Milosevic on Trial

The trial, which is expected to take over a year, is being prosecuted by Carla del Ponte of the International Crimes Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and overseen by judges from England, Jamaica, and Morocco. Mr. Milosevic thus far has refused legal representation; neither will he enter a plea to the charges, saying he does not recognize the authority of this international court.

This is an interesting and important trial, which can be followed online at www.un.org/icty. (American TV will hardly follow this as closely as it did the O.J. Simpson case). Here is a selection of recent books that deal with Milosevic, Yugoslavia, and war crimes:

Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant
by Dusko Doder
Slobodan Milosevic, the subject of Dusko Doder's excellent book, now sits in a prison cell at the Hague. This is a far cry from the power he wielded as a communist aparatchik in the old socialist system or as the president of post-communist Yugoslavia. In years past, Milosevic rode racial phobia and Serb nationalism to political supremacy in Belgrade. This led directly to violent strife between the republics that once belonged to Yugoslavia and to several wars, including one final, crippling war with NATO. Fomentation of genocide in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo are indictments Milosevic will have to face.

Humanity
by Jonathan Glover
The subtitle of Jonathan Glover's Humanity is "A Moral History of the Twentieth Century." Therefore the reader should expect, and will find, pessimism. As an ethicist in the 20th century, Glover must confront the horrors of genocide, totalitarianism, and tribalism. Glover does not sit back and take cover -- rather, in this extraordinary book, he offers prescriptions for better ways forward. In a book that features more Balkan players than just Milosevic, Glover asks if we cannot rise above nationalism and racism and xenophobia to attain a higher humanism. Along the way, he explores the patterns behind the violent conflict that has so defined the last century.

Waging Modern War
by Wesley Clark
Slobodan Milosevic made a lot of enemies in his career as a virulent Balkan nationalist, but his greatest opponent turned out to be General Wesley Clark, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. When Milosevic made war against Yugoslav citizens in the province of Kosovo, it was Clark who led the forces to shut that aggression down. And yet this military memoir by Clark is not a triumphal record of victory. Instead, the retired general warns of the flaws inherent in the kind of war he conducted -- a war in which technology is expected to perform flawlessly, in which no American life can ever be sacrificed, in which the ultimate goal is a political and not a military settlement.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger
by Christopher Hitchens
Critics of war crimes tribunals suggest that while Slobodan Milosevic is generally recognized as a nasty piece of work, other politicians -- even politicians from the United States -- could find themselves in the dock at the Hague if such courts ever become politicized. After all, much of Milosevic's defense will hinge on the idea that while he had a hand in the genocides in Kosovo and Bosnia, the heads of NATO countries bear responsibility, too, for bombing deaths in Yugoslavia. An example of such dangerous moral equivalency is found in The Trial of Henry Kissinger, in which Christopher Hitchens singles out the former U.S. Secretary of State for particular guilt in the wars of Southeast Asia. What seems an eccentric charge now could worry statesmen in the future, given a different political landscape.

Stay the Hand of Vengeance
by Gary Jonathan Bass
There have been war crimes tribunals before -- faced by the Germans and Japanese defendants after World War II -- but they have been few and far between, an ongoing experiment in jurisprudence. Stay the Hand of Vengeance, which takes its title from prosecutor Robert Jackson's opening statement at the Nuremberg trials, examines all kinds of war crimes and their consequences. Investigated in this critical study are the social, cultural, and political forces underpinning efforts to prosecute -- and stall -- war crimes in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile.

The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
Speaking of war crimes ... in The Reader, Berg, a 15-year-old German schoolboy, falls in love with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz. When Hanna suddenly disappears, Berg is as devastated as he is mystified. Only several years later do the two meet again, when the young man rediscovers his paramour. This time, she is standing trial for war crimes as a former guard at Auschwitz. A meditation on love and the ambiguity of guilt, The Reader is a complicated and moving novel that was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her popular reading group.