Capturing Karadžić

It didn't take long for the hardliners to hit the streets. Shortly after the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic issued a late-night statement announcing the arrest of Radovan Karadžić, scores of young ultranationalists started gathering in Belgrade's main squares. Some drove around town singing jingoistic songs; others insulted and spat at police hastily deployed to keep the peace. "Radovan is a hero," shouted members of the youth movement Obraz as they gathered around the special court building where Karadžić's extradition hearing will take place. "Boris, save Serbia, kill yourself," they yelled in a message to the president.

Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, was arrested in Serbia Monday after 13 years on the run. But while human rights organizations around the world welcomed the unexpected news, Serbs feared that Karadžić's detention could provoke a nationalist backlash. Serbian authorities last night dispatched police reinforcements to Belgrade's U.S. Embassy, which was torched in February after Kosovo declared independence. Special units were also positioned around the court.

Karadžić is accused of masterminding the deaths of 100,000 people in his ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians during the bloodiest of the four wars that followed the break-up of communist Yugoslavia in 1991. One of the main accusations against him is the killing of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. 

Although details about how Karadžić was located have yet to emerge, the arrest appears to have been a direct result of the formation of a new pro-Western Serbian government earlier this month. Last Friday's replacement of the powerful secret service chief, loyal to the former ultranationalist prime minister Vojsilav Kostunica, by an aide of the liberal Tadic is also believed to have been instrumental in Karadžić's detention. "The arrest of Karadžić shows that elections do matter," Thomas O. Melia, deputy executive director of the Washington-based Freedom House, said in a statement, welcoming the arrest as "a triumph" for both the international community and Serbia's new authorities. "It's no coincidence that the Serbian government appointed a new head of security on Friday and this arrest happened just three days later."

The arrest brings Serbia one step closer to membership in the European Union, which has wanted to see the capture of Karadžić, as well as other indicted war criminals, including Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadžić. For most Serbs, that makes it a welcome development—even if they don't hold the Hague War Crimes Tribunal in particularly high regard. The young ultranationalists, however, see Karadžić as an idol who saved the Bosnian Serbs from genocide. Many had pledged to turn their homes into "safehouses" for him after developing an elaborate, saint-like mythology around him. They often compare Karadžić, who was born in 1945 in a stable in a tiny, bucolic village, with Jesus.

Not surprisingly, some government officials fear retaliation from these groups and have tried to distance themselves from Karadžić's arrest. Within hours of the presidential announcement, the Interior Ministry issued a written statement denying any involvement with the capture. Their fears are not without foundation: in 2003, former Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindic—who played a key role in the arrest and extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal—was killed by members of a conspiracy code-named "Stop The Hague." In spite of the protests, the Hague is where Karadžić could find himself by the end of this week. Although the legalities of the extradition proceedings could theoretically take as long as 10 days, previous cases suggest they could be finished in as few as three. Whether that will silence the protesters in the squares remains to be seen.

© 2008