The arrest of Radovan Karadzic
It was nearly 12 years ago, in September 1996, that I rang the bell outside Radovan Karadzic's house near Sarajevo and asked if he'd like to talk to the BBC.
He had already been indicted by the international war crimes tribunal -- but I had interviewed him twice before in London.
The fiction in 1996 was that no one knew where he was. The reality was that within a couple of days of arriving in Sarajevo, I'd been handed a piece of paper with a scribbled map on it, showing the precise location of the house where he was living, in Pale, in the hills outside the Bosnian capital.
As I made my way to the house, I stopped several times along the way to ask directions. "Excuse me, is this the way to Radovan Karadzic's house?" Everyone was very kind and gave me directions, even the Ghanaian officers at the UN police post just a couple of hundred metres from the house.
The point of the story is this: then, and for most of the time since then, plenty of people knew where he was. What changed tonight was that, at last, someone who knew was prepared to tell the people who wanted to know.
Serbia -- and Bosnia -- are very different countries from what they were in the mid-1990s. In Belgrade there is now a democratically elected pro-Western government, which is anxious to be accepted as a potential member of the European Union. One of the conditions imposed by Brussels was that Radovan Karadzic and his military chief, General Ratko Mladic, had to be handed over to the war crimes tribunal.
Now, it looks as if at least one of them will be.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~03~RS~)
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This is cause for great celebration. Firstly, it marks the beginning of a process which may bring some closure for the families of Bosnian Muslims who suffered during these atrocities. Secondly, it appears to mark a new phase in a process whereby the futility of protecting people wanted for war crimes in the region is becoming apparent. Hopefully the arrest of Mladic will follow. Thirdly, it marks the beginning of a coming of age for Serbia and a willingness to face up to her obligations. Finally, it presents an opportunity for the international community to demonstrate it's commitment to deliver justice regardless of the faith or ethnicity of the victims and that Muslims have as much right to justice as anyone else.
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Is the USA a member of the Court?
Has the USA passed legislation authorizing the military retrieval of any US officials arrested by the Court?
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I hate to sound facetious, but most people would regard exclusion from the EU as a reason NOT to grass someone up...
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I sincerely hope that Mr Lustig never leaves journalism for budgeting at the BBC !!!
Speaking with someone at The Hague this evening, Robin Lustig speaking of the mandate of the International Court of Justice said : "..mandate expires at the end of 2010. That is less than two years away".
Is he, or anybody else on the programme, aware of how poor his grasp of arithmetic appears to be ???
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