Sometimes, the bad guys do get caught. And sometimes,
the bad guys do get kicked out. Not often enough, admittedly, and usually, it's
much too late, but still, I'd rather they were dealt with late than never.
General Ratko Mladić, former commander of the Serb
forces in Bosnia, will spend the rest of his life in jail after being convicted
of crimes that the judge at his trial in The Hague called 'among the most heinous known to humankind'. Robert Mugabe, the brutal, corrupt autocrat
who misruled Zimbabwe for much of the thirty-seven years he was in power, has
been unceremoniously forced to resign.
I'll return to ex-President Mugabe in a
moment, but let's concentrate first on Ratko Mladić. The war in Bosnia has already
faded into history, yet it was -- and remains -- a stain on Europe's post-1945
history that shames us all to this day.
Just look at the list of Mladić's crimes,
as set out in the judgement of the war crimes tribunal. Genocide; persecution (a crime against
humanity); extermination (a crime against humanity); murder (a crime against
humanity); murder (a violation of the laws or customs of war); deportation (a
crime against humanity); the inhumane act of forcible transfer (a crime against
humanity); terror (a violation of the laws or customs of war); unlawful attacks
on civilians (a violation of the laws or customs of war); and the taking of
hostages (a violation of the laws or customs of war).
The dry legal terminology does little to
reflect the sheer horror of the atrocities committed by fighters under Mladić's
command. (And, it should be acknowledged, by others as well.) You can read the
full judgement summary here if you have the stomach for it.
Mladić was a monster. But he was not
unique. In Myanmar, there are generals engaging in their own version of ethnic
cleansing against the Royingha. In Saudi Arabia, there are generals ordering
air attacks and blockades on Yemen which are causing thousands of civilian
deaths. And in Zimbabwe, irony of ironies, the man now being heralded as that
benighted country's hope for a fresh start, Emmerson Mnangagwa, could -- had
the cards fallen differently -- equally have found himself accused of war
crimes for his part in the massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s.
But partial justice is still a sort of
justice. There may well be an argument for examining whether US and British
generals -- as well as their political masters -- should be prosecuted for
their actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. And what about President
Putin, for his air force's bombing of civilians in Syria? The truth is that when
the chips are down, international law can never overcome the dictates of
political calculation. Even so, I don't believe the inadequacies of our system
of international law invalidates the process that led to the conviction of
Ratko Mladić.
As for Robert Mugabe, it seems he will be
allowed to see out his days undisturbed by any threat of being held accountable
for his decades of brutality. Perhaps it's the price that has to be paid for a
peaceful, bloodless transition to a post-Mugabe era.
Mugabe has not ended up in a court of law,
nor has he been toppled by a popular uprising. His rule was ended by what the
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai aptly characterised as a
'factional war of succession', in which the army backed Emmerson Mnangagwa over
Mr Mugabe's wife Grace.
So peace is not the same as justice. As we
know from northern Ireland, sometimes one comes at the expense of the other. And
in South Africa, the post-apartheid settlement also accepted that: police
officers, prison guards and others were spared prosecution in the interests of
a peaceful transition from white minority rule.
As a result, a lot of bad guys got away
with it, just as they did in northern Ireland. And many more -- in Myanmar,
Russia, Syria, and Saudi Arabia -- will also get away with it. Not necessarily in
the interests of peace, but in the interests of Big Power politics.
Ratko Mladić was prosecuted because he
committed his crimes at a time when, briefly, the world's major powers were agreed
that the most egregious of crimes had to be dealt with internationally, under
the auspices of the United Nations.
But that moment has now passed. President
Assad of Syria, the 'assertive' new crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Prince
Mohammad bin Salman, and the generals who rule Myanmar in uneasy partnership
with Aung San Suu Kyi, all have powerful Big Power patrons. They are all safe
-- for now, at least.
But politics are fickle, as Ratko Mladić
has learnt. The tide can turn -- and one day, today's war criminals may also
find themselves facing justice.
As I wrote last February: 'Neither President
Assad, nor anyone in his circle, can lie in their beds at night
confident that they will never face justice. Their current protectors in Moscow
and Tehran have their own interests to protect, and would quite happily throw
Assad to the wolves if they considered it to be in their own national
interests.'
I have to be honest,
though -- I'm not holding my breath.