The arrest of former Serb war leader Ratko Mladic, responsible for one of the most serious crimes committed in Europe since the end of World War II, the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995 is a victory for international justice. We will not dwell here on the long wait that preceded this announcement: Sixteen years have passed since the indictment of Ratko Mladic by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
It was a mare with many gray areas, whether those hovering on the role of Westerners, long more concerned with arrangements for peace in Bosnia as the requirements of justice. Or the thick shadow of suspicion hanging over Serb military networks, which have protected a war criminal strutting sometimes football matches in Belgrade.
The complicity of each other will be one day clarified. The most important thing today is elsewhere. This shows that when political will exists, first that of Europe, the perpetrators of mass crimes going unpunished. We must applaud the insistence of the European Union to have conditioned, in recent years, any rapprochement of Serbia with the institutions of Brussels to the arrest of those wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity in the Balkans.
Europe, which is struggling on many foreign policy issues to speak in unison, will, on this point and never wavered. She wore her standard values, and practiced as such the famous "soft power" that is its strength of influence: we do join the club by demonstrating its full commitment to the defense of fundamental rights and courts that protect.
The overthrow of Milosevic in 2000 and the advent of a Serbian power embodied by the new liberal president, Boris Tadic, constituted essential steps that Serbia is fully committed to this path. Already, the signal was given at the November 2008 arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the former political leader of Bosnian Serbs during the siege of Sarajevo, sinister accomplice Mladic.
And now? The capture of these individuals should not obscure the many other cases which Europe and the international community must maintain pressure. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is in the crosshairs of the International Criminal Court. If he goes into exile, as Westerners seem to hope, it will there be immunity in a host country? And what about Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, under warrant of arrest for "genocide" in Darfur? We have seen in international meetings hosted in Africa, as if nothing had happened ...
The advent in the 1990s, new international courts to prosecute perpetrators of mass crimes constituted a major breakthrough in the fight for the "never again". The fight against impunity is not just European but global. It should be a requirement of all. Article published in the edition of 28.05.11 
It was a mare with many gray areas, whether those hovering on the role of Westerners, long more concerned with arrangements for peace in Bosnia as the requirements of justice. Or the thick shadow of suspicion hanging over Serb military networks, which have protected a war criminal strutting sometimes football matches in Belgrade.
The complicity of each other will be one day clarified. The most important thing today is elsewhere. This shows that when political will exists, first that of Europe, the perpetrators of mass crimes going unpunished. We must applaud the insistence of the European Union to have conditioned, in recent years, any rapprochement of Serbia with the institutions of Brussels to the arrest of those wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity in the Balkans.
Europe, which is struggling on many foreign policy issues to speak in unison, will, on this point and never wavered. She wore her standard values, and practiced as such the famous "soft power" that is its strength of influence: we do join the club by demonstrating its full commitment to the defense of fundamental rights and courts that protect.
The overthrow of Milosevic in 2000 and the advent of a Serbian power embodied by the new liberal president, Boris Tadic, constituted essential steps that Serbia is fully committed to this path. Already, the signal was given at the November 2008 arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the former political leader of Bosnian Serbs during the siege of Sarajevo, sinister accomplice Mladic.
And now? The capture of these individuals should not obscure the many other cases which Europe and the international community must maintain pressure. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is in the crosshairs of the International Criminal Court. If he goes into exile, as Westerners seem to hope, it will there be immunity in a host country? And what about Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, under warrant of arrest for "genocide" in Darfur? We have seen in international meetings hosted in Africa, as if nothing had happened ...
The advent in the 1990s, new international courts to prosecute perpetrators of mass crimes constituted a major breakthrough in the fight for the "never again". The fight against impunity is not just European but global. It should be a requirement of all. Article published in the edition of 28.05.11
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