Steven Gordon | Writing Samples

THE PROSECUTOR VERSUS: An interview with Carla Del Ponte, published in The Herald Magazine

The summer rain fell as it only could in Bosnia, a torrential downpour turning the red clay earth into a dirty sea. It soaked everything, rendering my cameras almost useless, with everyone else hiding in their vehicles, apart from the US soldiers on guard, and three lonely figures crouched over nothing more than what looked like a pile of dirty rags. The rain fell hard, but it offered no escape from the summer humidity, what wasn’t wet outside was wet inside. I crouched under a tree for what little cover I could get, but it still found me, along with the sheltering mosquitoes. The rain had managed to dull everything, only adding to the sombre mood of the occasion, however the figures crouched over the pile of rags, continued with their slow methodical work. There was only one other thing the rain couldn’t kill, and that was the smell. It rose from the ground, through the torrent, tainting everything. Some two weeks later I could still smell it rising from my skin, ingrained in my pores and on my mind.

It was the early summer of 1996, the place was called the Cerska Valley, a small otherwise insignificant place somewhere on the map between the towns of Srebrenica and Tuzla. Around one year before, it had been on the escape route from Srebrenica, after the enclave fell to the Serbs in Bosnia’s three-and-a-half year war. The Muslim men of the town had been captured, and then taken to various sites to be executed. This was one such site. The evidence pointed to the men having been lined up at the side of the road, their arms bound with wire behind their backs, shot, and then their bodies pushed into the ditch. Then the next lot were lined up, shot and pushed in. Then the site was bulldozed over, the ghosts of the past seemingly lost in the soil. The figures crouched over the piles of rags were from Physicians for Human Rights, working to gather evidence for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY).

 William Huglund, a Seattle forensic investigator, who tended to spend his holidays doing such work, led them in their task. Huglund was an enigmatic character, and spoke as slowly and precisely as the work he did. He pointed out “the sheer magnitude and amount of remains that you’re looking at, but it is the right thing to do.” To him, the most important thing was to get the bodies back to their families. He did have a more important task though, and that was to gather evidence for the ICTY, so the Chief Prosecutor could charge and convict the guilty. At the end of that excavation they had found one hundred and fifty bodies. Just a small part of the approximate 7500 executed Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica, an even smaller part of the estimated 120,000 war dead. In 1996 any concept of justice seemed impossible, the country was littered with mass gravesites, one side of Bosnian society blaming, the other grieving, while the rest seemed to pretend nothing had happened. The withered corpses on the ground seemed even more pointless, with no justice in sight, failed excavations for failed people. The world had let them down, the survivors seemed to stare into space, jealous of the corpses.

Little did I realise then, but the facts of the above excavation would once again be played out in a court room in the Netherlands, six years after the bodies were uncovered, nearly seven years after the men were executed. Witness M, an escapee from Srebrenica had been hiding in the woods in the valley on the afternoon of the 13^th of July, 1995, trying to make his way across Serb lines to the Bosnian Government controlled land. He described the three buses led by an armoured personnel carrier that passed him that day. They were followed by a backhoe, a kind of earth mover, as they made their way to Cerska. Over the noise of the backhoe working, for the next half-hour, automatic gunfire was heard. Other escapees recalled a huge pool of blood across the road, as they pushed on to Tuzla. Once again, William Huglund made an appearance, but minus the blue overals. This time he was here as an expert witness, describing the deaths of the men from the evidence gathered that day in the rain. Before, it had seemed a futile task, but now the past was rising up, the dead couldn’t speak but others could, justice was about to catch up with the valley, seven years down the line.

