States must catch Rwandan, Yugoslav war crimes suspects

The cooperation of states is crucial to capturing fugitive war criminals from Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia such as Ratko Mladic, tribunal prosecutors told the United Nations Security Council on Monday.
By Linawati Sidarto
Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Serge Brammertz, said in New York that the failure to arrest Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadžic is one of his office’s foremost concerns.
“Time is passing and we are not seeing results,” Brammertz stated. “Serbia needs to adopt a more pro-active approach to arresting fugitives.”
“Serbia must bridge the gap between its stated commitment to the arrests and the effectiveness of its operations on the ground,” he said, adding that the country “holds the key” to bringing the two fugitives to justice.
Mladic, the wartime Bosnian Serb army commander, is wanted on charges of genocide for his key role in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. He is considered to be the mastermind behind the slaying of over 7,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica and the 44-month siege of Sarajevo which killed 10,000 people. Hadžic was a Croatian Serb leader.
Serbia has appeared to have stepped up cooperation with the ICTY since pro-European forces took office in 2008. Mladic's arrest is seen as the ultimate proof that Belgrade is cooperating with the UN court, a key condition for Serbia joining the European Union.
Belgrade also recently increased tenfold to 10 million euros the reward for information leading to Mladic’s arrest of Mladic .
Brammertz stressed that the failure to arrest Mladic and Hadžic would leave the victims without redress, as well as impede reconciliation in the region and damage the credibility of the international legal system as a whole.
[related-articles]Since its inception 17 years ago, the ICTY has indicted 161 persons for war crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Brammertz also said on Monday that Tribunal will miss its intended closure deadline, which was to be the end of this year.
Rwanda
Meanwhile, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Prosecutor Hassan Jallow said that the majority of the ten fugitives wanted by his court have been signaled within the Democratic Republic of Congo. He pointed out that despite promises of support and cooperation of the DRC, “little progress” have been reached in the matter.
“It is necessary that the Governments of the DRC, Kenya, Zimbabwe and neighbouring States intensify cooperation and search for the ten fugitives, all of whom, according to our sources, are within east, central and southern Africa,” Jallow told the UN Security Council.
ICTR President Dennis Byron stressed that “the Tribunal depends on the cooperation of Member States for the tracking, arrest and transfer of fugitives.”
Jallow further said that referrals of some key cases to national jurisdictions could possibly see the end of trials at the Tribunal, which is based in Tanzania’s Arusha, by the end of 2011. The ICTR was set up in 1994, the year after the Rwandan genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people died.