> As you surely know, you could have written : Mladic itself is the
(one
> of) evidence of Serbia's involvement in theSrebrenica genocide. So
> Mladic case itself is challenging Serbia's acquittal by
> theInternational Court of Justice.
> Therefore and for other reasons the Serbian government will never
> allow
> him to fall into the ICTY's hands.
I don't think this in any way contradicts anything I have written.
> Therfore, also, other governments percieve him as a "politically
> sensitive fugitive" and would prefer him not to fall into the ICTY's
> hands.
I am very ready in principle to believe that certain Western
governments
may have conspired to prevent Mladic from being arrested. However,
several
conditions would need to be fulfilled before one could accept this.
Firstly,
definite evidence would need to be produced. Secondly, it would need
to be
explained why Western governments were ready to allow Milosevic to go
to
the Hague, but not Mladic; Milosevic presumably had more embarrassing
evidence than Mladic about Western complicity in the genocide ?
Finally, the
international community has certainly put pressure on Serbia to deport
Mladic,
so any Western complicity to keep him from the Hague would be
contradictory
and inconsistent - which doesn't mean there hasn't been such
complicity, but
the contradiction would need to be explained.
> Nevertheless, he is suspected for the worst crimes committed on the
> European soil since WWII. So there are no reason however politically
> important/crucial they may be that can prevent his arrest. All States
> have
> the legal obligation to bring about the apprehension of Mladic (as
> for
> Karadzic) in accordance with the ICTY statute (Article 29) and in
> accordance with the Convention on the prevention and punishment of
> genocide
> which 59th anniversary is in few hours.
> Florence Hartmann
> PS : By the way, and not with the intention to contest your remark but
> just for the sake of preciseness : Some members of the political and
> military leadership in Belgrade that planned and carried out the
> aggression against Croatia and Bosnia, other than the deceased
> Slobodan
> Milosevic, have been indicted : Momcilo Perisic (Bosnia) and Jovica
> Stanisic
> (Croatia and Bosnia).
I don't accept this. Momcilo Perisic was merely a corps commander
during
the JNA's aggressiona against Bosnia; he wasn't even listed in the
Milosevic
indictments as a member of the 'joint criminal enterprise'; he didn't
become
Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff until more than a year after the Yugoslav
Army
withdrew from Bosnia. Therefore, he cannot be considered as a member
of the
leadership in Belgrade that planned the aggression against Croatia and
Bosnia.
Jovica Stanisic played a somewhat more important role, and is the most
senior
member from Serbia of the 'joint criminal enterprise' to be indicted,
other than
Milosevic. Nevertheless, he was at most a third-ranking official,
having been merely
deputy chief of the State Security Service during the war in Croatia,
and its chief
during the war in Bosnia. He was merely one of Milosevic's operatives;
he wasn't a
member of the leadership that planned and carried out the aggression;
he was not
sufficiently senior to have decided such things.
One could say something similar about Arkan, Seselj and Simatovic:
they were all
at best secondary figures in the 'joint criminal enterprise', and in
most cases less
important or senior than that.
The architects of the war; the leaders who planned and carried out the
aggression
against Croatia and Bosnia and the genocide; they have, with the
exception of the
deceased Milosevic, not been indicted. But the Tribunal had no
difficulty indicting
Janko Bobetko, Ante Gotovina, Rasim Delic and Sefer Halilovic, not to
mention
plenty of minor figures such as Furundzija, Kupreskic, Marinic etc.
The people of Croatia and Bosnia have not received justice.
