"In
recent years, Swiss politicians have lost sight of the fact that for a small country
like ours, no news is the best news. Instead, Berne has caused yet another
diplomatic rear-end collision."
Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley says Polanski's arrest was simply a matter of concluding a legal proceeding that has been in limbo since the filmmaker fled the United States in 1978.
They say that Switzerland was
once a diplomatic superpower. Subtle, restrained, efficient - a country that
knew how to quietly put big things in motion with a minimum of noise. This sure
has changed dramatically over recent years. Now even small things are being
screwed up with a maximum of uproar. The most recent leading performer in this
department was the arrest of French-Polish film director Roman Polanski upon
his arrival in Zurich.
In connection with this media
super-coup for our Ministry of Justice, two things must be clearly separated.
On the one hand, there is
the legal and moral aspect of the case. Polanski has been on the run for 30
years now. Not from an unjust regime, but from an American jury because of an unsavory
offense - the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl. Any merits of the perpetrator
are utterly unimportant and no, it doesn't even matter whether the victim now
forgives her assailant or whether it occurred long ago. This was indeed the
judgment of the Swiss electorate when less than a year ago they decided that
such crimes would no longer fall under the statute of limitations - by a vote
of 52 percent.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Considering this, the
Swiss Justice Ministry wasn't only complying with an international arrest warrant,
but with the wishes of the Swiss people - a fact that seems borne out by
opinion polls that show two thirds of respondents say that Polanski's arrest was
correct.
In this regard, everything
is in order, and no one can criticize Switzerland either legally or morally ...
so much for the "on the one hand" part. On the other hand, however, one
must ask why official Switzerland is taking such trouble on its shoulders, having
invited Polanski to an event sponsored by the Swiss Ministry of Culture, rather
than discretely letting France know through diplomatic channels that an
international arrest warrant had been issued for an official guest at said event,
and that they should take account of the likelihood of certain problems.
Instead, the Swiss government first invited Polanski (albeit indirectly) through
one ministry, only to have him fingered on behalf of the United States by
another.
The whole matter becomes
even more absurd when one considers the fact that Polanski owns a home in the
town of Gstaad, where he has apparently stayed often and where he was never
bothered by Swiss police. Considering these facts, is it any wonder that the
impression has been left that someone in Swiss legal circles set a trap for
Polanski in order to play nice toward the United States?
Charles de Gaulle once
said that a state which does justice to its name has no friends - only interests. Not a
very nice, but a very true statement. From this perspective, the "Polanski
affair" threatens to become a mortgage for Switzerland. Switzerland's
interests are best served when it's perceived as a discrete, reliable partner
that avoids major eruptions on the international stage - for example, like subtly preventing
Polanski's entry before it occurred.
To expect much gratitude
from the United States would be absurd: As has been pointed out many times,
Switzerland is only performing its duty under a treaty. There are no bonus-points
for that. Public and official opinion in France and Poland, however, has been
whipped up into a kind of frenzy. Some type of retaliation could be coming our
way, be it during talks for new bilateral treaties or other cultural, economic
or political dealings with these countries.
In recent years, Swiss
politicians have lost sight of the fact that for a small country like ours, no news is
the best news. Instead, Berne has caused yet another diplomatic
rear-end collision. No matter how right we might be: we're stuck with this
fender-bender.
