Editorial: Hanging, or a hung jury

Posted

Issue of July 25, 2008

It's not too often that the world gets a chance to make an example of a really bad guy, but an excellent opportunity has just popped up and it would be nice to see that it doesn't get botched, for a change.

Younger readers aren't likely to ever have heard of Radovan Karadzic; others may remember him as a central figure in the events that gifted the world with the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” or what the London Telegraph Tuesday called “the worst acts of brutality Europe has seen since the Nazi campaigns of the Second World War.”

As the leader of Bosnian Serbs in the early to mid-90s Karadzic orchestrated an all-out effort to rid the Balkans of Muslims and Croats -- through a 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in which some 10,000 civilians were killed; the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995; as well as an organized campaign of brutal rapes intended to terrorize and chase out the Muslim and Croat populations. He disappeared in '96 and has been among the world's most wanted fugitives ever since.

Karadzic was arrested late Monday by Serb forces. He was disguised with a flowing white beard and had been earning money by posing as a doctor of alternative medicine.

He is likely to be remanded to the United Nations war crimes tribunal for trial which, frankly, doesn't inspire much confidence. Too many dictators and other assorted evildoers have escaped serious punishment over the years. Karadzic should not be allowed to join that infamous pantheon.

Rather, he should follow the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein to the gallows. After a fair trial, of course.