They Would Never Hurt A Fly

Slavenka Drakulic

Slavenka Drakulic is again on form and producing brave and sharp journalism in this set of essays. They Would Never Hurt a Fly deals with the war criminals (some now on trial in the Hague, some still on the run) who raped and murdered their way across former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Drakulic asks the old question: what makes ordinary people behave wickedly?

The closest we get to an answer is the chapter featuring the trial of three lowly foot soldiers in the Bosnian Serb army. "The war turned ordinary men - a driver, a Waiter and a salesman, as were the three accused - into criminals because of opportunism, fear and ... conviction". In court, the author looks for signs of contrition, or anything like it, in the men's faces as their sentences are handed down. She finds nothing. "I could tell that they would serve their sentences regretting only that they had been stupid enough to get caught".

And it's not just the men. Drakulic reserves a special place in her rogues gallery for Mira Markovic amd Biljana Plavsic. The wife of Slobodan Milosevic and the Bosnian Serb prime minister (each in her own way) helped to inflame a conflict in which rape was employed as a weapon of war. Drakulic is fascinated by both women and what became of them. Mira is unrepentant, holed up in Moscow and unable to travel for fear of arrest. Plavsic has tried in the Hague but has made a public admission of guilt (extremely rare amongst the Hague's accused).

Of course we all hope these monsters get their just deserts and perhaps we rejoice at every new arrival in the Hague and lament those like Serb general Ratko Mladic who are still at large. But quite how tough the Hague prisoners find their porridge is debatable. Drak reveals they're living very comfortably. Paradoxically Mladic himself will probably always remain beyond the reach of further punishment: his only daughter committed suicide some years ago. Almost certainly it was a response to her father's war record. Almost certainly he knows this.

The bitterness and the killing - what was it all for? Drakulic reports there is a genuine camaraderie amongst the Hague prisoners. In detention the Serbs, Muslims and Croats play cards and cook for each other. These are all men accused of butchering the populations of their cellmates. If it wasn't so depressing it would be funny.