UPDATE: Mladic, the al Zarqawi of the Balkans wars, eludes capture...again?

Frontpages of Serbian newspapers trumpeting "Mladic arrested in Belgrade" - referring to Bosnian Serb general and war crimes fugitive, Ratko Mladic

Yesterday, virtually every international news organization ran with stories heralding the arrest of indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, after it was reported as fact by every newspaper in Serbia. This, even though every reputable news editor in the world knows that, for years, unrepentant nationalists in the Serbian government have traded in rumors about his arrest to curry favor with and extract money from the United States and the European Union. After all, coveted U.S. aid and EU membership have been conditioned on Serbia doing “everything necessary” to apprehend him.

Mladic, of course, is one of the two most wanted fugitives – along with Radovan Karadzic - being sought to face a battery of war crimes charges in The Hague. But the search for him has made keystone cops out of NATO forces and willing dupes out of US and European leaders. Because, it’s been an open secret in Serbia, since both men went into hiding over five years ago, that Mladic is being protected by Serb nationalists (probably somewhere in southern Bosnia). And, moreover, that they've been encouraged to thwart NATO's efforts to capture him by none other than Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica - who himself has made no secret of his contempt for the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Yet U.S. and EU officials continue to deal with the Serbians as if they’re acting in good faith. Indeed, I ridiculed their folly in this previous article in which I quote U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns – who was announcing a $10 million disbursement because of a “new pledge by Serbia to finally cooperate fully” with the tribunal - as follows:

"My strong impression from my discussions in Belgrade is that the government is working very seriously to find General Mladic and there will be a sincere attempt to capture him or to have him voluntarily surrender and to send him to The Hague....We are confident that his days in relative freedom are numbered."

That was over 8 months ago....And, despite Kostunica’s specious assertion yesterday that Mladic’s arrest has been “solved politically” and was now in the “purely technical sphere”, I think chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte is right to dismiss his assurances as having “no validity whatsoever”.

So, until the next round of “leaks, rumours and whispers” about his (or Karadzic’s) arrest, Mladic remains a fugitive “still at large” and he’ll remain at large until Americans and Europeans make it untenable, economically and politically, for Serbs to continue harbouring him.

Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, war crimes, Hague tribunal