European Union peacekeepers have just mounted raids on the homes of family members of hunted Bosnian-Serb commander Ratko Mladic. He is the last main war crimes suspect being sought for trial at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The raids did not uncover Mladic but it is almost certain they were not expected to. More likely the swoops were designed to gather information on his whereabouts.
A similar series of raids on his own family members produced key clues as to the whereabouts of indicted former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, arrested last July. Material taken away this week by investigators from Mladic family homes may be similarly useful. At the very least, it will present Mladic with a difficult problem. If he suspects there is a chance his hiding place has been revealed, he will need to relocate. In doing so, he heightens the risk of discovery.
It has long been understood that a significant intelligence effort has been devoted by EU peacekeepers to tracking down the man suspected of ordering widespread human rights abuses, culminating in the savage butchery of at least 7,500 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995. This likely involves the possibility of US-led signals monitoring of the communications of anyone likely to have any dealings with Mladic. It will almost certainly include the phones of Mladic’s former comrades in the old Yugoslav Army, among whom he is widely believed to be now sheltering.
The Serbian government has rightly been blamed for the failure to apprehend Mladic and, as a result, still finds its talks on EU accession stalled. Belgrade has demonstrated with Karadzic that it is prepared to hand over a key suspect but there may be deeper issues with Mladic. The country still has a large political bloc of conservative hard-liners, who have hailed Mladic as a hero and have sought to deny he was involved in any massacres. Even the opposition Serbian Nationalist Party (SRS), which once partnered ousted dictator Slobodan Milosevic’s former communists in government and is more interested in stronger relations with historic ally Russia than EU membership, is leery about arresting and handing Mladic over to The Hague tribunal.
Yet it is incomprehensible how such people can be willing to protect anyone accused of such heinous acts. As the aborted Milosevic tribunal — and now the Karadzic trial is proving — the court in The Hague is going out of its way to run a scrupulously fair hearing of all the evidence. Hero Mladic may seem to some for trying to keep Yugoslavia together, but his intent cannot excuse the crimes he is alleged to have committed. No decent Serb, whatever his political persuasion, can ignore the need for justice.
The Mladic family raids, coming six months after similar swoops, may just be bringing the hunt for the Bosnian Serb leader closer to a conclusion. When the man is discovered and arrested, almost certainly within Serbia, there must be no delay in sending him to The Hague for trial.
