Kurt Bassuener July 22nd, 2008

Note - Scott Lang authored the post below, and asked me to to post it on his behalf - KB 

Bosnian Serb war-time President Radovan Karadžic was arrested in Serbia, Serbian President Boris Tadic announced and ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz confirmed.

Indicted on two counts of genocide, Karadžic fomented nationalist fear throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina to divide this multi-cultural land by igniting ethnic Serb militancy to forcefully expel non-Serb neighbors, besieging the capital Sarajevo for nearly 4 years and massacring unarmed boys and men at the UN ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica. This long delayed arrest, akin in importance to Eichmann’s post-WWII, is a massive step forward for the justice process in the Balkans where thousands of murders have gone unaccounted for, their murderers unpunished. Coming on the heels of the 13th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica where recently discovered victim remains are reburied annually, Karadžic’s impunity from the ICTY court was part of mockery and contempt extreme Serb nationalists held for victims as well as for reckoning with the truth. Karadžic’s incarceration follows a long string of Serbian leaders cum mass murders heading to the court such as RS wartime MoI chief Stojan Župljanin, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, former Serbian president Slobodan Miloševic, former RS president and former RS assembly speaker Momcilo Krajišnik. Yet Karadžic’s terrorizing of Bosnian civilians was made possible only through the passivity and fecklessness of the world’s democracies who stood idly by as Karadžic ethnically cleansed Eastern Bosnia in 1992 and then bleed this diverse land for four more years. It was IFOR that refused to arrest him and it was the Dayton Peace Accords that solidify division and the gains of his genocidal project.

Therefore in Karadžic’s capture, Serbs, who like all former Yugoslav citizens, have suffered so dearly since the Cold War’s end, have an unprecedented chance to come to reckoning with crimes carried out in the name of their culture, history and religion by rejecting exclusive nationalism based upon bloodlines. Equally important, we internationals can use this opportunity to redouble our efforts at bringing about the capture of remaining ICTY indictees VRS commander Ratko Mladic and RSK leader Goran Hadžic and globally learning the lesson of never again by making the ICC indictment of Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has also orchestrated the murder of thousands of Muslims, more than an empty gesture.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina Radovan Karadžic caused so many tears, robbed so many of their basics freedoms, yet today tears of relief and love shall flow for all that was taken but must never be forgotten.

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