A Fool for a Client

Isn't the old saw something like: a person who represents himself in court has a fool for a client?  Radovan Karadzic is proving it to be true, as he is representing himself in the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

“Everything that Serbs did is being treated as a crime,” Mr. Karadzic said, Reuters reported.

Well, yeah. If the everything refers to mass murder, concentration camps, forced expulsions, mass rape, hostage taking, etc.  But to him, this is all ok as it was Serb land first.

“The Serbs were claiming their own territories, and that is not a crime,” he said, according to Reuters. “It was never an intention, never any idea let alone a plan, to expel Muslims and Croats” from Serb-held areas.

The timing of events is pretty clear-- while there are bad guys on all sides, the Serbs moved first and moved most devastatingly.  Srebrenica is clearly a war crime, and the only question is of tying Karadzic to it.

There is a big academic debate or two about war crimes tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions.  They may or may not improve things in general, but these opportunities for Balkan grandstanding probably do not help things much.  Still, arresting these guys and trying them is the appropriate way to go.

For more informed thoughts, see Florian Bieber's blog.