 In the Netherlands, in courtroom number one, The International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY) made history three weeks ago as they sentenced General Radislav Krstic to forty-six years imprisonment on one count of genocide, one count of crimes against humanity and one count of violations of the laws or customs of war. The Cerska grave was a small part of the evidence against Krstic, implicated for his part in directing the mass killings after the fall of Srebrenica. Carla Del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor for the Tribunal had successfully prosecuted someone for the first time for genocide in the former-Yugoslavia, proving beyond all reasonable doubt that genocide had taken place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For Del Ponte it was her first ‘ big fish’ to go down for crimes in former-Yugoslavia, but otherwise I get the impression that for her it was just another day at the office. A good one, but just another successful prosecution to add to her already impressive list. Genocide may be the worst crime possible, but her other job as Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had exposed her to it already. When one takes a look at Del Ponte’s background, it becomes all too apparent why the UN Secretary General chose her to head both Tribunals.

Carla Del Ponte was born in 1947 at Lugano, Switzerland, in the scenic and wealthy Ticino district, near the Italian border. Her mother and grandfather were doctors, with three of her brothers following suit. She chose to study law because the course was shorter, she claims, not because she loved law, starting in Berne but finishing in Geneva. Remembering that women only got the right to vote in 1971 in Switzerland, she wasn’t really encouraged in her career, more expected to become a housewife than a lawyer. She started practising law in her hometown, working as a divorce lawyer. She has been married twice or divorced twice if you prefer, with one son along the way. The nature of her work has led her to be extremely cagey about her private life, but in the past she revealed that “I began studying cooking for my family, but it would never turn out. That was a big defeat. I went through two divorces because of it!” Del Ponte soon left the divorce cases behind, moving onto bigger things. She tackled Switzerland’s dark image as a haven for money launderers, “changing the playing field forever, making money laundering a real risk and a real crime.” “Firstly I started as a prosecutor in Lugano, then I was district prosecutor for Ticino, eventually becoming the Attorney General for Switzerland.” As she progressed up the ladder, she tackled bigger and bigger problems. Dominique Poncet, a notable Swiss layer, remarked that she was “not good for Switzerland”. When confronted with this remark she laughs, peers over the top of her glasses and answers “ Sure I was good for Switzerland, maybe some people didn’t appreciate my work as much but the government supported me. I suppose economic interests have a different perspective. Anyhow, this is normal as Prosecutor, you don’t have many friends but you make enemies on the way. What can I say, it comes with the job.”

She may have been bad for Switzerland in Poncet’s eyes, but she was even worse news for organised crime, taking on the Italian Mafia in the notorious ‘Pizza Connection’ prosecution, the biggest Mafia trial to date. She worked hand in hand with the celebrated Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, a close personal friend who eventually was killed by Il Cosa Nostra, a devastating blow for justice in Italy and for Del Ponte. In 1988 while visiting Falcone they narrowly escaped with their lives, after 100lbs of Semtex was found under the building they should have been in. Crossing the Mafia has taken its toll, and now she is still the only Swiss official who requires twenty-four hour protection. The death of her friend only seems to have strengthened her resolve to tackle organised crime, with other notables who have experienced her interest in their Swiss bank accounts including Osama Bin Laden, Raul Salinas, the brother of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Benazir Bhutto, and the family of Boris Yeltsin. Rumour has it that the Russians requested to the UN Security Council that she be put in charge of the Tribunal, as long as she was anywhere but Moscow. I asked her about these high profile cases, how they worked, how it now feels, but her answer was somewhat surprising, “You know, when I sit here and listen to all these cases I myself am somewhat stupefied that I touched such a list, in reality you work on one case, you never think to sit back and examine it from the outside, you just do the work case by case. All I’m interested in is results, and when you get them against the Mafia, even better.” When she was appointed Chief Prosecutor in September 1999 she hadn’t even set foot in the region, her only encounter with the Balkans was to freeze the assets of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1997.

