Getting Serious

Transitions Online ^ | 6 February 2006 | Igor Jovanovic

[lizol]

Getting Serious

by Igor Jovanovic 6 February 2006

The EU could block a key agreement with Belgrade if war-crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic is not arrested.

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro | Serbia’s path to the EU is currently blocked by a single individual: retired General Ratko Mladic, an indicted war criminal.

Mladic’s arrest has become an urgent matter for the Belgrade government since European officials have made it clear that a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) would not be concluded unless Serbia fully cooperates with the Hague tribunal, which means handing over the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army.

The SAA is a first major step on the path to EU membership.

Mladic has evaded justice since 1995, when he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide following the fall of Srebrenica. He is the most prominent of a group of fugitives suspected of hiding in Serbia. The group also includes Bosnian Serb security figures Zdravko Tolimir and Stojan Zupljanin, and a former Croatian Serb rebel leader, Goran Hadzic.

ICTY cooperation has shot to the top of the agenda ahead of a visit to Belgrade by the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, on 6 February.

DEL PONTE UNHAPPY

An annual opinion poll conducted by the Belgrade daily Blic placed Del Ponte among the most powerful women in Serbia. Now, she also has the most direct influence over the country’s EU aspirations: it will be her assessment of Belgrade’s cooperation with the ICTY that will determine the next steps toward EU membership.

Del Ponte is unhappy with the cooperation her office receives from the Belgrade authorities. Over the past two months, she has given negative assessments to the UN Security Council, EU ministers, and in several European capitals.

At a meeting with French officials in Paris in late January, Del Ponte said Mladic had to be delivered to the tribunal in The Hague by the end of February in order for the Srebrenica trial, with him as the main defendant, to start in mid-2006.

More worryingly for Serbia, Del Ponte, in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, also urged the EU to suspend the ongoing SAA talks with Serbia-Montenegro if Belgrade failed to fully cooperate with the ICTY.

That approached proved effective in the case of Croatia, which was prevented from gaining EU candidate status for similar reasons last year. In October, Del Ponte declared her satisfaction with Zagreb’s cooperation and the country was made a membership candidate; in December, Croatia’s most-wanted indictee, retired General Ante Gotovina, was arrested in Spain.

Faced with massive pressure from both The Hague and Brussels, Serbian officials said they were intensifying their search for Mladic. But they also said they had lost track of his movements in 2002.

“All the searches done to date have shown that Mladic is not in Serbia,” Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said.

Del Ponte remains unconvinced and continues to consider Mladic’s arrest an obligation of Belgrade. She has accused groups within the country’s security apparatus of sheltering the fugitive general.

THE SAA THREAT

The Mladic affair is putting the government under enormous strain. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said on a visit to Brussels on 2 February that “the Serbian government must take certain diplomatic steps, outside the usual diplomatic channels, in order to clarify our situation.”

He stressed that the government needed to better explain what “basic steps have been taken” to deal with the matter.

The first opportunity for doing so will arise when Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn visit Belgrade on 16 February to assess whether talks should continue.

The head of the government office for EU affairs, Tanja Miscevic, told TOL that the negotiations were easy for the EU to suspend but difficult to resume since any decision to do so would require the consent of the EU Council of Ministers, that is, all 25 member states.

“But there is also another possibility that is unfavorable for Serbia,” Miscevic pointed out. “Negotiations might not be officially suspended but an agreement would not be signed [until all conditions are met].” She pointed out that this was currently being done in the case of Albania, which has been in talks with the EU for three years.

According to the negotiations plan, Serbia’s SAA is to be signed in November 2006.

ONLY UNDER PRESSURE

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s government has a history of cooperating with the ICTY only under pressure.

In the run-up to Serbia’s positive assessment in the EU feasibility study last year, fourteen indictees turned themselves in within the space of six months.

Sources inside the Serbian security services told TOL that Mladic, according to all indications, would not turn himself in voluntarily.

The Belgrade authorities began a feverish search for Mladic in late December 2005. Serbian war-crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said on 23 December that he knew about the existence of a network aiding Mladic. “We have identified individuals that are communicating and giving logistical support [to Mladic],” he said. “I am warning all individuals communicating with the fugitives in any way, directly or indirectly, that they too will be put on trial.”

Vukcevic’s threat was made manifest on 26 January with the arrest in Belgrade of a retired colonel of the Bosnian Serb army, Jovo Djogo, accused of coordinating Mladic’s support network. He was placed in 30-day custody, the investigation declared a state secret.

Another state secret is a document presented on 1 February to the Supreme Defense Council, the body overseeing the Serbia-Montenegro army. Belgrade dailies reported that the document outlined how Mladic stayed in various military facilities until June 2002. Around the same time, Serbia adopted its law on ICTY cooperation and mounted its first search for Mladic. Afterward, it was retired members of the Bosnian Serb and Serbia-Montenegro army (as well as civilians) who helped him evade justice, according to press accounts.

Military analyst Aleksandar Radic told TOL that Mladic was indeed likely to be aided by retired officers rather than active army members. “With all that has been done in the country, it’s hard to believe that some of the active officers could secretly be helping Mladic,” he said.

Serbian President Boris Tadic, a member of the Supreme Defense Council, said the report had been declared secret only to ensure that the investigation would be successful. Should the investigation not yield results “within a reasonable deadline,” Tadic said the report would be made public.

On the same day, the Serbia-Montenegro Council of Ministers reviewed a draft agreement that would give ICTY investigators access to Serbian archives.

Del Ponte is likely to remain unimpressed: she has said in no uncertain terms that only Mladic’s receipt in The Hague detention unit would constitute full cooperation.

Prosecutor Vukcevic, one of the few Serbian officials who received praise from Del Ponte, is emerging as a key player in the Mladic chase. His role was highlighted when Prime Minister Kostunica met with Vukcevic on 2 February. A taut news release after the meeting said only that Kostunica fully supported the work of the war-crimes prosecution.

Radic said the Serbian authorities were now earnestly trying to find Mladic. “I don’t think this is all a show before Carla Del Ponte’s arrival. All activities, including Djogo’s arrest, are aimed at locating Mladic,” Radic said.

Pollsters also believe that the government’s intentions are genuine. Sociologist Srecko Mihajlovic said that the government’s popularity would not suffer serious damage if Mladic were arrested, but that a halt in the negotiations with the EU would be a disaster for Kostunica’s government

Del Ponte’s talks on 6 February with top officials in Belgrade promise to be very unpleasant indeed. She looks certain to be counted among the most powerful women in Serbia for some time to come.