The gripping, untold story of The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and how the perpetrators of Balkan war crimes were captured by the most successful manhunt in history
Julian Borgeris the diplomatic editor forThe Guardian. He covered the Bosnian War for the BBC andThe Guardian, and returned to the Balkans to report on the Kosovo conflict in 1999. He has also served asThe Guardian's Middle East correspondent and its Washington bureau chief. Borger was part of theGuardianteam that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism for its coverage of the Snowden files on mass surveillance. He was also on the team awarded the 2013 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) medal and the Paul Foot Special Investigation Award in the UK.
"[A] vivid, page-turning account...A well-organized, deeply
researched work that ably digests the Balkan war, the criminals,
the criminal court, and its legacy." —Kirkus Reviews (starred
review)
“In The Butcher’s Trail, the riveting and important history of
the international manhunt for 161 Balkan war criminals… Julian
Borger describes the moment investigators tracked down Radovan
Karadzic, the leader of the early 1990s genocide against Bosnia’s
Muslims…With atrocities committed daily in Syria and elsewhere
around the world, and the U.S. and its allies grappling with which
of their core values to adhere to against the asymmetric threat of
transnational terrorism, the hope of future international justice
for war crimes may seem distant. But it is not impossible that
major powers may find international judicial tribunals are more an
ally than an enemy in the fight against the threats that have
developed in the post-Cold War period. If they do, Borger makes
clear The Hague tribunal’s efforts to bring Karadzic and other war
criminals to justice will have set the high water mark against
which future efforts at justice will be measured.” —TIME
“The genocidal crimes of the 1990s Balkan wars stunned the world,
mass killings, concentration camps, systematic rape. Many, but by
no means all of the perpetrators were the majority Serbs, starting
with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. The U.N. set up an
international tribunal to investigate and indict some 161 people it
found most responsible. The challenge was to actually apprehend
them. How they did so is captured in a gripping new book by Julian
Borger, longtime correspondent and editor at The Guardian
newspaper, titled The Butcher’s Trail: How the Search for Balkan
War Criminals Became the World’s Most Successful Manhunt… What’s
really, truly groundbreaking about this book is what it took to
apprehend them.” —PBS NewsHour
"Gripping." —The Independent
"Well researched...timely." —The Wall Street Journal
“What Julian Borger has achieved in this superb account of the
tribunal’s manhunt is much more than a litany of these crimes. It
is an elegantly written, powerfully convincing reckoning of how the
world stumblingly faced up to a reality that should not have been:
war crimes in modern Europe. He focuses on the manhunt as a single
thread in the complex Balkan story, partly as a way to reveal how
that region influences our wider world today, through rendition,
jihad – and the delicate flower of international law…Borger is
honest about the muddles and misunderstandings. He recounts
America’s early muscle-bound efforts to go after targets…The early
snatch operations – target cars being rammed from behind and pushed
into pre-arranged ambush positions – provide great military
theatre, but Borger shows how the greatest scalps for the tribunal
were won through diplomatic finesse: the moderate leaders of
Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia were told that a pre-condition of those
tiny new nations being welcomed as equals by the international
community was the surrender of war crimes suspects.” —The
Guardian (US)
“Borger… handles [this] complicated story with flair and
confidence. Vividly written, packed with lively character sketches
of spymasters, lawyers and diplomats, The Butcher’s
Trail is a deeply researched account of the hunt for some of
the worst war criminals of the late 20th century…[and] an important
work that adds greatly to our understanding of how international
criminal justice has evolved and offers lessons for future war
crimes investigations.”—Newsweek
"The Butcher’s Trail create[s] what may ultimately become one
of the defining accounts of this episode of Balkan
history." —The National
"Borger’s compelling, readable prose with these stories of assault
on impunity offer a rare opportunity to penetrate the 'nationalist
bromides' and 'sounds of slogans' that continue to hold these
countries back in ways that are tragic in all sorts of new,
post-war ways...Fascinating." —The Arts Fuse
"Presented in captivating detail [and] often playing out
like a true-life spy novel...fascinating." —Library
Journal
"Vivid...well-researched." —Publishers Weekly
"The Butcher’s Trail achieves the dual feat of being both
informative and gripping. Borger’s thorough research comprises
numerous books, articles, and recently declassified documents on
the Balkan conflict and international justice but also first-hand
interviews with key players: former soldiers, intelligence
officials, investigators, prosecutors, and diplomats from a dozen
countries. In addition, Borger impresses by not only divulging
facts and dropping shock revelations (Vladimir Putin’s spy agency,
the FSB, took a pro-Serbia stance and protected Mladić) but also
analyzing testimonies, evaluating the various mindsets of criminals
on The Hague’s list and weighing up conspiracy theories. He even
provides close readings of Karadić’s doggerel poetry—art of the
same caliber as Hitler’s watercolors—for indications of inner
tumult and hints of future crimes." —Daily Beast
"A simultaneously thrilling and horrifying
read." —Signature
"A well-researched, sobering chronicle...a necessary and admirable
achievement." —Washington Independent Review of Books
"The Butcher’s Trail takes an immediate place on the short
shelf of indispensable books about the Milosevic war and its long
and complicated aftermath. Borger’s vivid prose and
closely-channelled moral involvement give his account a memorable
power. Living history is seldom written this well."—Open Letters
Monthly
“The Butcher’s Trail reads like a cross between a John le
Carre novel and the latest Bourne installment. Except this
fine book is true. At a time when Europe’s ugly nationalisms
are resurgent, Borger’s account of war crimes in the former
Yugoslavia and the pursuit of justice could not be more important.”
—Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control: Nuclear
Weapons, the Damascus accident, and the Illusion of Safety
“Julian Borger reveals in riveting new detail exactly how a daring
team secretly tracked down some of the worst war criminals of our
time, and in doing, he shows us what it takes for justice to win.
This book is brilliantly researched, beautifully written and
important.” —Ann Curry
“Julian Borger’s thrilling history of the hunt for the infamous
Balkan war criminals—Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic among
them euphemisms for late 20th Century evil—and the torturous path
to creating and empowering the International Criminal Tribunal is
not just masterfully told, but devastating in its revelations of
complacency in the face of ethnic cleansing.” —Hooman Majd, author
of NY Times bestsellerThe Ayatollah Begs to
Differ, among other books and writings.
“Julian Borger has written the definitive account of the hunt for
the war criminals of the former Yugoslavia. The Butcher’s
Trail is wonderfully well written and deeply reported and it
raises important questions about how to bring to justice those that
have committed wars against humanity.” —Peter Bergen, author
of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to
Abbottabad.
“Julian Borger has unlocked the hidden stories of a historic
manhunt. This book is a powerful page turner that catapults you
through two decades of political intrigue, deceit, and erratic
leadership, competing intelligence agencies, botched operations
with fugitive deaths, and then a steady surge of successful
snatches on remote mountain roads and in sleepy villages, in warm
apartments stocked with weaponry, and unawares at a Spanish
restaurant with barely sipped wine. Borger proves the worth of the
tribunal and those who delivered the agents of evil to its
doorstep.” —David Scheffer, U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes
Issues (1997-2001) and law professor at Northwestern University
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