Serbian Coat of Arms

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Serbian Coat of Arms

The President of Serbia Boris Tadic confirmed in a press conference on Wednesday night that the last fugitive war crime suspect Goran Hadzic was arrested by Serbian security forces, and that by doing so Serbia ended a most difficult chapter of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Tadic’s announcement is considered by many experts a symbol of two things: the first, that the process of bringing to justice those who had committed war crimes in the 1990s on the territory of former Yugoslavia is finally over, and that nothing stands now between Serbia and its desired candidacy to full membership of the European Union.

By the full cooperation with the international tribunal Serbia has demonstrated its eagerness to no longer carry the burden of the crimes against humanity committed in its name during those difficult war times.

Goran Hadzic, leader of the Krajina Republic, carved on the Croatian territory but the Croatian Serbs, and disbanded by an operation of the Croatian military in 1995, stands accused of 14 counts of war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and is the last man to be prosecuted for these crimes by the ICTY.

With him, the bloody page of the Balkan wars of Yugoslavia can be turned and Serbia can look toward taking its place among the countries of Europe.

161 persons have been indicted by this court, most of them Serbs, and the majority of them have already been convicted, only a few cases being still in process.

Boris Tadic

The only one who escaped conviction was the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, the first major player in the region to be handed to this tribunal. Milosevic was extradited to the tribunal in 2001, and died in 2005 of heart attack.

Other famous detainees of the ICTY are Radovan Karadzic, former president of Srpska Republic in Bosnia Herzegovina, and Ratko Mladic, apprehended a few months ago. They both are accused of the massacre of Srebrenica.

The ICTY had planned to end prosecution of the criminals of war until 2015, and with the arrest of Goran Hadzic it can keep up with its schedule, thus ending the mission for which it was assembled.

The delivery of Milosevic to the international tribunal had been seen by many as the moment when Serbia began its process of rehabilitation, and took its place in Europe, thus ending the period in which it was deemed as the pariah of Europe.

However, a virulent nationalism, a corrupt political system and the failure to cooperate with the international authorities prolonged the agony of the country ten years more.

It would seem that the situation has changed to some point, if one is to take into account that at the arrest of Hadzic no protest was stage in the streets. In the 2000s, the politicians had to pay attention to the public approval for people like Karadzic and Mladic, considered heroes in their country, whose arrests were followed by nationalistic backlash.

In 2006, European Union suspended negotiation with Serbia because of the lack of cooperation with the ICTY. Boris Tadic came to power in 2008, and promised to engage the problem at a time when many seemed skeptical that he may actually do it. It was even believed that some politicians played with the fate of these fugitives in order to score electoral points.

Serbian-EU Relations

However, Tadic did it, and now his country is ready to become a member of the European Union, and it is expected that the confirmation of its candidacy will be made in October, thus triggering the long way of negotiations toward the admission.

Still, there is Kosovo, the breakaway province inhabited by a majority of Albanians brought in by Tito to save them from extinction in their own country, who proclaimed a state of their own, recognized by many nations of the world but not by Serbia.

Talks over Kosovo between delegations from Belgrade and Pristina collapsed earlier this week, though the start had been rather promising.

There are voices that say that Serbia will not become a member of the EU unless it also acknowledges the loss of Kosovo, which is the test President Boris Tadic must pass in order to prove that now that he has solved the problem of the criminals of war he is also ready to ensure peace in the region.

Serbia wants to become a member of the European Union at a time when the European Union itself is fighting its own survival, as countries collapse one after another economically, and rumor has it that Germany is already printing national Deutsche Marks again.

Is it possible for the Kosovo case to keep Serbia at the door of the European Union long enough for the continental body to get better in order to be able to invest in the new entry?

On the bright side, if Serbia losses Kosovo and possible other parts of its territory, like Vojvodina for instance, where ethnic differences still loom, by the time it becomes a member of the EU it will be small enough not to put any serious stress on the collective shoulders of the Europeans who demanded so much of her and are ready to give her so little.

Many people in Serbia feel like their country has been brought to its knees by the EU. How will they feel when they become citizens of the same union?

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