One thing is certain; she has a passion for the law. When I asked her to describe herself she answers bluntly, “a prosecutor and a chain smoker”. I had been repeatedly told of the two things you first notice about her, her chain smoking and her height. When I entered the room to meet her I was disappointed in both; her five-foot figure sat hidden behind a large desk with not even the slightest hint of cigarette smoke in the room. Del Ponte always looks emaculate, be it in the field or in court with today being no exception. A smart suit matched her tanned skin, in turn highlighting her simple but elegant gold jewellery. Her silver blonde hair is neatly cut, the first impression is that of a very professional woman. A women with classical tastes. As I entered the room she raised her eyes above her glasses, schoolmistress like, with a well cared for pair of eyebrows moving with, adding emphasis to, every word, every sentence, very authoritarian. A definite air of authority surrounds her as we are introduced, instantly putting one on ones best behaviour as pleasantries are exchanged. She listens intently to every word, her mind racing to understand the Glasgow accent as I listen to the Italian accented English in turn. One word follows Del Ponte everywhere she goes, in everything she does and that is stubborn. The US state department consider her a maverick, diplomatically she can be like a bull in a china shop, but to be the prosecutor at the ICTY maybe it is the most necessary quality; stubbornness. She even looks stubborn. 

One year ago, the position of the Tribunal looked very different, with the main suspects still on the loose around the former-Yugoslavia. Now the situation is very different, with Milosevic surrendered by Serbia, and the convictions of Dario Cordic, the wartime Bosnian Croat leader, the historic Foca verdict that saw rape recognised for the first time ever as a war crime, and the most important to date, Radislav Krstic, convicted for his part in the Srebrenica mass killings. Still however, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are at large, the two Bosnian Serb wartime leaders of their army and parliament respectively. Once again, Del Ponte is only to happy to criticise the international community, particularly NATO for their failure to apprehend the pair, “saying that they will arrest them if they come across them is not enough, they have to be much more proactive in their approach to the task.”

Del Ponte has proved to be a dynamo with endless energy, injecting a new sense of urgency into the forgotten crimes of the former-Yugoslavia. The ICTY was formed in 1993, a token gesture as Bosnia burned, a powerless institution to cover the UN’s failure. The original budget was for $200 000, but now it averages around $90 000 000 a year. Part of Del Ponte’s job is keeping the funding at this level, as the institution established to clear the UN’s guilty conscious becomes bigger and now has powers that international politics may not want it to have. When questioned on her motivation, Del Ponte’s is purely professional, answering, “Even in the crimes that we now have in our jurisdiction, crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, these bizarrely have a lot in common with domestic crime. I mean my job in Switzerland was to prosecute rapists, murders, thieves, all I have to do is conduct the same investigation, it’s just on a bigger scale.” She laughs sarcastically at the end of the sentence, after all, she replaced two notable human rights activists, the Canadian judge Louise Arbour, who replaced the US judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald. Del Ponte is the first ‘career prosecutor’ to hold the position, but her distance from the region helps keep the emotion out of the cases. This November will see her greatest challenge when Slobodan Milosevic will stand in court number three to face charges for Yugoslavia’s conduct in Kosovo.

“Currently the indictment for Milosevic is just about Kosovo, and crimes committed there. I have no doubt whatsoever about the quality of the case against him, I want to see the case in court because our work is very good.” Del Ponte said. Many people have been questioning if it will be easy to convict Milosevic, because of his ability to cover his tracks, but for Del Ponte proving his guilt in Kosovo is easier, linking him to Bosnia and Croatia is the problem.

“As you know on the subject of Bosnia and Croatia we haven’t yet issued an indictment. I plan to issue one within the next month and a half, however this is where our problems lie. It is proving difficult to come up with enough evidence to link him. My policy is normally that I won’t release an indictment unless I feel it can go straight to trial. Until I have enough evidence I won’t do it. This is why he wasn’t indicted until 1999. Trust me, it hasn’t been easy to come this far.”

