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Serbia/UN
World leaders welcome Karadzic arrest, Russia disagrees
Article published on the 2008-07-22 Latest update 2008-07-23 13:54 TU
Riot police arrest pro-Karadzic protesters Tuesday
(Photo: Reuters)
The European Union, the US and the UN have welcomed Serbia's arrest of former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who had been living in hiding for nearly 13 years. But Russia's Foreign Ministry accused the UN war tribunal of "an often biased approach".
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana indicated that the arrest is likely to unblock talks over Serbia's accession to the bloc.
The EU has been pressing Belgrade to hand Karadzic, and other alleged war criminals, over to the UN tribunal in The Hague. The tribunal has indicted the former Bosnian-Serb leader for war crimes and genocide over the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Karadzic's capture came two weeks after Serbia got a new pro-EU government dominated by Boris Tadic's Democratic Party.
Hard-line nationalists protested in Belgrade yesterday evening.
The arrest has sent shockwaves through Serbia’s political parties, who have long defined themselves in relation to the wartime fugitives.
This could be the end of the Socialist Party, because this arrest goes against everything they have ever promised their voters, Alexander Fatic, a political scientist in Belgrade, told RFI.
As for the majority, they pushed for Karadzic‘s arrest, but now they are being very quiet, Fatic said.
“They’re generally trying to use this arrest as a blanket, as cover for the creation of a new city government in Belgrade, which is a very lucrative business for any party,” he explained.
Karadzic's former army chief Ratko Mladic is still at large along with Goran Hadzic, a Serb former politician wanted for ethnic cleansing in Croatia. The pair were charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
Karadzic is said to have authorised "ethnic cleansing" of more than a million non-Serbs and is accused of involvement in the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the massacre in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Russia has expressed misgivings about the arrest. It declared that any trial should be impartial, accusing the UN court of "an often biased approach" and saying it should be disbanded.
