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Editorial Review Product Description
Carla Del Ponte won international recognition as Switzerland's attorney general when she pursued cases against the Sicilian mafia. In 1999, she answered the United Nations' call to become the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. In her new role, Del Ponte confronted genocide and crimes against humanity head-on, struggling to bring to justice the highest-ranking individuals responsible for massive acts of violence in Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo.
These tribunals have been unprecedented. They operate along the edge of the divide between national sovereignty and international responsibility, in the gray zone between the judicial and the political, a largely unexplored realm for prosecutors and judges. It is a realm whose native inhabitants–political leaders and diplomats, soldiers and spies–assume that they can commit the big crime without being held culpable. It is a realm crisscrossed by what Del Ponte calls the muro di gomma –"the wall of rubber"– a metaphor referring to the tactics government officials use to hide their unwillingness to confront the culture of impunity that has allowed persons responsible for acts of unspeakable, wholesale violence to escape accountability. Madame Prosecutor is Del Ponte's courageous and startling memoir of her eight years spent striving to serve justice. ... Read more Customer Reviews (4) 
Overly detailed but important
After reading "Madame Prosecutor" I am more convinced than ever that the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague, run by the United Nations and for which Carla Del Ponte was the chief prosecutor for crimes against humanity committed in Rawanda and Yugoslavia, is not the best way or even a very good way to go after war criminals.
The problem is certainly not with Del Ponte--she was a dogged worker, good manager and dedicated prosecutor. She does not come across as a person one would want as a friend but as someone to bring end the culture of impunity enjoyed by mass murderers. I doubt if a anyone could do better given the built-in constraints of the system.
Del Ponte was both ambitious, wanting success for its own sake and to continue her career but also fervent in her desire to get the people ultimately guilty for some of the worst crimes since the end of World War II. She is able to ignore the details of slaughter and refuses to prosecute the low level soldiers and police officers guilty of murder. She wants the monsters who initiated the reign of terror against helpless civilians in central Africa and Southeast Europe.
The biggest problem she faced is the willingness of the United States, France, the United Kingdom and other nations who have tried to seize the moral high ground recently to value diplomacy over justice. Another difficulty is the bureacracy of the UN itself. There are plenty of other reasons why the going has been slow and few of the guilty have been tried.
Spain showed the way when a court there indicted Augusto Pinochet for crimes committed during his term as dictator in Chile. Using the doctorine of universal jurisdiction--that some acts are so egregious that they constitute crimes against humanity and can therefore be prosecuted in any court in the world, they ruled that he was not immune to prosecution in Spain even though he had given amnesty in Chile.
Del Ponte worked for eight years to convict Balkan war lords and military leaders in the International Court of Justice at the Hague. The theme that runs throughtout the book is the constant tension between the need for justice and diplomatic expeniency. While most of Del Ponte's targets were brought to trial, several were found not guilty (or the charges found "not proven" on, in some cases, what later was found to be doctored evidence. The hundreds of years of warfare among Serbs, Croats, Albanians and Macedonians and among Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics and Muslims was continued with astonishing and brutality during break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the power and land grabs that followed it.
There is a lot of information--too much--on the bureaucratic battles Del Ponte had to fight. While it is important to understand how the ICJ itself, which seems more committed more to legalism, establishing its authority and creating precedent and procedure than to bringing war criminals to justice, the amount of detail and the meeting by meeting accounts of her frustration becomes frustrating reading.
She was, however, totally committed to her task. Del Ponte was one of the few figures who unifed southeastern Europe--everyone there hated her. She was addressed in official, for the record memos from Croatian political leaders as "Dear Madame Whore". She was villified in the press throughout the area and ignored by her targets whenever they could. Far from detering her, these attacks simply showed her that she was doing the right thing and going after the right people.
I would hate to have her after me. She is an indefatigable pursuer, a constant thorn in the side of slow moving officials and a dedicated, creative prosecutor. The end of the book is downbeat but not surprising--she had an arbitrary deadline and many of her targets knew that if they avoided her until her appointment expired they would be safe. By her standards she failed--the final words are "the simple fact of failure is the simple fact of failure" but it was a noble and necessary effort.
"Madame Prosecutor" is slow going at times--Del Ponte recounts some of her battles to have Serbian, Albanian and Croatian war ciminals arrested almost memo by memo and airport by airport--but it is generally well written and very timely.
PERFECT FOR CLASSROOM STUDY
This book gets burdened by too many statistics, which is great for that class credit that you need for graduatation.But for the average reader, it can overwhelm & boggle the mind.In between all the statistics, the numbers & the basis of where she retrieved the fact finding, you catch just a brief glimpse of personal stories that are heart wrenching (war crimes committed, genocide, abuse of women, etc.).She definitely did her research as this is a very informative source for this topic.I would have wanted to know that the stories by individuals are sprinkled sparsely throughout all of the statistics.So one really has to digest quite of bit of overwhelming information on many pages, before hitting a kernal of a personal story, which is why I purchased the book initially (for the personal stories). Once again, great for your classroom work and thesis, bad for the average reader.
