Waiting for Ratko Mladic

Travelling by plane to Belgrade just a few days ago, little did I realise how crucial the timing of my short stay there would be. I was planning to research the war and organised crime cases in Serbia, and extradition problems with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.

Almost two decades after the regional wars in which all three countries were involved, there are still many alleged crimes to be investigated, including those relating to organised criminal activities that mushroomed as a result of instability and poorly defined borders.

It looked like an easy journalistic task, so I was extremely surprised when I found that most of the people I needed to speak to were very busy somewhere else. Nobody could tell me what they were busy with or where they were.

Obviously, under the surface of ‘business as usual’ in the various institutions, the biggest political drama of the year was unfolding in Serbia. I am almost sure that the process of arresting the region’s most wanted war criminal, Ratko Mladic, was underway during my visit.

I was lucky that the arrest was announced two days after my visit. If it had happened before, I wouldn’t have got to interview anyone. So, while I’m unhappy that being in the right place at the wrong time means I missed out on the front page news, at least I got material for my fellowship project.

On top of that, the arrest of Mladic just inspired me and gave me the feeling that my topic is most certainly hot enough.

In my conversations in Belgrade, I heard that the Serbian courts have handed down prison sentences totalling 821 years in more than 100 war crimes cases.

Ivan Jovanovic, national legal adviser on war crimes at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission in Serbia, believes even more cases are expected in the future.

"War crimes shouldn't be forgotten or forgiven. They must be punished, because it is the role of justice. There are no ideas to stop this process. There were too many war crimes during the wars in the former Yugoslavia so no one can say when all these trials will be finished,” he says.

Jovanovic tells me that Croatia has accused the most people of committing war crimes – more than 1,000 in total - including Croats, Bosnian Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks.

The Croatian and Serbian state commissions for war crimes are now cooperating much more than before. Instead of accusing mostly nationals from other countries in relation to war crimes while hiding their own accused, as was the case in the early years after the conflict, Zagreb and Belgrade now provide documents about alleged perpetrators and the crimes committed in their territories.

However, there are still sticking points in regional extradition agreements.

According to Vojkan Simic, an assistant minister in the Serbian justice ministry, Serbia made the first move on drawing up an extradition agreement with Croatia, but Zagreb excluded war criminals from that accord, preferring to proceed with cooperation on war crimes in a different way.

Bosnia remains a justice ‘black hole’ in the region, with Sarajevo refusing to even discuss signing an extradition agreement with Belgrade.
 
Under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the country’s three-and a half year war, Bosnia was split into two largely autonomous entities: the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Bosniak and Croat-dominated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

BiH does not believe Belgrade has the moral right to prosecute any of its citizens for war crimes, as they regard their nationals as victims rather than perpetrators. However, while other countries make progress on extradition, pressure on BiH to acquiesce is mounting.

Getting alternative citizenship is also much more complicated, and not what you might expect, in the Balkans.

"Macedonians, if they apply for Serbian citizenship, must pass through as long a procedure as citizens of Ghana.  However, it is easy option for those in Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, because the law is very liberal for them,” says Milos Oparnica, head of the Serbian office of Interpol.

Jovanovic estimates that the number of citizens of Serbia, BIH and Montenegro who have two passports exceeds the number of citizens holding one passport.

Sometimes, he notes, this is not the result of personal choice but a result of widespread confusion over nationality and refugee status following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.

But how can these tricky extradition cases possibly be solved when a Serb can hide out in Croatia courtesy of a second, Croatian passport? Or when a Serbian holding Bosnian and Montenegrin passports can be protected by all three states?

All this looks like a political Bermuda triangle right now, but it seems countries are working on solutions that might just be within reach.

Slobadanka Jovanovska is a Skopje-based journalist who is participating in the 2011 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

She will be writing regular updates on her investigation into extradition agreements in the Balkans and in European Union member states.