Serbia finds its conscience

In the end, Radovan Karadzic’s capture came not in the manner of his cliché-ridden nationalist poetry, with a last stand against external forces and in defence of Serbdom, but instead at the hands of the Serbian government. The man accused of unleashing the Bosnian War, which saw some 100,000 people die, including 8,000 civilians massacred in the Srebrenica safe-haven, is said to have been arrested not in a mountain hold-out in his native Montenegro, but on a Belgrade bus. Until recently, most Balkans analysts had almost given up hope that any of the remaining fugitives would be caught…

The Hague tribunal’s prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who will prosecute the former Bosnian Serb leader, called the arrest “a very important day for the victims who have waited… over a decade.” But the former Bosnian Serb leader’s arrest is also a boon for the Serb president, Boris Tadic, who has showed that he is willing to cut his country’s links with its past and put Serbia securely on the road to European integration. That road had, until now, been blocked by Serbia’s unwillingness to arrest indicted war criminals like Karadzic. The stabilisation and association agreement — the first step toward EU integration — has languished in the Serbian parliament. It is now likely to be ratified by a new parliament, and the EU can be expected to be much more forward-leaning that it has in the past…

Serbia and the Balkans still have a long way to travel. Popular denial of Serbia’s offensive role in the wars of the ’90s is still widespread and the arrest of General Mladic may provoke a more violent and popular reaction. But for now, Serbia deserves to feel proud. It has done the right thing for Radovan Karadzic’s victims, its own future and the cause of international justice.

Excerpted from a comment by Daniel Korski in ‘The Guardian’