The Arrest of Mladic

I suppose it was quite inevitable that I would have to make some comment on this. I never planned on making this blog a political forum, I thought of it only as an extended travel diary - a sort of consolidated place which might form a more innovative improvement on sending tedious group emails. Maybe the frantic pace of news this year has kept me alert and opiniated, maybe it is simply that I've realised that this is a good place to raise awareness of some terrible things that have happened recently to people I knew. But it's also true that something as topical as the arrest of Ratko Mladic provides an interesting insight into one of the places I have been writing about, and for those of you who might have been interested on my musings on the subject, I feel that the large amount of press that this arrest has generated about Bosnia - a rare occurrence these days, now that both the international media and the internationally community itself is moving onto sexier, racier events and places - that some of this coverage might atone for the background information and the overall picture which I never really felt myself capable of providing.

So I felt it worthwhile to post an article which I found both powerful and moving today. It's written by one of the journalists who originally uncovered the existence of concentration camps in Northeastern Bosnia in 1992, exposing the details of ethnic cleansing internationally for the first time. "Ratko Mladic's arrest is a hollow victory in a country that refuses to apologise", it is entitled. It's not particularly long and I highly recommend reading it for anyone interested in the current state of affairs in Bosnia, because it is for me at least a response to my inner dismay that for all the extensive coverage of the arrest - the headlines, the reporters running back to the Balkans, the statements of praise from international dignitaries - none of it was really about Bosnia at all.

All the stories and the face-to-camera commentaries talked instead about Serbia: about it's EU candidacy, about its previous reluctance (now amended and forgiven) to arrest a man whose whereabouts was well known, about the implications for geo-political realignment and economic development in the region. None of the stories were about Bosnia, no one went and reported from Sarajevo. Glib statements that the survivors and the families of the victims of Srebrenica welcomed this news that "justice would finally be done" were left unsubstantiated. I really wished that I'd been back in Sarajevo last Thursday, to see and feel the reaction there. But my suspicions that there would be little celebrating were later confirmed by friends who mentioned the air of sadness, disappointment and anti-climax. It must have been a day for remembering - both in terms of the good memories of the individuals and the unbearable memories of what happened to them - and for the bitterness of futility.

Serbia and its politicians have been heaped with praise for doing something that they had the ability to do years ago. The timing alone strikes me as politically suspicious (Catherine Ashton's visit, Serbian state TV apologising for the propaganda it broadcast in the 1990s). The arrest has not been accompanied by the repeat of previous apologies or acknowledgements, only by Mladic and his supporters' insistence that he stands wrongly accused. Like Milosevic, he is in poor health and might potentially die before a trial is concluded. He won't be tried in Bosnia by Bosnian courts, prosecutors or judges. Even if found guilty, the trial is unlikely to provide information about the whereabouts of victims (or their remains) which are still missing, still buried in undiscovered mass graves. The arrest will make no difference to the fraught political situation within Bosnia, where those referred to as "the victims" of Sarajevo and Srebrenica generally feel that the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign was a success, resulting as it did in the Serbian-controlled Republika Srpska - one of Bosnia's federal entities, taking up about half of the country's territory - which shows no sign of wanting to share a state with those eternally-referenced "victims".

As Ed Vulliamy puts it in the article mentioned above, "the Republika Srpska makes no secret of its desire to accede to Serbia proper, or to make Bosnia such a dysfunctional state that it becomes pointless".

I specialised during my Masters in international law, particularly international criminal justice. Obviously I am pleased that this man has finally been arrested - and that unlike some others on the 'most wanted' list, that this problem wasn't solved with several bullets to the head, administered by the agents of a foreign country. I look forward to pondering the legal issues in his forthcoming extradition and the upcoming legal battle and inevitable delaying tactics. And I don't argue that this Vulliamy's article is an impartial or objective account of Bosnia today or of Mladic himself - far from it, really. But at least it bothers to stop take a look around Bosnia and see what the arrest means for this beautiful, troubled, tragic little country, and that's something that has been sorely lacking since last Thursday.

The US, UK and Bahrain

I don't usually blog spontaneously and reactively - I try to make time for this, to compose my thoughts and to write rationally and reasonably. But news reports today have dismayed me, and three articles which I read in quick succession have made me want to react, immediately.