For journalists and diplomats involved in the region, one name is the key to linking Milosevic to Bosnia, Croatia and the underworld, his dark right-hand man, Franki Simatovic. Simatovic is well known by Interpol, the one believed to have armed the paramilitaries in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. There has never been a picture taken of him, a very dangerous man to cross. I asked Del Ponte if she planned to charge him, but the response was instantly different. I had already inquired about ongoing investigations into the KLA which she answered politely enough, but on the subject of Simatovic it was a different response, a harsh and deliberate “ No, no question, it essential that we keep our investigations confidential until the indictment is issued, until it is public.” Simatovic is now rumoured to be operating in Kumanova, Macedonia in ‘operations’ against the Albanian rebels.

The ICTY has a mandate to operate until 2004 However the ongoing conflict in Macedonia and the persecution of non-Albanians in Kosovo seems to be creating an endless supply of work for her team of approximately 400 investigators. Del Ponte plans to be there until the end, claiming “I never make any plan for the future.” On the subject of her successes she is proud of the Foca verdict, where she claims, “It is not a personal success, it’s a success for all of this office, but I do think it is a particular achievement that one accused can be convicted of multiple rapes even though he did not touch even one woman. But he was responsible, he knew it was being done systematically, this is what is ground breaking.”

Having proved genocide and sexual enslavement is one thing, but I asked Del Ponte if this justice is the West’s guilty conscience or does this justice actually help the Balkans. On the concept of justice, to her, a woman of the law it was black and white, yes, but on the future of the Balkans I didn’t find too much optimism. “ I think Milosevic’s trial will be one of the greatest moments for all the countries of former-Yugoslavia, the truth will be out in the open, and the people must take the chance to use this as an instrument of reconciliation. However they also have economic needs, if the international community stand back, what is the point of justice if you remain poor and hungry? The history of the region is fairly depressing, maybe it will happen again, at least we tried for this generation.”

As I turned to leave Del Ponte’s office I noticed a poster on her wall, a wanted poster for the three main Serb leaders. She has indicted all ethnicities now, Muslim, Serb, Croat. Soon it will be Albanians, however Mladic, Karadzic, and Milosevic are still the main targets. Del Ponte had taken a marker pen through the picture of Milosevic, striking him off the wanted list. I tried to think if this clinical court building in a pretty Dutch town helped the corpses I saw back in the war, and after, particularly the ones of victims of Srebrenica. It felt so far from Bosnia, it hurt, but on looking at the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, the need for justice once again came back.

He said “ I had two houses. One they burnt down. It could burn. They burnt it down, but the other they couldn’t burn .It was made of bricks, but not yet finished, so it wouldn’t burn. I thought, well at least it will survive, but no they came and planted mines, and it went down. But right never mind that. I had it, it’s gone. They took it. But why did they have to kill my sons? And I stand today as dried as that tree in the forest. I could have lived with my sons and with my own land, and now I don’t have either. How am I supposed to live today? I don’t have a pension or anything. Before, I relied on my sons. They wouldn’t have left me. They wouldn’t have let me go hungry. And today, without my sons, without my land, I’m slowly starving.”

Where the court is irrelevant, all that matters is the truth.

As I left Carla Del Ponte’s office she wished me luck. I wished her even more.

In the Footsteps of Jesus: A Visit to Jerusalem During the Last Intafada, Publish The Herald Magazine

Wandering through Heathrow airport waiting for my flight to Tel Aviv at an unearthly hour, I am grabbed by the desire to spend money to see if it will make time pass quicker. Connection times don't seem to get any faster, even when assisted by duty freeshopping. As I glance along the rows and rows of CDs one title jumps from the shelf and lodges itself in my mind: It Doesn't Hurt When it Hits.Seven days later a child clutching an ice pack to his swollen arm looks at me through bloodshot eyes and says, "It doesn't hurt when it hits". He has been hit with a rubber bullet fired by an Israeli soldier. As he withdraws from the barricade, the riot continues - the child is sufficiently hurt to acquire the status of martyr. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of children to take his place in the firing line with a hard rain of tear gas, rubberbullets and live ammunition falling on them.

