We could debate the International Criminal Court at some other time (I’m no fan, to put it mildly) and, indeed, the rights and wrongs of the Balkan wars, but the last sentence in this extract from a Guardian account of that court’s jailing of two Croatian commanders is striking:
Judges in The Hague found Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač guilty on eight of nine counts for commanding operations that included the shelling of civilians, the torching of Serbian homes in south-west Croatia, the murder of hundreds of elderly Serbs and the forced exodus of at least 20,000 from the Serbian minority rooted in the Dalmatian hinterland for centuries…For many Croats, especially on the right, Gotovina is a national hero. Catholic bishops this week denounced the tribunal, accusing it of deliberately confusing victim and aggressor.
What, I wonder, will Benedict XVI have to say about this?