A Serb raid, but pressure eases on war suspects

Recent NATO action can be seen more as a last-ditch effort than a stepped-up, organized campaign.

from the February 23, 2007 edition

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The failed prosecutions have been particularly disappointing to UN officials. Three Karadzic associates – Momcilo Mandic, Milovan Bjelica, and Mirko Sarovic – were charged with bilking millions of euros from a bank they'd founded just after the war, but two were acquitted and freed in late 2006. Another associate, Karadzic's former police minister, Radomir Kojic, was arrested last year on suspicion of money laundering through his demining company. He was released without being charged at the end of December.

Court sources say the internationally funded Bosnian court's several high- profile losses last year were the result of faulty indictments laid by some of the international prosecutors, and a US-funded court administrator who failed to assign cases. Bad blood and squabbling also poisoned the relationship between the British and North Americans, on the one hand, and the continental Europeans, on the other, who all worked on the court.

"That's been the most damaging thing that happened at the court," says an international official who helped with some of the prosecutions. "The prosecutors missed the opportunity to ram home on organized crime."

While the attempts to throw a wrench into Karadzic's support network in Bosnia have stalled, the European Union is backing off from last May's ultimatum to Serbia: Hand over Mladic before we'll advance your request to join the EU.

Earlier this month, EU officials visiting the Serbian capital of Belgrade said they would be willing to restart the talks if Serbia merely showed "clear commitment" to capture Mladic, even as chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte called Serbia's efforts to capture Mladic "just a smokescreen." She urged the EU to stick to its guns, but so far to no avail.

Analysts in the region say that with the war crimes tribunal set to close by 2010, and international donors losing interest in what has seemed an interminable legal process, Ms. Del Ponte's calls for pressure on Serbia are falling on deaf ears, despite the fact that most international justice advocates see it as the best route for bringing the former Yugoslavia's alleged war criminals to justice.

"It's the only leverage that the international community has to pry Mladic loose," says Kurt Bassuener, a Sarajevo-based senior associate with the advocacy group Democratization Policy Council. "If that keeps being undercut, you've got nothing – you're never going to see the guy."

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