Exceeds memoir expectations
Today's news report explains the gist of this book the best.
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Serbia fully committed to cooperation with ICTY
President of the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic met today with ICTY President Patrick Robinson. This is Robinson's first official visit to Belgrade.
According to a statement issued by the National Council, Ljajic informed Robinson about Serbia's efforts and commitment in cooperating with the tribunal.
Ljajic also told Robinson about current activities for apprehending the remaining two Hague indictees, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic.
Robinson said that he is aware of the changes in Serbia's overall political climate and of the commitment of the Serbian authorities to fully cooperate with the tribunal, adding that he thinks that this is extremely important for confronting the past, for reconciliation to take place in the region and for strengthening the rule of law.
Serbia's initiative to create conditions for Hague indictees found guilty to serve their prison terms in their respective countries was also discussed at the meeting.
Robinson stressed that the ICTY has received several such demands from Slovenia and Croatia, adding that this is the right moment to consider the issue and it is possible that the Security Council will make a final decision regarding this matter within the foreseeable future.
The issue of providing medical aid to indictees in detention was also discussed. It was stated that Serbian doctors should be more involved in this process.
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Carla Del Ponte goes into juicy and fascinating -- in a terrifying sense -- detail to expose the pretense from the above news clipping. You'll get a behind the scenes look into the dirty world of international politics that shows that law and justice are not that close together. She lifts the vail off some of the key players from the past years which gives us a lot of insight into today's key players (e.g. Rasim Ljajic and Patrick Robinson in the news clipping). I agree with the previous reviewer that it reads like a thriller rather than a memoir. Was there a lot of details that could bore some readers? Yes. I think the details are what make this book so interesting and at times frustrating. You'll feel her frustration as she fights to bring justice and some sort of piece of mind to the victims' families from Rwandan and Srebrenica genocides. Whether reading about the war crimes in Rwanda or former Yugoslavia you'll see that the overall picture is the same with the exception of maybe geography.
A Mandatory Lecture for Balkan Studies
Since I live in Slovenia, the northernmost republic of the former Yugoslavia, I will discuss only the chase of the Yugoslav war criminals to which about 80 % of the book is devoted. The rest deals with Rwanda, where I did not watch the crimes as closely as those in my immediate vicinity.
By reading Carla Del Ponte's book one understands, why the former Yugoslavia went into pieces. The (Orthodox) Serbs and their "brothers" Montenegrins considered themselves as being a super-race, as the defendant Biljana Plavsic, attempted to imply as she explained to the Attorney General Del Ponte. According to their actions, it appears that the (Catholic) Croats meant to be just the same. The development of events had (as already many times previously) confirmed that it is impossible for two super-races to exist in a peaceful coexistence indefinitely. The Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo considered themselves being the "true believers" against the "nonbelievers", the Serbs, Montenegrins and Croats. The more remote (predominantly Catholic) Slovenes did not belong to any of these feuding groups, so we were the first ones to withdraw from the common State Yugoslavia, felt here more like a cage than as a homeland. As a result of the "ten-days-war" (in the summer 1991) when the so-called Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) attempted to impose the Serbian rule on Slovenia, the death toll in this struggle was "only" 39 JNA troops, 8 Slovenian troops and policemen, 5 civilians and 10 foreigners (journalists and truck drivers). The southernmost republic, Macedonia, withdrew from the Yugoslav turmoil in an even more fortunate way. As a result these republics were not the subject of the prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia (ICTFY).
Contrary to the Slovenian "trifle", the death toll in Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina (B&H), and Kosovo has exceeded many thousands; roughly two millions citizens of these republics and of the district Kosovo were forced to leave their homes and run for their lives. Alone in the vicinity of the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the Serbian military and paramilitary units systematically shot roughly 7000 civilians, mostly disarmed men, and boys. In these struggles, Serbia and Croatia attempted to take "their" part of B&H by force, horrible crimes, robberies, rapping and arsons were being committed. After three and half years, when on the 14th of December 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed between Tudjman, Milosevic and the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, the hostilities ceased. But soon afterwards, the Serbs increased their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which was culminated in the first quarter of 1999. This aggression was stopped in the late spring the same year, after NATO planes bombed Serbia continuously for 74 days.
