Mladic’s capture signals that justice will eventually catch up with mass murderers

SERBIA has finally “captured” the Serbian mass murderer Ratko Mladic. One of the three Butchers of Balkans — the other two being the late Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic — Mladic eluded international justice for 17 years although he roamed free at home with the connivance of Serbian political and security establishment.

Even now if President Boris Tadic has decided to arrest and turn him over to the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY), he had his reasons to do so. ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz was about to present a damning report on Serbia’s reluctant pursuit of Mladic and other war criminals to the UN. The report would have almost certainly derailed Serbia’s EU membership plan.

Be that as it may, Mladic’s capture brings to close the darkest chapter in Europe’s recent history. As the commander of the marauding Serbian military and with the blessings of Milosevic and Kardzic, Mladic presided over the genocide of tens of thousands of Bosnian or ethnic Albanian men, women and children. Rape became the Serb weapon of choice targeting thousands of Muslim women. They did not even spare young children. In one incident, Mladic distributed chocolates among young Muslim children before gunning them down. read more