Milosevic, Now More Than Ever

Move over, Dick Nxon. In what is surely one of the most stunning--and revolting--political comebacks in history, Slobodan Milosevic appears to have won a seat in Serbia's parliamentary elections. So has Milosevic's fellow prisoner at The Hague, Vojislav Seselj. Due to er, current engagements, neither will be able to take office, assuming their party can put together a viable coalition government.

Whole story here.

Comments

[s.m. koppelman]

Funny, seems like other Nazi leaders were tried effectively in international courts. What's wrong with the Hague? Is it the Freemason conspiracy aspect of it, or the world-government-heralding-the-Antichrist thing?

Pakistan's been teetering on the brink of anarchy or the worst kind of dictatorship for decades. Serbia just seems to be on the brink of becoming 1970s Italy, or maybe Ciller-era Turkey, with squabbling likeminded political factions and a series of short-lived weak coalition governments built on tactical alliances with odd minor parties. The ultranationalists could return to power, but it would probably take a few more years of gridlock and economic stagnation before that happened.

[Jean Bart]

s.m. koppelman,

After WW II, war criminals (with the exception of those who were part of the allied armies) were tried in a variety of courts - national and international. Indeed, most were tried in national courts. For example, ~3,500 war criminals were executed by the French government within a few years after the war; another 1/2 million lost their civil rights as citizens of the Republic, many of these serving various sentence lengths. But I agree that clearly there are times when an international tribunal is more apropos; especially when the court system of a state is either ineffective, corrupt, etc.

[Andrew]

Amid all the talk of Jewish neo-cons and Israel's place in America's foreign policy, I personally have always been uneasy about the curious ties between Reason and some Arab societies (Lebanon and some emirates), dismayed by the evident confluence of the anti-war movement and the "Palestinean Cause" in the West, and positively creeped out by the hospitality of antiwar.com to the swarmier sort of Serb nationalism. If I'm not mistaken, they still run holocaust denial threads on Srebenecia.

[Jason Ligon]

Illustrating once again the limits of democracy ...

[s.m. koppelman]

It's not so stunning. A lot of Serbs resent Western policies that tie things like EU membership, lower trade barriers and lighter border controls to the handover of accused war criminal after war criminal. Djindjic's Democratic Party government arrested Milosevic over the objections of its coalition partner, Kostunica's DPS. More recently, they turned over Seselj. Rather than praise the government for its ongoing moves against corruption and organized crime (which cost Djindjic his life), its rapid economic reforms despite the social upheaval they're causing, its free press, and the thaw in relations with Croatia, Slovenia and even Bosnia, the West continued to press for the immediate arrest and extradition of Karadzic and Mladic, even with all the elections going on.

It's not clear how this is going to play out. Pro-reform parties together have an easy majority, but they're deeply split on several issues, not the least being how much they're willing to accede to the West's demands regarding war crimes prosecutions. The deadlock between eurodemocrats (who have been running parliament) and Kostunica's nationalist democrats (who had the presidency) was itself a big source of voter frustration. Neither Kostunica's people nor Draskovic's are likely to align themselves with Seselj's Radicals, but it's hard to see a coalition with the Democratic Party holding together either.

I'd wager new parliamentary elections will be called in less than a year.

[Jason Ligon]

s.m.:

I would have to confess largish ignorance of the political terrain after Melosivic was hauled off to the Hague.

Why wouldn't you want to hand over these guys? What is the message that a guy like Melosivic delivers that is so compelling?

[Jason Ligon]

Er, make that Melosevic, with an 'e'.

Told you I was ignorant ...

[not Weishaupt]

Hey, if you can elect a dead guy . . .

[Ruthless]

As s.m. koppelman says, "it's not clear how this is going to play out."

I suspect the same could and will be said under the Pakistan topic.

Lurches and staggers of government are a poor proxy for the health of a society and its freedom ranking.

[UBL]

If Hitler had hopes of a trial at the Hague, he wouldn't have killed himself. Maybe it's what kept Saddam alive in his spiderhole.

[Will Spencer]

What's wrong with the Hague?

How about the fact that it's run by snooty western europeans with no connection to the reality of life outside of their own borders?

Remember the EU? The folks who will send pig farmers to jail if they don't furnish each pig with a toy?

Would you want these people telling you how to run your country?

[Bonbon]

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