The day finishes with the usual Middle East football-style results of the day; one Israeli soldier injured, two Palestinian children dead and seven hurt. As my injured friend scurries for a safer place, a colleague looks to me and comments, "It's all just a question of faith." I had left Jerusalem that morning to the sound of the call to prayer, clashing in the dusty air with that of church bells. When I return that evening the streets of West Jerusalem are deserted for Shabbat, the Jewish holy day. If there is one thing this place has, it's faith. Lots of it. A look at the travel agent's shelf tells you it is still advertised as a tourist resort. Maybe not Ramallah, the town where the clashes are happening, but the area 20 minutes down the road is still listed, andvisited by a steady trickle of tourists.

My reception committee at the airport is a large, sarcastic girl from airport security. Instantly I am pulled aside and asked, "Why have you come to Israel?" I answer her, "To be a tourist". "Why?" she asks. I explain to her that I've always wanted to see Jerusalem, and thought I'd give it a whirl. Once again she asks, "Why?" I answer, "Because." This verbal ping pong continues for some time. The fact I have a press card, but want to be a tourist, confuses her. The stalemate continues until a man with a large moustache is consulted. The moustache mutters the words, "Welcome to Israel" and I am off to the taxi rank. After haggling furiously, I begin the taxi ride to Jerusalem, where I am dumped at an excuse for a hotel on the West. The journey through the darkness only hints at a city of erratic taxi drivers, building sites, and a sense of disappointment, but the morning light reveals a very different picture.

Modern Jerusalem is similar to Tel Aviv - urban sprawl and tower blocks coupled with shopping malls and McDonalds. I get directions for the American Colony Hotel, and head east. Instantly the character of the city changes. The American Colony was built in the nineteenth century, originally for a Turkish merchant. It was turned into a hotel at the beginning of the last century and has played host to the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Graham Greene. Now it is one of the favoured haunts of the Press corps, but don't let that put you off. It is simply stunning. After a coffee in the courtyard, I meet up with a friend and cross the "green line", the imaginary line dividing East and West Jerusalem. As you enter the East, you notice the difference immediately. The walls of the old town are soon visible and, as I join the crowd to enter through the Damascus Gate, I feel like I'm on an escalator, as the market crowd drags me along. Instantly I am hit with the Old Town's atmosphere - a heady mix of sights, smells, and culture clashes.

Arabic music is pumped out of speakers and old women sit beside piles of vine leaves, while the crowd ushers me along. The tourist shops are deserted but the lanes are mobbed with people selling, buying and haggling. It seems everything is up for sale. The aromas of spices mix with those of falafel cooking in cafes. But tourism is for later. The press corps are gathering outside the Haramal-Sharif, the complex housing Jerusalem's centre-piece, the Dome of the Rock, as well as the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There could be trouble on the menu.The mosque is no longer open to the public - only Palestinians have access to Jerusalem's most impressive building. It is Friday prayers, so the mosque is busy, but not at full capacity - up to 300,000 worshippers can cram into it during religious festivals. Trouble can spark when the youths leave after prayers, clashing with the Israeli security forces.

For the journalist, Jerusalem and the surrounding area are bizarrely predictable. There are always clashes on a Friday, in the Old Town or the West Bank. For the tourist, though, it can be unpredictable as pilgrims following the Stations of the Cross - Christ's route through the city to his crucifixion - suddenly find themselves surrounded by police in full riot gear. Even worse, they can walk blindly into a full-scale riot, as the Intifada carries on regardless of the interests of tourism. Absorbed in prayer, they seem oblivious to the danger of the situation.

Briefly, stones begin to rain from the Mosque wall, as youths crank up the confrontation. If you don't have a helmet, the feeling of exposure is unnerving, as the police hoist their riot shields to deflect the barrage. A stream of women wearing the full veil, along with men of every description flood past the riot police. Meanwhile, bus loads of Russian Orthodox pilgrims mingle with the crowd, clutching icons that apparently make the tension invisible while the stones continue to fall. The threat of trouble eventually dissipates and the streets of the old town are handed back to the tourists. For pilgrims, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre awaits. Meanwhile, a three-and-a -half-shekel taxi ride deposits the journalists in the West Bank, right in the midst of a fire-fight. The choice is yours.

