblivious to the hideous
suffering his policies were causing.
At my only meeting with him, in 1991, these characteristics were obvious. It was
during the shelling of Dubrovnik, that jewel of 17th- and 18th-century
architecture on the Adriatic coast, by Serb forces. Why, we asked Milosevic, was
he allowing such desecration to happen, day after day? Did he not appreciate
that Dubrovnik was almost as priceless in terms of architectural heritage?
But Milosevic was blind to these arguments. For him it was all a question of
crushing the Bosnian Muslims, who, he claimed, were entrenched in Dubrovnik with
massive stores of weapons and munitions, and who should be blasted out before
they increased their toehold on the mainland. Did we not understand, he shouted
after us as we left the room, that "the Muslis," as he called them, were once
again invading Europe, that the Bosnian Muslims (mostly converted by Turkish
occupiers centuries earlier) were being supported by cohorts of reinforcements
from the Islamic world?
Such were the crazed thoughts of the Serb leader, who as the old Yugoslavia
broke up following the death of Marshal Tito, was determined to assert racial
domination over Croats, Slovenians, non-Serbian Bosnians and the Albanians of
Kosovo alike.
In all these efforts he failed in the end, but not before rivers of blood had
flowed, not before the phrase "ethnic cleansing" have been given new and
terrifying currency, and not before armies of refugees had been sent fleeing
across Balkan Europe, creating colossal problems for struggling international
agencies, especially the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR under then-High Commissioner
Sadako Ogata.
Yet if the actions and attitudes of Milosevic led directly to major tragedy, an
equal tragedy was the incredible slowness of Western policymakers to recognize
the man for what he was and to address pure and visible evil squarely.
At first the European leaders thought they could handle the situation and that
it was just a question of stepping in and parting the combatants in yet another
Balkan civil war. There were sickening phrases about "a level killing field" and
warnings about being careful not to favor one side or the other.
Various countries contributed U.N. troop contingents, but these were almost all
under strict instructions not to take sides and not to intervene when the Serbs
and their supporters attacked. The crescendo in this policy of evenhanded
detachment was reached when the pro-Serbian forces stormed into the Bosnian
Muslim town of Srebrenica. The United Nations had seemingly assured the people
of Srebrenica that they would be protected and a Dutch contingent of soldiers
was on hand to ensure safety.
But the policy of noninvolvement dictated that the Dutch troops should not
intervene, indeed withdraw, as the invaders swept in. The result was genocide --
a massacre so evil and so revolting that at last the wider world began to push
the timid policymakers into taking decisive action against Serb aggression.
The United States stepped in at last where the dithering Europeans had failed.
The Bosnian Muslims at last received the arms that were long overdue, the
Croatians, whom Milosevic had attacked ruthlessly, were re-trained and
reinforced and the Bosnian-Serb supply lines (many of them direct from Serbia
itself) were bombed.
Only then did Milosevic and his Serb commanders pause in their killing frenzy
and agree to come to the discussion table. Eventually Croatia and Serbia made
peace, Bosnia was partitioned between Serbs and Muslims (and some Croatians as
well), and the tensions in Kosovo rumbled on and continue to this day with the
position unresolved.
With hindsight, that wonderful clarifier, the lessons of this ghastly episode
are quite simple, as simple as the lessons of the 1930s and the rise to power of
German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Evil men do evil deeds. The more power they have, the greater the horrors they
inflict. If international institutions are too obsessed with "balance" and
cannot bring themselves to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong,
when it stares them in the face, then coalitions of the bold and the honest have
to be formed to act decisively.
This is what happened in the end with Hitler. It is what happened in the end
with Milosevic; it is what happened in the end, after years of delay, with Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein.
Can we construct international institutions strong enough and upright enough to
act more speedily next time against blatant evil. Will the U.N. ever acquire
sufficient muscle to do the job? Or must we now invent new and better
institutions, bringing together the responsible democracies, to police the
world?
David Howell is a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the
Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He is now a member of the House of Lords.
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