Firstly, leading headlines this morning were dedicated to Obama's speech on the Middle East last night, generally complimenting (at least if you read the "liberal" press like I do, being a weak-willed, jelly-kneed, bleeding-heart liberal and all) a shift in policy away from support to autocratic regimes in favour of the pro-democracy movements of the Arab spring. The extent to which a realignment of rhetoric will really change effective US policy in the Middle East (US military bases, supply of military equipment, political partnership) remains debatable, but some of the phrases in his speech, to me, were remarkable and typically eloquent.

"So we face an historic opportunity. We have embraced the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator ... After decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be" ... "The status quo is not sustainable," Obama said.

Following on the imposition of sanctions against Syria by the US this week, the Guardian wrote that "the tone of the speech at the state department in Washington, the first major one on the Middle East since Cairo in 2009, was intended to suggest that the US is turning its back on its long-term policy of supporting dictatorships in the Middle East to guarantee oil supplies and instead will embrace democracy and commitment to human rights.

Yet on the same day, newspapers in the UK carried pictures of David Cameron welcoming the Crown Prince of Bahrain to 10 Downing Street, shaking hands in front of that iconic doorway. The Independent led with the headline, "Cameron embraces tyranny".

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "The Prime Minister raised concerns about the situation in Bahrain and stressed the importance of the government moving to a policy of reform rather than repression." Mr Cameron said grievances on all sides should be addressed "through constructive dialogue". The spokesman added: "The Prime Minister emphasised his support for the Crown Prince's long-standing work to achieve political and economic progress in Bahrain."

I don't normally get outraged by politics on this level. I don't usually throw around words like duplicity or hypocrisy or outrage, and because I am at least resigned to the real politik of the real world, I usually subsist into disappointment and hopelessness about matters like this. But today, not long after I read those headlines I read this brilliant piece of writing by my former colleague at Front Line, Deputy Director Andrew Anderson. And I knew that I had to repost it immediately. We all need more writing like this - concise, measured, the opposite of hysterical but with a clear sense of purpose and immense feeling.

Obama, Cameron and Bahrain

Let us welcome President Obama's condemnation of repression in Bahrain even if it is long overdue and was qualified by weasel words about legitimate Government concerns and Iranian interference. He rightly said "mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain's citizens." Talking more generally he also said "the truth cannot be hidden," and "repression will fail, and tyrants will fall."

David Cameron's unwise decision to welcome Bahrain's Crown Prince to Downing Street may also turn out to have a positive side. There was widespread criticism across the UK media from the Telegraph and Mail to the Guardian. The highlight was the Independent's front page banner headline "Cameron embraces tyranny" over a picture of him shaking hands with the Prince on the steps of 10 Downing Street.

One must hope that the media coverage delivered a blunt message to Bahrain's rulers in a way that British and US Government diplomacy has so far failed to do. The Crown Prince had previously been positioned as an advocate of dialogue and reform and might still play a positive role. But not before there is an end to mass arrests, torture, show trials, mass sackings and brutal attempts to silence human rights defenders, independent journalists and all those who support peaceful change. There can be no dialogue whilst those the regime must speak with are in jail. Talk of "reform" is meaningless without respect for basic human rights.

My friend and former colleague at Front Line Abdulhadi Alkhawaja has been brutally tortured in the last weeks and there was an attempt to sexually assault him because of his refusal to apologise to the King on camera. My friend and prominent blogger and freedom of expression campaigner Ali Abdulemam is currently being tried in absentia alongside Abdulhadi. He was detained and tortured during a previous show trial last year. He was released in February but has not been seen since March.

These two gentle men, colleagues I have worked with, friends I have played football with, are demonised in the Bahraini Government controlled media as religious extremists engaged in a terrorist conspiracy on behalf of Iran. It is as absurd as the detentions of doctors, poets and Bahraini football players. And the mass loyalty pledges which are apparently to be engraved on gold swords.

Obama spoke of "shouts of dignity" and we have heard these in Bahrain, followed by shouts from the torture chambers. It is time to put an end to the madness and the US and UK must exert their influence more forcefully to avert the sectarian disaster which the current Bahraini and Saudi rulers seem to be determined to provoke. Free Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and the other detainees, end the show trials, and allow Ali Abdulemam and the other disappeared to return to their families in safety.

You can support imprisoned human rights defender Abdulhadi Alkhawaja here.

