U.S. Hails Serbia’s Arrest of Ratko Mladić

26 May 2011

Serbia’s arrest of Ratko Mladić shows that those who commit crimes against humanity and genocide will not escape judgment, say President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Obama applauded Serbian President Boris Tadić and his government in a May 26 statement for their “determined efforts to ensure that Mladić was found and that he faces justice.”

Mladić, a former Bosnian Serb army commander, has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague for war crimes, including allegedly ordering the execution of 8,000 unarmed men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

“While we will never be able to bring back those who were murdered, Mladić will now have to answer to his victims, and the world, in a court of law,” Obama said. “We look forward to his expeditious transfer to The Hague.”

The president said that justice for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is “both a moral imperative and an essential element of stability and peace.”

Secretary Clinton praised the news of Mladić’s arrest as “a great day for justice in the international system.”

“Mladić’s arrest serves as a statement to those around the world who would break the law and target innocent civilians: international justice works. If you commit a crime, you will not escape judgment, you will not go free,” she said in a May 26 statement.

She added her hope that Serbia’s arrest of Mladić will help the country move on, allow it to gain admission into the European Union and “enable Serbia to build a brighter future as part of a whole, free and peaceful Europe.”

Ambassador Rice said she hopes that Mladić soon will receive “a full reckoning” for his crimes, and that his arrest can support reconciliation efforts in the Balkans.

“The evidence of Mladić’s deliberate cruelty and appalling disrespect for the rules of war and basic standards of decency is overpowering, and we hope he will swiftly receive justice,” Rice said in a May 26 statement, adding that the United States also hopes to see Goran Hadžić join Mladić and former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić in The Hague. Hadžić is alleged to have been involved in the forcible removal and murder of thousands of Croatians between 1991 and 1993.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters May 26 that Serbia’s arrest of Mladić shows its “seriousness about European integration.”

“In a sense it’s the turning of a page” for Serbia, which long has been “dealing with the terrible scourge of its past,” Toner said.