Kurt Bassuener August 3rd, 2008

The arrest and transfer of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to the ICTY at The Hague was a long overdue, but still laudable move by the government of Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic.  The question is will his government pull out all the stops to finish the job by arresting handing over Gen. Ratko Mladic, Karadzic’s partner in genocide, and the other remaining fugitive, Croatian Serb Goran Hadzic?

Should my friend Tomas Valasek of the Center for European Reform be correct, then the answer is yes.  According to Valasek, who was in Belgrade to conduict research for a CER report on EU-Russian relations, Tadic seems to have realized that arresting and transferring Karadzic would make the Radicals look weak and burn the bridges of his Socialist Party coalition partners with the Radicals, whose views are more in tune with the SPS rank and file.  The action would also help shed the image of vacillation that plagued Tadic in his last term.  This sounds plausible, and seems to be working.

Croatia’s Vjesnik reports that the new head of the Security Information agency, Sasa Vukadinovic, has been given the task by the National Security Council to find and aresst Mladic.

According to sources in the ruling coalition, the state leadership is surprised by the relatively easy arrest of Karadzic and the mild public reaction. With the exception of a few incidents in central Belgrade in the first few days following the arrest, and at the rally organized by the Radicals and the populist bloc of former prime minister Vojislav Kostunica on Tuesday [ 29 July] evening, which the police were able to contain, nothing significant happened in Serbia or in the Serb Republic… The nationalist opposition is torn between regret over the missed opportunity to form the government and the desire for a summer vacation, and Karadzic’s arrest is no longer a topic that can mobilize the masses in Belgrade or Banja Luka.

Author/filmaker Jasminka Tesanovic wrote of the demonstration in central Belgrade put on by the Serbian Radical Party - whose leader Vojislav Seselj is already on trial at The Hague - on July 29 to protest Karadzic’s arrest and to try and prevent his transfer.  The turnout was far less than expected, even with buses of rowdies rolled-in from the hinterland.  I watched it on live TV; it was indeed a surreal affair:

Tonight the supporters of Radovan Karadzic, better-known as the bizarre quack Dragan Dabic, were saying goodbye to their ultimate leader, who is bound for The Hague. Clearly the Radicals have shifted their motivating fear and hatred toward Boris Tadic, who now looms huge in their imagination as the traitor who authorized the extradition. The Radicals wore t-shirts with the faces of Karadzic and Mladic, but those were photographs from 14 long years ago. Nowadays Karadzic looks like a cartoon, and not even the Radicals know what Mladic must look like these days. These much-tried Radical loyalists had long, grim faces. They were mostly men, and impoverished men at that. They had a sprinkling of younger football hooligans, who can’t remember the war, but hate anything they can’t understand. The speaker, a nationalist actress, screamed in tears: Radovan, go to The Hague, because they need you there. You must bring the whole world justice and heal everyone!…

As a final farcical insult, a group of hooligans destroyed the Radicals’ rally. The Radical Party had intended a mass march through the city, a grand show of their popular strength, but their mass turnout never showed up, and their deeply frustrated fringe element spontaneously attacked the cops. In the summer heat, half-naked male teens yanked their sweaty t-shirts over their heads as impromptu masks, then set off firecrackers and tossed bricks and blazing road-flares into the massed ranks of the riot-squad.

The provoked cops replied with tear-gas canisters and some ragged baton-charges. The hooligans scattered in a hurry, set fire to some trash containers and broke some plate-glass in the shopping streets.
There were more than forty injuries, to rioters, cops and various journalists. No fatalities.

The transfer went ahead immediately afterward anyway, wihtout incident in Serbia.

Notably, despite pressures by some EU members to give Serbia something in exchange for Karadzic - namely allowing the interim agreement of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) to go forward, the brakes remain on until the end of summer holidays, when the EU officials meet again to decide whether Serbia is full cooperating with the ICTY.  This condition has been most firmly held by the Dutch and the Belgian governments.

Just today, Tadic said that the hunt is on for the remaining two fugitives, and that “All those who have the idea to put additional pressure on Serbia are knocking on open doors, because not only has Serbia shown its will and determination,but it also has made concrete steps related to this co-operation…Today nobody can tell Serbia it is avoiding international justice and it does not respect international law.”

It may well be so.  But now is not the time to reduce the pressure.  Serbia can arrest Mladic and Hadzic, and should.  Then Belgrade’s relationship with the EU can move to a different level.  Given the events of the last weeks, there is cause to be hopeful at long last.

This course of events shows that conditionality works.  Hopefully, Brussels will take this to heart.

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