The celebrations are hardly muted - Radovan Karadic is finally likely to face trial. The architect of murder in the Balkans who 13 years ago terrorised Europe is now in our hands! I hear you say, 'If only we had caught 14 years ago, before he committed that monstrous crime is Srebrenica! Thousands of lives could have been saved! Someone should have indicted him then, made clear to him that he was not operating with impunity, that one day he would be hauled infront of the world and justify his unjstifiable actions.'
Of course in 1994 there was absloutley no way Radovan Karadic could have been indicted. There was no court established, insufficient evidence gathered to prosecute him, and anyway he was busy attending peace negotiations with the internatioal community.
Now the Bosnian muslims who were murdered back then have long since rotted in their graves. Finally, bleatedly we drag him out of hiding, and we have our day in court with him.
Meanwhile, Omar Bashir's indictment is being roundly condemned in many circles. Some are simply apologists for the regime, others are scared of the political and humantitarian fallout, others are concerned that the indictment of genocide is too strong on the basis that it would be better to take Bashir out of action on a lesser charge and be certain, than prosecute genocide and fail on a definitional point.
So going back to Karadic. Would it have been better for the 7,000 bosnian men and boys he ordered dead, had he been stopped in 1994?
If we have evidence on Bashir, better to indict him than to celebrate in 2021 when, bearded and bespetacled, we haul him out of hiding with belated back slapping on the part of lawyers and investigators who are still at school right now.
If it takes until 2021 to see Bashir in front of the International Criminal Court, I for one will not be slapping anyone's backs.
