NATO troops may have failed, in their search of mountainous southwestern Bosnia, to find Radovan Karadzic so far, but that does not mean happy days for the accused war criminal or his partners in crime such as Gen. Ratko Mladic. The message from George Robertson, NATO secretary-general, was very clear: “Your time is running out ... One day, whether it is tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year, SFOR will come for you.” It is merely a question of time. The abortive NATO search of the village of Foca was launched as the result of a tip-off. The intelligence was thought to be good enough to send in hundreds of troops to seal off the village and the surrounding area. Subsequent house-to-house search turned up illegal weaponry but no Karadzic.
The game of cat and mouse will go on. The SFOR troops have been criticized for not doing more to find these two men and 20 other indicted war crimes suspects. Hopefully, this latest is an indication of the fresh vigor with which they intend to pursue their task. The new determination to capture the wanted men reflects a desire to cement peace and stability in the volatile Balkans after a decade of wars.
Mladic is widely believed to be in Serbia, where, after the Bosnia conflict ended, he was sheltered by the Yugoslav Army, probably under direct orders from Milosevic himself. But with the dictator’s fall, Mladic’s future has become uncertain. The new democratic Serbian government of President Vojislav Kostunica has apparently sent word that he should give himself up to the Hague tribunal. International pressure is now rising for Belgrade to seize Mladic itself and pass him over to the international authorities. Investigators indeed have a shopping list of suspects living in Serbia whom they want arrested.
However, having delivered the organ grinder of Serb Balkan savagery, Belgrade is reluctant to hand over the monkeys as well. At the moment, Serbs can offload their guilt and shame onto the single despotic figure of Milosevic. But if ordinary Serbs, who might be friends or neighbors, are also arraigned before the bar of international justice, the reality of the crimes that were done in their name will come home, uncomfortably close to the majority of Serbs.
However, while his old military buddies probably shelter Mladic, Karadzic is almost certainly having to rely on hiding within a closely defined area straddling the Bosnia border with Montenegro, where he was born and brought up. In such remote regions, it is easy to see how strong family and clan ties can be invoked to shelter a fugitive. But in the end, someone will make a mistake or maybe the $5 million reward on each of these men will prove too much of a temptation.
The SFOR raid on Foca established that Karadzic was not in the village, at least at that moment. Considerable remote intelligence resources are available for NATO to track and monitor people and communications. And after all, Karadzic stands accused of giving the orders that led to the murder of substantially more victims than were slain in the twin towers. But it is Karadzic’s good fortune that the people that he had butchered were not Americans and that the Srebrenica savagery was not broadcast live by the world’s TV networks.
