Bosnian Serb leader turns herself in

Biljana Plavsic, former president of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, traveled to The Hague yesterday in order to turn herself over to the so-called War Crimes Tribunal, which has charged her with "genocide, crimes against humanity, violation of laws and customs of war and serious violations of the Geneva Convention in Bosnia-Herzegovina during 1991 an 1992."

Although Plavsic is scheduled to appear before the court for the first time today, her trial is not expected to start before January of 2002, when she will stand trial along with Momcilo Krajisnik, the wartime president of the Bosnian Serb parliament and later member of the joint Bosnian presidency, who was brutally arrested at his parents' home last year and hustled off to the Hague by special forces units.

Some think that Plavsic's voluntary turn-in will help her case, especially if she is willing to provide testimony that would directly accuse other members of the Bosnian Serb wartime leadership, especially Dr. Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

Others, like attorney Krstan Simic, head of her legal defense team, are saying that Plavsic's act was a natural consequence of her convictions.

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"Mrs. Plavsic, following her moral, living and political principles, has decided to turn herself in, considering herself to be innocent and her conscience clear, and that the International Tribunal was the only place where she could present her case and where she believes she will succeed in defending her honor." He added that he believed that Plavsic believed in justice and her own innocence.

Asked about her initial reaction, Simic said that, "of course, she was taken, not to say shocked, by everything that she was being accused of." However, he continued, "Biljana Plavsic is a courageous and realistic woman ... who deeply believes in her innocence, both before God and before people and feels that she will have both the strength and the ability to prove this during the proceedings. ..."

Reactions in Republika Srpska and Yugoslavia have been mixed, with some accusing Plavsic of continuing on her path of "treason" and getting her just desserts, and others approving of her actions -- for various reasons:

There is no doubt as to her physical courage, as she was the only one of the Bosnian Serb leadership who personally toured all the frontlines, often putting herself in danger of being shot by enemy snipers or hit by incoming shells.

Also, she had previously expressed her willingness to go to The Hague if called to do so, even before she became president of Republika Srpska, during the time when she was considered to be the nationalist hard-liner among the Bosnian Serb leadership.

As a biology professor, Plavsic had a scientist's naive belief in the possibility of "objectivity" on the part of international political actors. Thus, she may be safely believed when she says that she trusts that she can prove her innocence before an obviously political institution masquerading as a court of law.

Leaving aside Plavsic's personal characteristics and beliefs, her act is a clear win for the Hague Tribunal, no matter how it rules on her case. If the trial declares her to be innocent, the Tribunal will be able to put on a veneer of "objectivity" and "justice," having exonerated a high Serb official of war-crime charges. In addition, her testimony will be used to go after much bigger fish -- Karadzic, Mladic, perhaps even Milosevic.

If Plavsic is declared guilty, the court, on the other hand, will first be able to claim that "justice is blind," and that Plavsic's voluntary surrender could not "absolve" her of responsibility for such high crimes.

Of course, the Tribunal's win is only in the field of public relations and political power projection, not in the field of justice and moral right. For the latter to be satisfied, the Tribunal would have to widen its scope and call to accountability all those responsible for the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the ensuing wars that claimed so many lives. Such suspects would not be found just on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, but in the U.S., the European Union and even Russia.

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Unfortunately, as is much of everything else that has gone on in the Balkans for the last decade, the Tribunal is an experiment. It is a test to see whether people and states would be willing to swallow a supra-national body empowered to meddle into their internal affairs. So far, the Tribunal has been a successful globalist experiment.

Aleksandar Pavic in Belgrade has covered Yugoslavia's historic election and its dramatic aftermath for WorldNetDaily.com.