In order to punish this extensive ethnic cleansing and genocide, which happened in the middle of Europe of 20th century, the UN established the ICTFY in The Hague. Its task is to enforce the arrests and punish all those Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Bosnians and Kosovars, who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. By pursuing these objectives, Del Ponte must visit the capitals of the former Yugoslav republics: Zagreb (Croatia), Belgrade (Serbia), Sarajevo (B&H), Pristina (Kosovo, then the district of Serbia), and Podgorica (Montenegro) to demand the charging documents and make the arrests of the culprits. The majority of these culprits include: The Croat President, Franjo Tudjman; his General, Ante Gotovina; the Bosnian Croat leader, Tihomir Blaksic; the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic; his General, Ratko Mladic; and the Bosnian Serbs' leader, Radovan Karadjic.
In her pursuit of the documents and culprits Del Ponte has collided with the "muro di gomma" (the rubber wall, which was the original title of her Italian manuscript) - many words and promises but few, if any deeds. Everybody was pointing to the others, who were doing them injustice, just to dilute the discussion and spend time. The opinions in the EU, UN, NATO, USA, and even at The Hague Tribunal proper were not always in favor of either of the immediate arrest of the culprits, or for a harder demand to get the relevant documents. Del Ponte describes numerous suggestions from the officials of these institutions - depending on the political climate in Russia, USA, Serbia, etc. It appears that the crimes suddenly became less important because of the immediate situations in Russia, the approaching elections in Serbia, as well as the attempts as to what the United States was just planning to do, etc... The worst examples were the Kosovars, who honor their medieval clan and tribal ties much more than the law and order of the western democracies.
In spite of these difficulties, Del Ponte may claim great success by bringing into custody the majority of the accused, even though the Serbian President, Milosevic, and the police and military leader of the Serbs in Croatia, Milan Babic, have committed suicide in the Scheveningen prison, and have avoided their verdict. (Milosevic did not take the prescribed drugs for his heart regularly, but kept accumulating them to be taken all at once, costing him his life). Two Croatian candidates for The Hague, the Defense Minister, Gojko Susak, and the President, Franjo Tudjman, died on cancer in May 1998 and December 1999 respectively, before enough evidence for their arrest has been collected; while the much sought General Ante Gotovina, eventually found his place in the Scheveningen custody. Until the end of March, 2009 (when these lines were written) the Serbian "capo dei capi", General Ratko Mladic has still "not been found", because most Serbs keep protecting their "hero", no matter what the cost. On the other hand, their leader in Bosnia, Radovan Karadjic has been arrested and sent to The Hague, after Del Ponte has completed her book.
The entire book reads like a thriller, for Del Ponte is an excellent narrator. In one part she writes of a movie, which has been shown on the court as the evidence against Milosevic, who claimed the infamous Serbian paramilitary unit, "Red Berets" had nothing in common with the massacres in Bosnia. In the first part the movie shows the aging Serbian Patriarch, Pavle, blessing this unit and their flag. In the second part, it shows four boys of Srebrenica descended from a truck, being forced to go to the edge of the mass grave, to be shot in head by the same "Red Berets". Heartbreaking evidence was narrated by a truck driver, who described how from a mass grave of the people just shot (near Srebrenica), a boy of about four years old emerged from the pile of dead, approaching the executioners. Since they had lowered their machine guns, the commander urged them to "finish" the child. However, they refused, claiming that the commander has his pistol too, so he should shoot the boy. Then the commander ordered that the child should be sent back by the truck to be "finished" with the next batch of people to come. Since the panic-stricken boy resisted entering the truck, the driver has switched on the light and radio in the cabin and in a friendly manner invited the child to come there. Eventually the child responded to this only kind soul, in that orgy of cruelty, by entering the truck's cab. He has laid his little hand into driver's palm, addressing him as "baabo" (daddy)... Despite the copious evidence of such kind and "...Away from the killing fields, many Serbs were dumbfounded at how the entire world seemed to have turned against them.Sadly, some of them, and even some of their leaders, are still lost in a miasma of self pity...(page 37)".
One outstanding feature of this book is also the correct spelling of ALL Yugoslav names, which I can not afford to type correctly on my computer keyboard (where I have the correct fonts), because of the unusual and meaningless fonts, instead of the correct ones, would appear in the amazon.com review. It seems that Times New Roman Central
Europe fonts are very unusual on the other side of the Atlantic - except for the Other Press, New York, where this book has been published.
P.S. On the page 4, Del Ponte mentions also"...the officers who ordered the deaths of those thousands of forcibly repatriated Yugoslav prisoners in 1945..." Just recently one of the nearly 600 so far discovered mass graves of those, mostly innocent people, who were killed by the Yugoslav communist troops after WWII, has been opened in the abandoned mine "Barbarin Rov" at Lasko, Slovenia. The estimated total of these victims in Slovenia is 100,000 minimum to 200,000 maximum, thus being comparable to all those killed in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo when Yugoslavia felt apart. Tragically these, so far unpunished terrible crimes against humanity by some bastards, are not on the agenda of ICTFY!
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Excessive cost for little information