A post from Pristina

It's about time that I got around to telling you something about Kosovo. For anyone unfamiliar, (which one was that one again?) Kosovo is a former (well, that's debatable, but I'm not going there right now) province of Serbia which was placed under UN/NATO administration in 1999 following a guerrilla war of independence which escalated into full-blown ethnic conflict. From a legal, historical and political point of view, Kosovo's was a unique conflict because it ended due to NATO military intervention - largely led by the US and Britain - justified on the basis of stopping large-scale atrocities which were being allegedly committed against civilians, specifically ethnic cleansing. If this sounds familiar to anyone, this is the same justification which is currently being used for NATO intervention in Libya. All sides committed atrocities but the bad guys in 1999 were the Serbian forces. Since then, local Kosovan Albanians have been accused of committing ethnically-based violence against Kosovan Serbs in retaliation, the worst of which happened in 2004 when serious rioting led to the displacement and expulsion of much of the remaining Serb population. Kosovo declared itself to be an independent state in 2008 but it has not been fully recognised and it's status remains unresolved. It's not a dangerous place and the conflict is over, but tensions between the communities remain high.

I'm here working in The Organisation's headquarters in Pristina, the capital. And let me tell you, there are a hell of a lot of Organisations in Pristina these days, so you can have fun trying to work out which one I'm not naming. Kosovo remains under international administration, and although it does have its own government and authorities, it also has a hell of a lot of NATO troops, UN agencies, EU personnel and a whole host of others.

Pristina's a strange place, very different to Sarajevo, though it's about the same size. It's sort of a brand new city, to start with, which doesn't sound as odd as it feels. I'd never thought before about how our conceptions of cities are anchored around their historic development; our individual consciousness of urban development – particularly in Europe – is drawn immediately to the historic centers of cities from which all else usually grows outwards, both physically and mentally. Think about it; upon getting to any new place you immediately head downtown and orient yourself from the main landmarks, which are usually based around a square or imposing public buildings. You don't realise how central – literally and socially – this concept of a city is until it isn't there.

In Pristina, for instance, everything seems to have been built in the last 10 or 20 years, but not in a good way. Urban planning is non-existent. The city is unplanned and follows none of the logic you take for granted in most towns. It seems to lack a sense of centre or history, a sense of itself. I've been to plenty of places where unplanned and unpredictable growth has led to organised chaos, but even in Africa most towns and cities originally functioned as markets or were initially developed by colonisers who had some purpose in mind. But for some reason, it doesn't feel like Pristina has that kind of background. It was a small city whose population exploded in an unpredictable and impromptu mess following the 1999 war. This doesn't make it particularly modern, because most of the new development has taken the form of featureless, six-story apartment buildings. Most only seem half-finished because features like porches, balconies, outdoor lighting (even over the front door) and paving never were finished, leading to a distinct building site quality that's only enhanced by the many half-paved streets, rubble-y pavements and the litter lying around.

So it's not a scenic place. I don't think I'd particularly recommend it as a tourist destination unless you have a thing for army vehicles or a business interest in concrete. But to be fair, despite all the above, it's not really that bad. Pristina's not spectacularly ugly or uniquely bizarre by any means: all of this just makes it sort of... boring, really. Visually, at least. I haven't taken many photos, for instance, because there's nothing much interesting to take pictures of (bar the truly spectacular crater in the street outside my apartment building, below. I amuse myself by watching the cars waltz gingerly around it as I walk home in the evenings). I had heard about all of this before I got here, so perhaps it simply couldn't live up to my wildest and worst imaginings. There's also a good chance that a spell in Africa – in the developing world in general – cures you of many snobberies (once I'm in a place that has a decent internet connection and toilets with a flushing mechanism, I'm generally happy).

But the main thing that really hits you in Pristina is the immense extent to which it is internationalised. By internationalised, I don't mean globalisation (no McDonalds or Starbucks here), but rather the immediate and overwhelming sense that the one and only industry in this town is the international community. All those organisations have a hell of a lot of people just like me working for them, and as a result the service industry which supports people like us feels like the only thing driving Pristina forward.

Coming from Sarajevo especially, the choice in food is mind-bending: sushi, thai, tapas - I had a pancake brunch last week. This is unheard of in the rest of the former Yugoslavia. I don't feel like I'm in the Balkans at all. Everyone travels every weekend (Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Croatia are within driving distance), eats out all the time and does plenty of drinking because everything here is cheap, people make good money and there's nothing else to do. Obviously, the lifestyle is pretty sweet and I'm not saying that I won't enjoy and take full advantage. Except that to be honest, it makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable. Pristina is the living epitome of the international development/aid cliché, more than I've seen anywhere else, including Africa: well-paid white people bumping around in ubiquitous four-wheel-drives, spending money somewhat frivolously in a poor country, complaining about things like litter and potholes.

