Justice still doesn’t always mean convictions

The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquittal today of Ramush Haradinaj and Idriz Balaj has elicited the expected reactions in Serbia and Kosovo.  The Kosovars are celebrating while the Serbs denounce the ruling.

My own reaction, at least until I have a chance to read the decision, is the same as the one I had a couple of weeks ago, when an ICTY appeals panel found two Croatian generals not guilty:  justice does not always mean convictions.  All neutral observers I know think the prosecutor in Haradinaj/Balaj case simply failed to meet the burden of proof.  Why that was the case is not so clear, but it left the court with little choice.  “Not guilty” does not exonerate.  It only finds that adequate evidence was not presented to prove the case.

That is not how Serbs and Albanians view court verdicts.  Serbs see this and the previous acquittal as demonstrating ICTY bias against Serbs.  Albanians view the verdict as validation of the war conducted by the Kosovo Liberation Army against Belgrade’s security forces.  Both are wrong.  The court did not consider the general question of justification for the armed uprising in the late 1990s.  It considered the specific allegations against two specific people, both of whom unquestionably committed acts of armed rebellion that violated Yugoslav law of the time.

I have a little personal experience with Ramush, who came to see me without publicity repeatedly after the war, when he had already laid down his arms and was beginning his political career.  He pursued that with vigor until he was indicted the first time in 2005, when he resigned from the prime ministry and went to The Hague.  I also visited him in2001 in Gllogjane/Glodane, the village where his family reigns supreme.  He took me to the graves of his two brothers killed in the war and described to me in some detail the fighting he was involved in against Yugoslav security forces.  He did not–but who would?–admit to any violence against Serb civilians.  He also denied that his family was involved in any way in the fighting in 2001 in Macedonia.  That, I believe, was untrue.

Ramush will now return to Kosovo, where it is widely expected that Prime Minister Thaci will try to restore his uncertain majority in Parliament by bringing Ramush’s party into the government.  Ramush may extract a substantial price for his support.  This could complicate the ongoing political-level talks between Pristina and Belgrade, which have seen a couple of business-like, but as yet unproductive, meetings.  Unafraid of being criticized for being soft on Serbs, Ramush is likely to take a pragmatic approach to relations with Belgrade.  But Belgrade’s politicians will find it harder to meet with him than with Thaci, whose war-time role was primarily political rather than military.

Proving things in court more than ten years after the fact is not easy.  I don’t know if Ramush committed the acts he was accused of or not.  If someone in Belgrade has stronger evidence than the prosecutor presented, they should have made it available.  I do know that an orderly and deliberative court using modern methods and procedures has found him not guilty.   You may not like the outcome, but little purpose is served by denouncing the court.  Justice still doesn’t always mean convictions.