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War and Peace by Shlomo Ben-Ami |
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Crossing Cultures by Ian Buruma |
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The Statesmen's Debate by Castaneda, Haass, Rocard |
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Anatomy of the Global Economy by J. Bradford DeLong |
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The Rebel Realist by Joschka Fischer |
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Capitalism Then and Now by Harold James |
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The Peacemaker by Richard Holbrooke |
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Global Warning by Bjorn Lomborg |
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European Observer by Dominique Moisi |
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Of Might and Right by Joseph S. Nye |
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History in Motion by Chris Patten |
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Roads to Prosperity by Dani Rodrik |
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The Unbound Economy by Kenneth Rogoff |
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Economics and Justice by Jeffrey D. Sachs |
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Finance in the 21st Century by Roubini, Shiller |
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The Ethics of Life by Peter Singer |
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Transatlantic Perspectives by Feldstein, Sinn |
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I Dissent: Unconventional Economic Wisdom by Joseph E. Stiglitz |
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Against the Current by Robert Skidelsky |
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Awakening India by Shashi Tharoor |
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The Next Wave by Naomi Wolf |
Atrocities cast long shadows. The Dutch government has resigned over the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, which occurred when the supposedly "safe" enclave of Srebrenica, supposedly defended by a battalion of Dutch UN troops, surrendered to heavily armed Serb militias. The massacre of at least 7,000 Bosnian boys and men followed. The Dutch government of Premier Wim Kok resigned after a report that it had commissioned accused the government of 1995 (also headed by Mr. Kok) of acting irresponsibly in underestimating the threats faced by Dutch peacekeepers.
It is, of course, an honorable act for a government to take responsibility for so grave a failing and resign. Too few governments or politicians ever accept this debt to honor. But the resignation of the Kok government does not deal with the disgrace of Srebrenica. It only underlines the fact that the international community still has scores to settle with the largest massacre on European soil in the last half century.
What we should have seen in The Hague was not only the resignation of a Dutch government - but more importantly the appearance of General Ratko Mladic and his accomplices to face the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. So long as these men remain at large, the shame over Srebrenica will stick to the international community.
Most people remember the televised images of General Mladic humiliating the Dutch commander of the "safe" Srebrenica enclave, Colonel Ton Karremans, offering him drinks and gifts for his family. Then the Dutch peacekeepers were sent on their way, as were women and children. Only the men and the boys remained, to be slaughtered.
I retain not only these images forever in my head, but also the sights and smells of thousands of decayed corpses stacked in two mine tunnels near Tuzla. They were picked up from the mass graves that appeared around Srebrenica. They were in Tuzla awaiting the long and laborious process of identifying the remains. Many of Srebrenica's survivors were clinging to the desperate hope that a missing husband or son might still be alive in a remote camp. They needed to know what had happened before they could try to get on with their lives.
After the Dayton Agreement of Bosnia an International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) was established to clarify what had happened to the more than 20,000 persons missing from the civil war in Bosnia. Another 10,000 missing were later added to this remit from Kosovo. That task seemed overwhelming. But in recent months there has been a breakthrough. New DNA technology, combined with computer programs that match the findings with DNA from bereaved relatives, has led to increasing numbers of identifications. Every day names can be put on the anonymous body bags, and a decent burial can take place. Now survivors at least know that the dead are dead.
So this sad chapter of Srebrenica is finally being told. But we still need to bring those who committed the crime to account. It is totally unacceptable that people like Ratko Mladic remain at large. The government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) could seize and extradite them - if it wished to. Until now it has not.
The FRY wants to integrate with the Euro-Atlantic community. It pursues three goals: accession to the Council of Europe, membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace, and a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union. But the international community must hold the FRY to the same high standards for inclusion in intergovernmental structures that have been rightly required of Croatia and Bosnia since 1996.
So long as General Mladic and his henchmen do not join Mr. Milosevic in The Hague, we cannot believe that the FRY really belongs in the company of democratic European states in respect to the rule of law. If the FRY is not confronted with the same demands others had to meet, this will only strengthen obstructionist forces within Serbia and undermine the security of Serbia's neighbours. Membership in the international community cannot be given away at a discount.
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen is a former foreign minister of Denmark.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, April 2002