Well, enjoy my self-righteousness before I inevitably get sucked into it, I suppose. And it'll be interesting to see how much these first impressions change.

Last Sarajevo afternoons...

Bye bye Vuchko!

Belgrade

Some pictures from Belgrade, Easter weekend

Abdulhadi suffered at least four facial fractures in detention and has claimed that he has been threatened

Bahrain: International trial observer refused entry – serious concern for the health and safety of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja

An independent international trial observer was yesterday refused entry into the courtroom by the Bahraini authorities. The observer, a barrister from Tooks Legal Chambers in London, was mandated by Front Line to observe the trial of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, former Front Line Protection Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. She travelled to Bahrain to observe the hearing of 12 May. The trial started at the Lower National Safety Court on 8 May 2011.

Further Information

The Bahraini authorities' decision to refuse entry to international trial observers is in open contradiction to the statement issued by the Bahraini Lower National Safety Court on 8 May 2011 and widely publicised on Bahraini printed and broadcast media. According to the statement “attending trials is permitted for all civil society institutions, human rights organizations and media representatives to reflect the Kingdom's keenness to respect its international commitments in the field of human rights.”

Security officials refused to allow the observer in the courtroom on the basis that her ordre de mission had not been faxed one week in advance of the hearing. However, the hearing of 12 May had only been scheduled at the end of the opening hearing, on 8 May, thus making it impossible for the relevant correspondence to be faxed seven days ahead. Moreover, the authorities were informed of Front Line's intention to send a trial observer on 6 May, and were duly notified of the observer's credentials in advance of yesterday's hearing.

A security official explained to the observer that the trial was open to the public but that international observers, in addition to sending their ordre de mission a week in advance, must receive a written permission to attend. The official also added that this was a "military situation" and a "military institution" and that is why there were rules that needed to be followed. This appears to be in contradiction to public statements released by the Government of Bahrain declaring that the National Safety Court is not a military court.

The observer was repeatedly asked to leave the court premises, which she initially resisted. However, while in a waiting room together with family members who awaited to see the defendants, security officials repeatedly intimated to the families not to speak to the international observer. Furthermore, family member of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja were told that they would not be allowed to see him unless the international observer left the court premises. The wife and daughters of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja were not allowed to meet him despite the fact that observer immediately left once this threat was issued.

According to witnesses to the court hearing, Albdulhadi Al-Khawaja made several attempts to make a statement but was repeatedly silenced. However, he eventually said loudly that he had been threatened that very morning (12 May) and was fearful for his life.

As earlier reported, at the 8 May hearing Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja presented evident signs of ill-treatment and possibly torture. He reportedly suffered four fractures to the side of his face and continues to have problems eating. During his incommunicado detention he was reportedly admitted to the military hospital of al-Riffa to undergo a 4-hour operation.

Front Line deeply regrets the decision of the Government of Bahrain to hide itself from international scrutiny, despite earlier public declarations stating otherwise. Front Line reiterates its shock at the violent treatment Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja has received and remains seriously concerned about his health and safety in detention.

Front Line urges the Government of Bahrain to uphold “the Kingdom's keenness to respect its international commitments”, allow international trial observers, and effectively investigate the serious allegation of torture and ill-treatment in detention

*Blogger has been inaccessible from Kosovo for the last day or two so I haven't been able to post this until now, but the signs regarding Abdulhadi's detention are bleak. He has reportedly suffered four facial factures, had to have four-hour surgery following a fracture of his jaw, and is having trouble eating. His family were only allowed to speak to him briefly but reported that he looked very unwell. International observers are not allowed to monitor his trial, and he was not allowed to make a statement in court. He reportedly shouted that he had been threatened and was afraid for his life.

This is very upsetting.

Also read reports by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

Calling Monaco

I stand corrected on what I said previously that Kosovo has it's own international telephone country code: it doesn't. So one of the fun problems that arises from unresolved statehood issues turns out to be what country code you can use.

I couldn't understand why people told me Kosovo's dialing code was +381 but my local mobile number carried the prefix +377. Turns out that +377 is the country code for Monaco. And another local mobile phone company carries the prefix +386, which is code for Slovenia. Landlines use the prefix +381, which is for Serbia.

