UN Wants Serbia, Kenya to Help Capture Suspects of Massacres

January 2010 National Scene Magazine International Article

When Will These Fugitives Finally be Caught?

UN Scolds Serbia and Kenya For Not Helping Capture Suspects of Massacres from the 1990s


Written by: Karen Benardello


The twenty countries who participated in the United Nations (UN) war crimes tribunals on December 3 scolded both Serbia and Kenya for not assisting officials in the capture of suspects of massacres from the 1990s.

Top UN officers demanded Serbia’s helping in arresting the two remaining fugitives accused of atrocities in the Balkan conflicts. One is Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb military chief in Bosnia and Herzegovina who faces numerous charges, including genocide, murder, deportation, taking of hostages and inflicting terror on civilians. He is also remembered for the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 in one of the most infamous events of the Balkan wars.

The other fugitive is Serb politician Goran Hadžic. He is charged with murder, persecutions, torture, cruel treatment and crimes against humanity, in connection with his role as president of a self-proclaimed breakaway state of rebel Serbs in southern Croatia.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Prosecutor Serge Brammertz told the Security Council that apprehending both Mladic and Hadžic is one of his highest priorties. He added that there has been some progress in Serbia’s assistance in providing more effective access to documents.

Judge Patrick Robinson, who is the President of the ICTY, showed his disdain of the two fugitives staying on the run by urging the Security Council “…to seek ways to facilitate their immediate arrest. If these two men are not brought to justice, it will tarnish the Security Council’s historic contribution to peace-building in the former Yugoslavia.”

Eleven fugitives who are still on the run in connection with the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by extremist Hutus in Rwanda worried the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). While the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda were praised for their recent transfer of two alleged ringleaders, Grégoire Ndahimana and Idelphonse Nizeyimana respectively, ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow reported “no progress in the matter of cooperation” from Kenya in the case of Félicien Kabuga. “Repeated requests to the Government of Kenya for details of Kabuga’s reported departure from that country have gone unanswered for the past 12 months. This situation should not be allowed to continue,” he said.

Jallow was correct in also saying that Kenya should legally be required, under its obligations with the UN Charter and international law, to fully collaborate with the ICTR. Kabuga, as well as the other ten fugitives, need to be apprehended and charged for their crimes. The only way to capture them after 15 years is to increase tracking efforts, as Jallow suggested, and offer immunity to those who help lead authorities to the fugitives’ whereabouts.