Tadic Facing Sterner Opposition to Hague Cooperation

The re-election of pro-western Boris Tadic as Serbian president may have pleased those who desire the arrest of war crimes suspects, but they should beware of the increasing influence of nationalist radicals, observers warn.



Tadic only beat challenger Tomislav Nikolic, of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, by 50.6 to 47.7 per cent, revealing quite how finely balanced political forces in the country remain.



Nikolic’s party leader Vojislav Seselj is himself on trial in The Hague for war crimes, and state officials who are less keen than Tadic to cooperate fully with international justice will have been encouraged by public support for the SRS.



Natasa Kandic, executive director of the Humanitarian Law Centre, said Tadic’s re-election meant Serbia’s lukewarm cooperation with the tribunal would continue. But the increased SRS influence rendered the arrest of fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic extremely unlikely.



“I think Tadic has never had precise information on Mladic’s whereabouts, and that is unlikely to change in the future,” she said. Security forces, which are largely under government control, were the only state organs likely to know where the fugitives are now, she said.



Meanwhile, it is clear that the question mark over the future of Kosovo has become a much more significant issue with Serbian voters than cooperation with the tribunal or the fate of the fugitives.



The European Union has consistently said Serbs must cooperate with war crimes investigators if they want to have any chance of becoming members. But now Brussels is leaning towards supporting Kosovo’s independence, Serbian voters are losing their enthusiasm for membership.



Jovan Simic, adviser to the Serbian president on cooperation with the Hague tribunal, did not deny this change in emphasis. But, he said, it would prove only temporary.



“Once this problem is solved, we will intensify the search for the fugitives,” he said.



“I think that cooperation will improve in time, and that all fugitives will be arrested in the end.”



Bruno Verakic, a spokesman for the Serbian war crimes prosecutor, said his office has had constant support from the Serbian president and he could see no reason why things should change after the elections. However, he said parliament was a different matter.



“Prosecutors and judges have been exposed to threats from members of parliament, and we are worried that the situation will only get worse now that Radicals have so much power,” he said.



Currently, the Serbian government is paralysed because of a clash between Tadic’s allies and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Analysts fear that Kostunica could make a new coalition with the SRS, whose aim is to make Serbia a haven for the war crimes fugitives.



And, bearing in mind that the Serbian president has very little power over intelligence organs and the secret service, the question remains of how Tadic could actually improve cooperation with the Hague tribunal, if Kostunica decides against it.



“He needs to do what, for example, the Croatian president did and that was to be in the media all the time, to get public support and to put pressure on the institutions which can do something,” said Kandic.



“Our experience has shown that whenever there is strong public support behind some issue, that problem is solved. The same could happen with Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague tribunal.”



But that might not solve one of the most significant outstanding issues – the fate of state archives that remain confidential, including those of the Supreme Defence Council. Many people believe the documents will detail government involvement in the Bosnian genocide.



Dusan Ignjatovic, president of the Office of the Serbian National Council for Cooperation with the tribunal, told IWPR only the government could demand that the papers be handed to The Hague, something that increased SRS influence, or continuing government paralysis, would render impossible.



“If the government doesn’t work, there is no one who can ask for these protective measures to be lifted from these documents and they can’t be given to the tribunal, to the prosecutors or to the defence,” he said.



Radovan Borovic and Aleksandar Roknic are IWPR contributors in Belgrade.