Serb media ignore denial, say Mladic handover near

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Official denials by Serbia failed to
quash rumors that top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic was
either under arrest on Wednesday, or being talked into
surrender for the sake of the country’s future.

Belgrade, Washington and the United Nations war crimes
court in The Hague all denied reports sweeping Serbia on
Tuesday that the former Bosnian Serb Army commander was in
custody.

On Wednesday, the Serb dailies Glas Javnosti and Blic and
the Bosnian Serb newspaper Nezavisne Novine said the
63-year-old fugitive was now at a secure location negotiating
terms of his surrender with the government.

The talks were said to be taking place at a monastery, or a
hunting lodge, or a village with an underground rocket base.

Earlier reports said Mladic was tracked down in Serbia then
taken to Bosnia, to defuse nationalist anger at home but still
salvage Belgrade’s talks with the European Union on its
membership prospects, up for review in seven days.

“The news about Ratko Mladic is not correct,” government
spokesman Srdjan Djuric said. “It is a manipulation which
damages the (Serbian) government.”

The EU decides next week on whether to continue talks with
Belgrade or freeze them as punishment for not arresting Mladic.
His handover is increasingly seen by many Serbs as a necessary
sacrifice, but others view him as a blameless soldier.

Mladic was indicted along with his political boss Radovan
Karadzic in 1995 for genocide for the 43-month siege of
Sarajevo, which claimed 12,000 lives, and for orchestrating the
1995 massacre of 8,000 unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica.

A low-key surrender in another country would be a dream
scenario for Belgrade, keen to show Mladic was not coerced but
also to cast doubt on Western charges that he was hiding in
Serbia all along, with government connivance and army help.

On Tuesday, Serbia’s state news agency Tanjug, independent
Belgrade broadcaster B92 and the main Bosnian Serb agency SRNA
all said Mladic had been arrested in Serbia, then transferred
to a U.S. base in Bosnia ready for a flight to The Hague.

The retired general lived openly in Serbia until the fall
of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and is still a
poster-boy for hardliners who say charges against him are
strictly anti-Serb propaganda.

To the West he personifies the ruthless Serb nationalism
blamed for the wars that erupted as Yugoslavia fell apart in
the 1990s, with up to 200,000 dead. To westward-looking Serbs
he is the main obstacle to reinstatement in the European
mainstream.

Serb media have debated for days whether Mladic would be in
The Hague in time to avert suspension of EU association talks,
which would deal a severe blow to the coalition government.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn is due to present a
report to EU foreign ministers next Monday or Tuesday assessing
whether Serbia is cooperating with the tribunal or stalling. He
has warned talks will be frozen if Mladic is not handed over.

“The government is aware of the consequences,” said Vladeta
Jankovic, an adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
Belgrade was approaching a decisive moment and Mladic’s
handover was “almost a condition of survival.”