Karadzic, Mladic and the EU

You probably heard of Bosnia on the news today. They finally "arrested" Karadzic in Serbia.
Hopefully, you have read the news and you are aware of who he is (roughly). And now, we can decipher all this. Bear with me...

First, it seems that Karadzic was "arrested" on a public bus in Belgrade. Now, all that talk about him being on the run for 13 years are nonsense. He wasn't on the run, the Serbian authorities let him be. Until recently.

The government formed a few weeks ago, a coalition of Democratic Party and pro-European parties who just barely won the elections in May, with the Socialists, Milosevic's former party (how ironic). In a nutshell, it seems that the Socialists finally realized that they couldn't have their cake and eat it too, or in this case, have Europe and their Bosnian Serb leaders too. So they let go of Karadzic, probably under some EU pressure, maybe with help of the Democratic Party.

Which is good, don't get me wrong. It's just late--about 10 years too late. And also not enough. Mladic is also "on the run", and a much bigger fish than Karadzic. Now that Milosevic is dead, Mladic is the one person who, in front of the ITCY, can prove that there was a direct link between Belgrade and the Bosnian Serbs, almost on a day-to-day basis, on military decisions. Karadzic apparently was a bit more independent from Belgrade, even daring to disagree from time to time. Given that Karadzic was riding a bus in Belgrade when he was arrested, there is reason to believe that Mladic is also protected by the Serb authorities, maybe even more so than Karadzic was.

The question is, what will happen now? Will the European Union loose its backbone and be satisfied with Karadzic, or will it continue to put pressure on Belgrade to deliver Mladic also? Personally, I'm hoping for the latter. Mladic has to be brought to justice, the victims and families of victims deserve it. Bosnia deserves it! And Serbia can then truly earn its European candidacy status.

PS. I went out last night at midnight to see the 'partying' in Sarajevo. I don't know how it looks on your tv screens, but I can tell you that it consisted of about 20 to 30 guys and as many carshonking their horns while driving in circles around the same block, waving Bosnian, Bosnian military and one Turkish flags. They were almost as many new photographers as Bosniaks celebrating, and maybe 20 people watching, including me. Then the rain came and I went to bed.