Two mass murderers brought to justice in one year

My column in the Sky Hi News July 20,2011

The year 2011 will be remembered as the year two mass murders were caught.

Osama Bin Laden was one. The other, the Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, was indicted by the Hague Tribunal for crafting and carrying out ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars of the 1990s . He was arrested in May and his trial has begun.

The Balkan wars had been forgotten by many except the European Union, which put handing over Mladic as one of the conditions for Serbia's admittance. Mladic was the second high profile Serb to sit in the dock at the Hague. The other was Slobodan Milosovic.

 A three-year siege of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, which resulted in the death of 10,000 Muslims and Catholics, was overseen by Mladic. The world, and particularly Europe, dithered in the name of “fairness” to both sides. It was the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim males between the ages of 10 and 77 in Srebenica in 1995 that was the catalyst for worldwide outrage, which ended the phase of the war that dragged on in Kosovo, ending with NATO bombing Belgrade. The war crimes court in the Hague had indicted Mladic in 1996 for carrying out the massacre.

Bin Laden's admitted masterminding of Sept. 11 and Mladic's Srebenica outraged the Western world and the West drew a line of behavior that was Post World War II unacceptable. Both used terror and the killing of innocents to advance their hate-based goals. Terror, which Mladic practiced to force Muslims and Croatian Catholics out of predominantly Serbian areas, was honed finely, using rape as a calculated tool and mass executions to eliminate groups. The ethnic division he engineered exists today in modern Bosnia, which is ungovernable, ungoverned, and poor.

It is suspected that Osama's supporters within Pakistan made it possible for him to live in plain sight for six years there. Until 2001 Mladic had been living a normal, open life in Belgrade, Serbia, under the protection of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president, even though the Hague had issued arrest warrants in 1995. Milosovic was finally deposed and brought to the Hague in 2001 (where he died of natural causes during the trial). After 2001, some believe Mladic lived among cousins and other Bosnian Serb refugees in northern Serbia, though he kept undercover and was suspected to have been protected by elements of the Serbian military.

 In 2007, a younger generation of Serbs, feeling the results of a poor economy, elected a younger leader, Boris Tadic. Even then, it took three years to “find” Mladic. Serbians began to see membership in the European Unions as a way out of their depressed economy, enough so that the desire for moving on outweighed the Serbian nationalism that had protected Mladic.

The EU was to meet in this coming November to begin the long process to admit Serbia to the EU, but failure to capture Mladic was their deal killer. He was found, though it is believed U.S. and U.K. special forces helped, but the actual arrest was credited to the Serbs themselves.

Mladic so far has been disruptive in the courtroom. He will probably try to claim he knew nothing and was not in control. The Hague Court has always been condemned by die hard Serbian nationalist supporters as anti-Serb. Sixteen years of evidence gathering and a pledge by President Tadic to bring to justice to Mladic's lieutenants may make the Mladic defense a weak one.

Perhaps now Serbia can move forward toward a better economy and connections with Western Europe as it begins the long process to meet the other criteria of EU admittance. 

Perhaps now Bosnia can also begin to heal, though memories of such atrocities will take generations to dim. Perhaps now that the tyrants of this world who are motivated by ethnic and religious hatred to use terrorism as a tool know that eventually they will pay for their outrages against humanity.

With the capture of Mladic, another ogre is brought to justice. Perhaps or hopefully the Balkans can heal

Another ogre was found today. While we felt justice had been done in the killing of Osama Bin Laden,  though a  decade passed,  it took  16 years to bring to justice another  mass killer, the Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, indicted by the Hague Tribunal for crafting and carrying out ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars.  Both Bin Laden and Mladic were driven by hatred…Bin Laden declared a jihadist war against the Christian West and Mladic set about systematically to cleanse parts of Bosnia of Muslims and Croatian Catholics.

 A three year siege of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, but mostly Muslim, was overseen by Mladic and thousands were killed because of their ethnicity or the result of the siege and elsewhere. The world, and particularly Europe, dithered in the name of “fairness” to both sides.   9/11 was the final outrage that put Bin Laden on the most wanted list. The massacre of over seven thousand Muslim males between the ages of 10 and 77 was the catalyst for worldwide outrage, which ended that phase of the war that dragged on in Kosovo, ending with NATO bombing of Belgrade.

 The parallel comparisons between the two are easy to draw: both outraged the Western world and the West drew a line of behavior that was Post World War II unacceptable. Terror, which Mladic practiced to force Muslims out of predominantly Serbian areas, was honed finely, using rape as a calculated tool (not just as a spoils of war), and mass ethnic executions to eliminate groups of undesirable ethnics. The ethnic division he engineered exists today in modern Bosnia, which is ungovernable, ungoverned, and poor.  Osama Bin Laden’s calculated tactics of terror and mass killing of innocents in a mad attempt to bring the West to its knees do not need repeating. We are all too familiar with it as an effective tool for a small group to control and destroy a larger one by frightening and killing off innocents.

 It is suspected that Osama’s supporters within Pakistan made it possible for him to live in plain sight for 6 years there. Until 2001 Mladic had been living a normal, open life in Belgrade, Serbia under the protection of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president, even though Mladic had been indicted by the Hague for war crimes and arrest warrants and rewards had been issued in 1995. Milosovic was finally deposed and brought to the Hague in 2001 (where he died of natural causes during the trial). After 2001, we now believe Mladic lived among cousins and other Bosnian Serb refugees in northern Serbia, though he kept undercover and was suspected to have been protected by elements of the Serbian military.

 In 2007, a new, younger generation of Serbs, looking to the West and feeling the results of a poor economy, elected a younger leader, Boris Tadic. Even then, it took three years to “find” Mladic. Serbians began to see membership in the European Unions as a way out of their depressed economy, enough so that the desire for moving on outweighed the Serbian nationalism that had protected Mladic. The EU was to meet in this coming November to begin the long process to admit Serbia to the EU, but failure to capture Mladic was their deal killer.   He was found (uttered on the BBC today that US and UK intelligence helped “find”him), but the actual arrest was credited to the Serbs themselves.

There the comparison is harder to make.  Bin Laden was not brought to the Hague, nor was Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Bin Laden faced justice at the end of a SEALS weapon, but he had admitted to and had taken credit for 9/11.  Saddam had a trial, fair or not, and was hanged by his own people. Mladic, as did Milosovic before him, will probably try to claim he knew nothing and was not in control. The Hague Court has always been condemned by die hard Serbian nationalist supporters as anti-Serb. Sixteen years of evidence gathering and a pledge by Pres. Tadic to bring to justice to Mladic’s lieutenants may make the Mladic defense a weak one.

Perhaps now Serbia can move forward toward a better economy and connections with Western Europe. Perhaps now Bosnia can begin to heal. Perhaps now that the tyrants of this world who are motivated by ethnic and religious hatred to use terrorism as a tool know that eventually they will pay for their outrages against humanity.

I will be visiting Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia this summer. I hope the “perhaps” will turn into “hopefully” as those in the region digest the closing of the Mladic chapter.