Jane’s Defence analyst: Mladić one step ahead

Interesting that the British had so much difficulty locating Gerry Adams all those years...almost renders plausible the Serbian government's claim that Mladic remains out of reach. However, I think Careen O'Reilly makes a very important point: Mladic loyalists no doubt remain within the ranks of the Serbian intelligence agencies, and it is these individuals who make the arrest of Mladic and other indictees truly possible. Granted, some would argue that these loyalists are, in fact, serving to undermine honest efforts on the part of the government to capture war crimes suspects. However, the truth is that those in charge (Vojislav Kostunica, Rasim Ljajic and Zoran Stankovic, to name a few) of rounding up Hague indictees know who these loyalists are but choose not to target them. Rather, they play the decoy game and arrest and interrogate men who probably have helped to hide Mladic and others in the past, but no longer possess useful information. Bottom line: the Serbian government continues to avoid going after key war crimes suspects out of fear of two things: the safety of themselves and their families on the one hand, and a major political backlash on the other. Even the analyst quoted in this article as believing Belgrade to be incapable of making an arrest winds up contradicting himself in the end when he remarks that Mladic can be caught as long as nationalists fail to gain control of the government.

Interesting that the British had so much difficulty locating Gerry Adams all those years...almost renders plausible the Serbian government's claim that Mladic remains out of reach. However, I think Careen O'Reilly makes a very important point: Mladic loyalists no doubt remain within the ranks of the Serbian intelligence agencies, and it is these individuals who make the arrest of Mladic and other indictees truly possible. Granted, some would argue that these loyalists are, in fact, serving to undermine honest efforts on the part of the government to capture war crimes suspects. However, the truth is that those in charge (Vojislav Kostunica, Rasim Ljajic and Zoran Stankovic, to name a few) of rounding up Hague indictees know who these loyalists are but choose not to target them. Rather, they play the decoy game and arrest and interrogate men who probably have helped to hide Mladic and others in the past, but no longer possess useful information. Bottom line: the Serbian government continues to avoid going after key war crimes suspects out of fear of two things: the safety of themselves and their families on the one hand, and a major political backlash on the other. Even the analyst quoted in this article as believing Belgrade to be incapable of making an arrest winds up contradicting himself in the end when he remarks that Mladic can be caught as long as nationalists fail to gain control of the government.