BALKANS: Dial 9191 for Mladic

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Oct 17 2007 (IPS) - Serbia has offered a record one million euros reward each for information leading to the arrest of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, and his associate Radovan Karadzic.

That information, that can be offered by dialling Belgrade 9191, would bring the million euros (1.4 million dollars) to the one who can provide the vital information – and bring enormous political relief to the Serb government.

Mladic is wanted by the United Nations founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He is accused of masterminding the mass killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995. The atrocity is considered the worst in Europe since World War II.

“We expect some quick results,” Serbian justice minister Dusan Petrovic told reporters after the unusual offer was announced last weekend. “He (Mladic) must either be arrested here, or we’ll prove he is not in Serbia.”

The United States has already offered rewards of up to 3.7 million euros (five million dollars) in Bosnia for information on Karadzic and Mladic. The reward offers since 2000 have led to nothing.

Mladic is widely believed to be hiding in Serbia, changing locations with the help of a network of wartime associates.

The government additionally announced rewards of 250,000 euros (350,000 dollars) each for helping arrest war crime suspects Stojan Zupljanin and Goran Hadzic. Zupljanin is wanted for atrocities in Bosnia, while Hadzic is held responsible for war crimes in Croatia (1991-95).

The arrest of Mladic is one of the conditions for Serbia’s access to the European Union (EU), the most important foreign policy goal of Serbia. The EU assessment will depend on the report of the chief prosecutor at ICTY, Carla Del Ponte.

“Cooperation is still too slow and not yet sufficient,” del Ponte said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers Monday. She said she could not give a positive assessment on full cooperation until Mladic is handed over to the ICTY.

Her next visit to Belgrade Oct. 25 will be another opportunity to discuss this further, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said. “The findings of Ms. Del Ponte’s visit to Belgrade will be strongly taken into account at the end of the month.”

So far, no one seems to have called 9191 with substantial facts. “People are just calling to check if the reward will really be paid or whether their identities would be kept secret if they reveal something,” a senior official at the ministry of interior told IPS.

The war crimes issue remains controversial. The Serb public is still deeply divided over the 1991-95 conflicts. In the absence of any real effort by Serbian authorities to clear up what really happened in the war years, people such as Mladic are viewed by many as heroes who did nothing wrong.

These people see the ICTY as a conspiracy against the Serb nation. They remain loyal to the ideology of the 1990s, when former leader Slobodan Milosevic led Serbia into the wars in the name of “defence of Serbs” outside Serbia proper. Milosevic died in the detention unit of the ICTY in 2006.

“This idea (of the reward) is one of the most shameful ever,” leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Dragan Todorovic said at a press conference. SRS participated in Milosevic’s government in the 1990s and remains the strongest opposition party today. “It amounts to treason,” he added.

Psychology professor Zarko Korac told IPS that the reward offer is not a good idea because “it will only provide additional arguments to those who will continue to attack the (reform-oriented) government for betrayal. Among the deeply divided Serbs, both sides – the nationalists and reformists – are desperately fighting for sympathy. This will only serve the purpose of the former.”

Commentator Zarko Trebjesanin wrote in the daily Politika that the government’s message “was mostly directed at Carla del Ponte and not to people, who see it as a possible classic case of treason linked to avarice. Among ordinary people, this leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and negative reactions against the government.”