Serbian authorities declared this week that top war criminal fugitive, Ratko Mladic, has his days numbered. Mladic was the general in charge of the Serbian military at the massacre in Srebrenica in which 7,000 Muslims were killed. He was also the officer responsible for ordering the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo in the early 1990s resulting in nearly 10,000 deaths. In addition, forces under his command allegedly used U.N. Peacekeepers as human shields. He was indicted in 1995 before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on a list of charges including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. After the war in Bosnia, Mladic was protected by the Milosevic regime until 2000. He has been in hiding since.
Serbia’s Blic Online reported:
“Rasim Ljajic, Coordinator of the Team for cooperation with the Hague Tribunal said that ‘Ratko Mladic shall not be able to hide for long…” Though, Ljajic went on in that report to admit that Serbian authorities had no new concrete evidence on the location of Mladic.
Just last month, in June, Serbia’s 60 Minutes program aired footage purportedly of a fugitive Mladic leading a relatively comfortable life; attending football games bonding with family and participating in a snowball fight. This sparked not only moral outrage but also popular frustration due to the perception that Serbia’s failure to bring Mladic to justice is seen as the main obstacle to Serbian inclusion in the European Union and the economic benefits that it would afford the war torn nation.
Foreign intelligence agencies are now playing an active role in hunting Mladic down. Serbia’s Minister of Justice Snezana Malovic met with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder this week in Washington where the U.S. administration commended the concessions Serbia has made in prosecuting war criminals including the passage of a recent law requiring war criminals to serve at least two-thirds of their sentence.
Progress in this manhunt has been reported before and has led to continued impunity. Serbia’s B92 radio station reported three years ago that authorities were closing in on Mladic. They did not. This time around, similarities suggest Serbia is once again placating the international community over the prosecution of war criminals. This time, however, there is a 2010 deadline set for the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to complete its cases, including appeals. One way or another, time is running out on Mladic.
