A "Difficult" Situation

Radio Free Europe notes that after the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, Russia called for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to cease its activities. An Academy of Sciences representative, Artyem Ulunyan, is interviewed on his view of the matter:

RFE/RL: What's the reasoning behind Russia calling for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to cease its activities?

Artyem Ulunyan: Russia doesn't want it to be possible for former high officials to be tried in foreign or international courts that are not under Russian control.

RFE/RL: But isn't the ICTY only concerned with crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia?

Ulunyan: What we seem to be talking about here is a precedent for the tribunal to be used by organizations not under its control. Russia most likely sees this as dangerous.

RFE/RL: What will Russia's position be regarding the trial of Radovan Karadzic?

Ulunyan: I think this will be multifaceted. On the official level, there won't be any actions or announcements. But at the semiofficial level, Russia's dissatisfaction will be made clear. Pro-Kremlin youth organizations will be mobilized. Sections of the public will be fed propaganda arguing that Karadzic himself was not right, but his ideas were.

Read the whole thing here.

Karadzic arrested

Radovan Karadzic has been arrested in Serbia.

Via BBC:

Richard Holbrooke, the US diplomat who brokered the Dayton Peace Accord for Bosnia in 1995, told the BBC that "a major, major thug has been removed from the public scene".

"One of the worst men in the world, the Osama Bin Laden of Europe, has finally been captured," Mr Holbrooke told BBC World News America.

Srebrenica

Thirteen years on, Srebrenica relatives bury their dead.

Meanwhile, Russia says the Hague War Crimes Tribunal should be phased out.

Cross of Shame

A Serb group plans to build a huge, illuminated cross on a hill from which Serb artillery shelled Sarajevo during the 1992-96 Bosnia war, AP reports:

On Wednesday, the Sarajevo Association of War Victims criticized the plan to build the cross, calling it shameful to build the memorial in a location from which the Serb artillery pounded the city, killing thousands of people. The association issued a statement calling the planned monument a "provocation for the citizens of Sarajevo."

"It is an illegal, immoral and shameful act, especially because it will be erected in memory of Serb soldiers who kept the city under siege, committing crimes for which their commanders have received long prison sentences at The Hague Tribunal," the group said.

The association said it will urge Bosnia's international administrator, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, to bar the cross on the ground that it could threaten the country's peace.

Sarajevo's mayor, Semiha Borovac, said the monument would enrage people in Sarajevo.

"This is not contributing to reconciliation. It is not in the tradition of Sarajevo to build such monuments. We build churches. ... But this I cannot support," she said in an interview.