Serbia: Balkan Ben Gunn

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, a war crimes fugitive for 13 years, will appear before the international tribunal in The Hague this week following his dramatic capture, announced late last Monday.  Just like his former comrade-in-arms in the Yugoslav wars, Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, he will conduct his own defence, and will therefore discard his simple but effective disguise of full beard, spectacles and long hair with top-knot. However, his solitary years on the run have told on him and the 63-year-old may not longer be able to cast his spell over the court, as he used to charm the Western media during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

According to the Serbian authorities, Karadzic was found by identifying his support network and he was already under surveillance.  Special services moved in as he was travelling on a bus in suburban Belgrade in order to minimise the risk of violence.  Footage released since his capture showed him tired and worn, quite unlike the confident 1990s.

Life on the run

His appearance has changed enormously, from the suits and elaborate hairstyle of the years at Pale to a sort of ‘New Age’ guru wearing clerical black.  This helped him pose as Dr Dragan Dabic, an expert in alternative lifestyles, contributing to Serbia’s Healthy Life magazine and even lecturing in public on meditation techniques with Orthodox Christian overtones.  He claimed to be a trained psychiatrist from southern Serbia who had studied in several foreign countries, but was not practising because he did not have his diploma.  Remarkably, he seems to have been unable to obtain the forged qualifications that would have allowed him to follow his profession.  This suggests that the level of support available to him -- at least during the last days -- was unsophisticated and low-tech.

Within days of the Serbian government transferring him to Scheveningen, he will appear in court for the indictment, for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The trial could go on for months or even years, unless Karadzic follows the Milosevic precedent of expiring in his cell. 

Serbian implications

The reaction to his capture in Serbia and Bosnia has been muted, apart from Karadzic’s former victims celebrating enthusiastically in Sarajevo.  The ultranationalist Obraz group staged demonstrations in Belgrade that were heavily outnumbered by the police.  In the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, Karadzic’s party is in opposition and the government is actually relieved that his fugitive days are now over.

For Serbia, the fact that the security services were able to catch Karadzic is very positive, indicating that they are under political control -- having signally failed to carry out previous instructions to arrest Karadzic.  Belgrade has met the main condition for closer relations with the EU and can hope to move forward, towards better living conditions and away from isolationism. It should now follow up on Karadzic by nabbing Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader.  But that may prove harder.  As a Bosnian politician, Karadzic has much less appeal than the soldier Mladic, who is regarded as a war hero and has been protected by the Serbian military.  Until recently, Mladic was still drawing his army pension.