After witnessing another clash on the West Bank, I decide to relax with a day's sightseeing. Bethlehem can be seen from Jerusalem, but since it is a Palestinian-controlled town, viewing it is complicated. A taxi takes you to the Israeli checkpoint on the outskirts, then, after your documents are checked, you walk to the other side to get a Palestinian cab.

The previous night, a Palestinian was shot at the checkpoint, beside Rachel's tomb, a sacred site to Jews and Muslims. Primary school bible lessons have shaped my ideas of what Bethlehem would look like - provoking images of the little donkey on the dusty road. In reality it is a ghost town struggling to survive. You can taste the tension in the air, mixing with the dust and settling on your skin. The Church of the Nativity is deserted, except for two hardcore American pilgrims, with wispy beards and sandles, guided by faith. The plaza outside is like something from a spaghetti Western, minus the tumble weed.

I walk down to the spot where Christ is said to have been born, and realise I have the grotto to myself. A local vet called Imad explains that in more peaceful times you can queue for up to three hours to touch this spot. Today, like most days, he has nothing to do. He offers me the solution for the crisis - unfortunately politics is never far away in the Holy Land. "We should auction Jerusalem piece by piece, sell to the highest bidder," he says. "Then they can take it to New York, New Jersey, wherever they want. And we can get on with our lives." Today, Bethlehem is mine, with or without a bid. As I climb the stairs out of the tomb the air expands and contracts to the sound of airstrikes on nearby Gaza. I can't even see a donkey.

My final Friday sees me climbing The Mount of Olives. The view of the Old Town is incredible, with the graves on The Mount stretching into the distance. Once again, bus loads of pilgrims mingle with the trinket sellers. The tour guide points out the sites, then the politics. "Arafat was a terrorist, while Sharon was a hero," he says. They take pictures, but fail to see the Apache helicopters on the horizon spitting wisps of smoke.

I walk under the unearthly hot sun back to the city, and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Orthodox pilgrims, Russian again, kneel to kiss the Stone of Unction on the spot where Christ's body was said to be wrapped after his death. Candles are lit at the most sacred Christian site of all, the Tomb of Christ. Some weep, others sob uncontrollably. As they leave, the more devout seem to float, high on incense and prayer.

That afternoon in Ramallah, the adolescents are also sky high. As I crouch behind a wall with a bunch of them, they are flying on a mixture of cordite, adrenalin and tear gas. As we hug the wall, Palestinian gunmen snipe at the Israeli army around the corner, which in turn, responds from their tanks. My heart races, as the kids scream, "Allah Akbhr" (God is great). The Israelis pummel nearby buildings with tank and machine gun fire. A sniper parts the hair of anyone who wanders too far from the wall, while the battle that began with stones now involves artillery. At four o'clock the prayer call goes out, and the youths put down the stones and turn to face Mecca. The gunfire gradually fades, the prayer call almost like the all-clear after an air-raid.

Jerusalem is all about contrasts. At the hotel, I sit giggling over a beer with nervous excitement. A group of German pilgrims sing their praises for the food they are about to eat behind us. It then dawns on me Christianity appears as a strange sideshow in Jerusalem, just a tourist attraction.

The two main attractions, Judaism and Islam, are fighting it out for the main stage, leaving me feeling a little cold to them all. The nearest I have come to a spiritual experience is hiding behind a wall in Ramallah.

