Hide and seek

Yesterday’s article at the Glas Javnosti daily (www.glas-javnosti.co.yu/danas/srpski/D05030502.shtml has an entire page on the issue of the surrendering generals…. Let’s see if we can translate some of the strange circumstances that have befallen this country.

It is no longer a name of a children’s game. It is what grown-ups do also. In one of the largest manhunts of modern day Europe (seeking to arrest Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic) the foreign forces on the ground of today’s Bosnia have ransacked homes, followed up on leads, paid informers, made arrests, frozen bank accounts and thrown in everything but a kitchen sink.

Why is it that these two “war criminals” remain so elusive? I don’t know if they really are war criminals? And I am even less ready to buy Carla del Ponte’s first hand knowledge that they are hiding in Belgrade or Serbia.

Certainly there will be some sentimental weakness of any nation surrendering their one time leader (or military defender) to some foreign court, which has by now discredited itself plenty through no help of anybody else.

Let’s take a closer look:

Carla del Ponte “knows” where they are (or so she states at numerous press meetings she’s holding). If you suppose she is NOT just trying to demonize the Serbians (kind of hard to suppose THAT, but let’s give it a try), she often claims that one or both of these fugitives are in Belgrade.

On the other hand Belgrade remains the only town (and country) in history of the world, that has delivered its sitting president (Slobodan Milosevic) to a foreign court. Does that tell you something?

During the opening round of the Milosevic prosecution they simply lost even the remotest chances of winning. Their witnesses were compromised, badly coached, or proven to be outright liars, by the agile Milosevic. Last chance of winning was the possibility of silencing Milosevic and taking away his right to defend himself – (they almost succeeded at that but not quite). Since that last chance fell through, Carla is under tremendous pressure to deliver one strong anti-Serbian conviction and justify her years long rhetoric of hate and disbalance (silly me, I thought that the basic tenets of any Law were based on equity – balance – justice).

MY FIRST TROUBLESOME QUESTION:
If Belgrade has delivered the very president himself why not deliver the two lesser individuals?


MY SECOND TROUBLESOME QUESTION:
If del Ponte knows where they are why doesn’t she supply Belgrade with the street number, name, zip code, telephone so some law enforcement agency can go and arrest these “fugitives”?

Iliya Pavlovich