Demagogue

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is coming under pressure to wrap up its work and close down. This has created a half-empty/half-full feeling for human rights activists who want to see international prosecutions become a serious deterrent to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The tribunal has convicted a fair number of people, but the two leading Bosnian Serb defendants, Gen. Ratko Mladic and former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, haven't been arrested. It has long been suspected that Mladic is in Serbia proper and is being shielded by the Serbian government, which at least nominally is helping to arrest indicted individuals in its territory.

Now a Serbian newspaper reports that Mladic has been found and is about to be arrested. Along with Slobodan Milosevic, whose seemingly endless trial is still ongoing, this would put two of the three biggest fish in the tribunal's net.