Can anyone explain this to me? Do Monaco and Slovenia have numbers to spare which they sell off to Kosovo? Two small countries helping out one another? Or have mobile phone providers from Monaco and Slovenia expanded into the Kosovan market? I find this pretty random and fascinating.

Off the charts

What is Kosovo? General consensus has it, diplomatically, that it has not yet been recognised by enough countries around the world to be acknowledged as a sovereign state. Almost all of the EU and Western States recognise Kosovo, and the International Court of Justice has ruled that it's declaration of independence in itself wasn't illegal. But this is not enough internationally for Kosovo to achieve UN membership, which is probably the ultimate arbiter of statehood. So, it's independently administered; has it's own government, judiciary and police force; even its own registration plates (RKS). Technically - unless and until South Sudan officially declares independence, as is currently expected next July - Kosovo is the newest state in the world. But it's not actually a "state". Legally. Yet. I think.

So when you arrive in Pristina, you have the tiniest of little experiences that you don't have when you arrive in fully-recognised countries.

For instance, you have to worry about passport stamps. Apparently no one (even Serbia) really holds it against you if you have a Kosovan stamp in your passport. On the other hand, Serbia will not allow entry from Kosovo unless you already have a Serbian entry stamp from a previous occasion: as Serbia doesn't recognise Kosovo's borders, it essentially considers that you have entered Serbia illegally if you've entered through Kosovo. So I couldn't help a little anxiety, no matter how illogical, as I handed over my passport at Pristina airport last night, receiving a stamp for entering a country which is not really a "country". Then again, there's something about the way it proudly says "Republic of Kosovo" which makes me smile.

You might think the lack of officially recognised statehood would be a problem, but the next thing I noticed was that Kosovo doesn't seem to have it's own version of Google. Priorities, right? Usually when you travel to a new country and hit search, your computer automatically redirects you to the local version. This used to sometimes drive me crazy in Bosnia because it meant that search results kept coming up in Bosnian rather than English. But here, my poor laptop has no idea what to do and every search result has told me that Google can't find the page I am looking for! It tries to connect to www.google.ba (Bosnia) and fails, at which point I try to connect to www.google.ie (Ireland - my first instinct) but this too has also failed at times. www.google.com's been working so far, but over on Blogger, it wants me to log in to the site in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is presumably Serbian (rather than Albanian). I can't decide if I find it amusing or mildly disturbing that Google seems to be hedging its bets politically in Kosovo in such a vague manner.

Or so I thought until I finally deciphered how to log in via the Cyrillic script (it changed back to my default English at that point) and decided to change my official "location" on my Google profile from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo. Only to find that Kosovo is not listed as an option in the drop-down list of countries provided by Google. Nor is "other". Kosovo doesn't exist. I am in a place which officially - to some - doesn't exist. Yet I have an entry stamp to this place in my passport, and can be arrested by it's police. International law geeks, where does this leave me?

I might have thought that Google tends to be conservative about these matters, but then I looked at the other places that it does offer in a list which it heads "Country". Intriguingly for instance, both Serbia and somewhere called "Serbia and Montenegro" are listed, even though to the best of my knowledge Montenegro seceded from what was left of the Former Yugoslavia in 2006.

In fact, Google's available "countries" include places with very disputed sovereignty such as "Palestinian Territories", as well as territories which exist under the ambit of other states, including "Puerto Rico". So I am a little confused. Google also lists as "countries" several places like the Pitcairn Islands, Niue and Tokelau - none of which I had heard of before either - which are classified as "overseas territories" or "free associations", essentially lacking full sovereignty but which are nonetheless real places, existing on maps, where people find themselves located and no doubt want to post on blogs, regardless of their political status.

On this basis, listing "Kosovo" rather than, say, "Republic of Kosovo" under available "countries" can hardly be regarded as a political statement: no one disputes that Kosovo is here and that it exists, after all. Why is Google being so careful about this? It certainly wouldn't antagonize the US by recognising Kosovo: is it trying to increase market share in Serbia itself?

Even on Facebook, the same difficulty occurred when trying to update my location. "Kosovo" or "Pristina" do not exist, only the name of the city "Prishtinë". Unlike all other cities listed on Facebook, the name of the country does not follow the name of the city.

Anyway, the upshot is: I've never gone to a "territory" before which doesn't exist under all classifications. Kosovo doesn't fit into categories and classifications and various types of boxes. I'm literally off the lists and off the charts, and that's probably what makes this new adventure that little bit more interesting.