That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...
That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...
That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...
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ear superior responsibility <strong>for</strong> the suffering they endured. While similar sentiments are<br />
not uncommon in Bosnia, most of the Bosnians we interviewed placed overriding importance<br />
on prosecuting those whom they see as the principal architects of “ethnic cleansing.”<br />
Along with Slobodan Milošević, two men loom largest of all in this regard: Ratko Mladić, the<br />
wartime military leader of Bosnian Serbs, and Radovan Karadžić, Bosnian Serbs’ wartime<br />
political leader.<br />
Up until our last set of interviews in Bosnia, both suspects remained at large years<br />
after they were twice indicted on genocide charges in 1995—the second time <strong>for</strong> their roles in<br />
the Srebrenica slaughter of July 1995. By the time of our last visit in July 2009, Karadžić was<br />
awaiting trial in The Hague after his arrest in Serbia one year earlier.<br />
This study explores some of the reasons why Mladić and Karadžić were able to elude<br />
apprehension even when up to 50,000 NATO troops patrolled Bosnia in the early years of<br />
peace, 17 when their whereabouts were more easily ascertained. Most important, in the immediate<br />
aftermath of a vicious three and a half year conflict, NATO <strong>for</strong>ce-contributing countries<br />
worried that apprehending ICTY suspects would destabilize the fragile peace. In retrospect, it<br />
is clear that failing to arrest these and other war crimes suspects obstructed Bosnia’s postwar<br />
recovery in myriad ways. (Conversely, as we note in Chapter IV, to a limited extent the belated<br />
removal of some ICTY suspects through NATO arrest operations may have contributed to<br />
displaced persons’ willingness to return to their prewar homes.)<br />
For those who had hoped the ICTY’s work would lay a foundation <strong>for</strong> reconciliation in<br />
the aftermath of ethnic violence, allowing indicted war criminals to remain at large came at<br />
a heavy cost, perhaps irreparable. “In the beginning,” Sevima Sali-Terzić reflected when we<br />
interviewed her in late 2006, “it was possible to have improvements with justice.” But in view<br />
of the international community’s failure to arrest Karadžić and Mladić, she wondered if “it’s<br />
too late. Our ethnic relations are terrible…. Too much time was given to those who began the<br />
war to be in power after the war … to pretend that we have working ethnic relations.” 18<br />
During our first set of interviews <strong>for</strong> this study, when both Karadžić and Mladić were<br />
still at large, we heard repeatedly that this fact risked overwhelming all other achievements<br />
of the ICTY. Law professor Jasna Bakšić Muftić summed up what we heard from many in<br />
Bosnia: The ICTY has done “so many good things but they’re in the shadow of Karadžić and<br />
Mladić.” <strong>Be</strong>cause these two suspects had escaped justice <strong>for</strong> so long, she said, “many ordinary<br />
people [in Bosnia] can’t see the good things the ICTY has done.” 19 Many recognize that it is<br />
not the Tribunal’s fault that the two were able to elude justice—the Tribunal has no independent<br />
authority to arrest suspects and must depend on states and multilateral <strong>for</strong>ces to do this.<br />
Even so, we were told, if the ICTY were to close its doors without obtaining custody of its top<br />
suspects, this would “reflect on the whole work of the Hague Tribunal. People will <strong>for</strong>get all<br />
other prosecutions.” 20<br />
The belated arrest of Radovan Karadžić partially redeemed the international community’s<br />
failure to secure his arrest sooner but did not erase the costs of his extended impunity.<br />
16 INTRODUCTION