Radovan Karadzic Arrested Near Belgrade
"Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals until his arrest on genocide charges for his alleged role in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, had been living and working freely in Belgrade as practitioner of alternative medicine, Serbian authorities said Tuesday...
Mr. Karadzic had lived under the alias Dragon Dabic and had adopted a “very convincing” false identity, Mr. Ljajic said."
Someone just mentioned that the former administration had of course known where Karadzic was, but because they were more nationalist, did not want to reveal that or to hand him over. The new president, Boris Tadic, is in favor of bettering European ties and relations. [The Serbian presidential election, which was held last spring just after the international recognition of Kosovo, was something of a nail-biter, as the other candidate was much more nationalist than Tadic. Nevertheless, it took Tadic a number of months before a government was finally formed (i.e. before the different parties in the Parliament were willing to work together at least enough to operate); I believe that this happened only two weeks ago, the announcement came over the radio just before I left for Macedonia.]
Karadzic's arrest is an interesting development, especially because the Serbian government had not cooperated with international organizations to apprehend Bosnian Serb war-crimes perpetrators. The article notes that Karadzic had, much earlier, been hiding out, not only in Eastern Bosnia, but also in monasteries -- I am not surprised, somehow, as there are so many monasteries and they are so remote that they would probably make good hiding places.
Anyway, it will be interesting to hear what the general reactions to this development are. I am supposed to be flying back to Belgrade on Sunday and I am fairly certain that N., the driver who will likely meet me, will have a lot to say on the topic.
"Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals until his arrest on genocide charges for his alleged role in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, had been living and working freely in Belgrade as practitioner of alternative medicine, Serbian authorities said Tuesday...
Mr. Karadzic had lived under the alias Dragon Dabic and had adopted a “very convincing” false identity, Mr. Ljajic said."
Someone just mentioned that the former administration had of course known where Karadzic was, but because they were more nationalist, did not want to reveal that or to hand him over. The new president, Boris Tadic, is in favor of bettering European ties and relations. [The Serbian presidential election, which was held last spring just after the international recognition of Kosovo, was something of a nail-biter, as the other candidate was much more nationalist than Tadic. Nevertheless, it took Tadic a number of months before a government was finally formed (i.e. before the different parties in the Parliament were willing to work together at least enough to operate); I believe that this happened only two weeks ago, the announcement came over the radio just before I left for Macedonia.]
Karadzic's arrest is an interesting development, especially because the Serbian government had not cooperated with international organizations to apprehend Bosnian Serb war-crimes perpetrators. The article notes that Karadzic had, much earlier, been hiding out, not only in Eastern Bosnia, but also in monasteries -- I am not surprised, somehow, as there are so many monasteries and they are so remote that they would probably make good hiding places.
Anyway, it will be interesting to hear what the general reactions to this development are. I am supposed to be flying back to Belgrade on Sunday and I am fairly certain that N., the driver who will likely meet me, will have a lot to say on the topic.
1 comment:
I think it's funny how everyone is talking about this as a major gesture towards the West, when, in fact, certain member countries of the "West" are guilty of their own war crimes...
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