The appearance of Kostunica on the international stage must not blind the West to the fact that Yugoslavia remains highly unstable, says Steven Gordon

As Janko Janjic detonated the hand-grenade that killed himself and injured the four Nato soldiers trying to arrest him on Thursday, it served as a timely reminder of the crimes still unpunished in the former Yugoslavia. Janjic, 43, had been a sub-commander of the Bosnian-Serb army in the town of Foca. He had been indicted by the Hague Tribunal, and was accused of torture, rape, and sexual enslavement. His attempted arrest, over five years after the end of the Bosnian war, acts as a reminder that the Hague still has unfinished business. The big boys are still out there, and, with the powers that be in Belgrade no longer persona -non-grata, it's starting to look like they might be out for some time to come.

It's now over a week since people power apparently came to the streets of Belgrade, and already the sanctions are being removed, the embassies are re -opening and the past 13 years forgotten like a bad dream that never really happened. Kostunica is triumphant at the head of his multi-party coalition, now in power, but in control? Serbia has its chance to join Europe, a more stable Europe, the last European dictator overthrown, democracy in place, cash in the post and a people furnished with hope. Or so we are led to believe.

Remember that Milosevic came to power on the crest of the wave of Serbian nationalism. He used this to gain the power he has held for the last 13 years. When faced with this wave of Serbian nationalism, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, all found their nationalist past, lying dormant, as in most Balkan souls, eventually leading to confrontation and the wars and crimes of the past 10 years.

Ethnic hatred ran amok, the crimes of the past left unpunished, scars too easily uncovered when no attempt had been made in the past for proper reconciliation. Tito ruled with an iron fist, but when the fist was unclenched the past sprung too easily to life. Kostunica, like Milosevic beforehand, is a Serbian nationalist, a democratic one, but still a nationalist. Making his debut on the international stage at the EU summit in Biarritz, Kostunica evaded the issue of handing over indicted criminals to The Hague. He said reviving his nation's economy was top of his priority list. In fact, the old problems still exist. The Serbs are looking out seeing themselves as the victims, the oppressed, not the oppressor.

They believe this, mainly because of the lies that have been fed to them during the Milosevic years, the media ignoring the truth, pumping out the government line. After 13 years of this they have become somewhat paranoid about truth. Imagine waking up and being told you are the murderer, when all these years you thought you were the victim?

With this background, reconciliation is slightly difficult. Just now our screens are filled with pictures of joyous Serbs. Not many people are asking the Croats, the Bosnians or the Albanians what they think of Kostunica. These are the people who had to fight against Milosevic's policies. As the direct victims of Milosevic's policies, Serbia has to acknowledge guilt, preferably by handing over Milosevic, Karadzic, Mladic, etc.

If not, like in the past, the wounds will fester, refugees won't go home, and conflict will restart. You can stabilise Serbia with money and by recognising the new government, but you will squander the investment in the rest of the Balkans if they see no justice. If the former-Yugoslav countries see no sense of justice, the desire will strengthen the need for revenge. All the Balkan nations have to face their ghosts, dealing with their own guilt, as well as that of others. Kostunica now has the neighbours worried. Despite proclamations yesterday that he wishes to restore diplomatic ties with Slovenia and condemn the name Yugoslavia to the waste bin of history, many remain concerned that he has in the past espoused views not that dissimilar to those of Milosevic. Kosovo is still, in his eyes, Serbian. He even made an appearance there in 1998, visiting the army and police during their clampdown on Albanian separatists. He opposed the Dayton agreement that ended the Bosnian war, considering it too soft on the Muslims.

Milosevic created the Serbian infrastructure as he needed it. The police, army, secret service, were all chosen specifically for what he needed. Kostunica, if he gains full control of these assets, will have a powerful toy. The entire system was built to support Milosevic and everyone was loyal to him. They may not all be loyal now, but many are still loyal to the past. Added to this is the fact that it looks like Slobo is still a political force. While Mladic still parades in public, attending football matches, Seslj still holds government, and Milosevic still plans his next move. In the past Kostunica has seen Serbian actions in the wars as defensive. If this is still the case the dock in The Hague will remain empty, as will the chances of lasting peace in the Balkans.