At last!
Ratko Mladic has been arrested, in Serbia, details still unknown. President Tadic is quoted by the New York Times:
Extradition is happening. This is the end of the search for Mladic. It’s not the end of the search for all those who helped Mladic and others to hide and whether people from the government were involved…this is happening on the day Catherine Ashton is coming to Serbia.
Yes, the moment is a good one, not only for the occasion of Ashton’s visit but also just as Chief Prosecutor Brammertz was to release his report on Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. Convenient, but welcome nevertheless. So too Tadic’s reference to searching for those who helped Mladic all these years, and his reference on NPR this morning to the importance of this arrest for regional reconciliation.
But the main thing this morning is just this: at last Ratko Mladic is headed for justice.
PS: Compliments to Nenad Pejic of RFE/RL for his well done “flash analysis.”
PPS: Too bad President Tadic can’t even mention “Kosovo” without adding something incomprehensible about “our autonomy Kosovo.” And too bad The Guardian couldn’t find a Bosnian Muslim who thought Mladic has a right to be defended:
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“… just as Chief Prosecutor Brammertz was to release his report on Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.”
A report that Brammertz had said would be negative, and that the Dutch had said would be the sole determiner of whether they would vote for Serbia’s acceptance as a candidate country before the end of the year.
Thank God for the stubborn Dutch.
You mean those same Dutch that stood by? Stubborn or racked by guilt?
Because I’m not sure of my own bravery in the face of overwhelming armed force, I’m not going to criticize their soldiers’ actions at Srebrenica. They were “peacekeepers,” if I remember correctly, not peacemakers. Maybe a stiff resistance would have made a difference, since the Serbs tended to flee when attacked, but the Dutch have criticized their own actions enough so I don’t feel called on to do it. Mladic was a professional soldier, not a psychopathic freelancer like Arkan, apparently it was assumed until too late that as such he would not simply start shooting unarmed civilians by the busload.