Mladić arrest won't wash away the shame

Thus, in Gazeta Wyborcza, former dissident Adam Michnik believes that the arrest of Mladić “symbolically represents the end of the bloody wars of the Balkans” and that it gives Europe an important message: “the cruelty and the infamy shall not go unpunished.”

Rather than, like most other papers, publishing a picture of the “butcher of Srebrenica,” Libération puts on its front page the striking photo of a mass grave dug up in 1996 at Pilica farm, near Srebrenica, a year after the massacre. Inside, columnist Vincent Giret is cheered by the news:

On days like this, May 26, 2011, one must not despair of Europe. It was the Union – its model, its values ​​of justice and liberty, its appeal to others and the relentlessness of its diplomats – that did not rest in the pursuit of the greatest criminal in Europe since World War II.

Giret praises the “intransigence” of Brussels vis-à-vis Belgrade, insisting that there would be no discussions on accession without Serbian cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY):

It was this intransigence in the upholding of our values ​​that has paid off, together with the attraction the Union exerts and the impatience of the Serbs to join the envied circle of member states one day. Haunted by the threat of decline, Europeans tend to forget this truth that the Serbs vividly remind us of: the ‘European model’ remains the ultimate benchmark for all those who aspire to development and freedom.

A contrary view is offered by Adriano Sofri in La Repubblica, who suggests that it is this same Europe-

... that allowed the violence, the infamy and the atrocities to be carried out and that has sometimes instigated and supported them out of self-interest or cowardice. Frankly, it’s hard to describe the capture Mladić as a success for Europe: better to say it lessens the shame a little.

In Brussels, De Standaard puts itself in the shoes of Mladić’s victims, especially the widows of the thousands of men killed by Mladić’s forces. One was Haditza, whom the columnist Bart Beirlant encountered at the time:

The arrest of Mladic in Lazarevo – already rechristened the Abbottabad of Serbia – is important above all for the many Hatidzas of Srebrenica, Sarajevo and many other places in Bosnia. For them, knowing that the main culprit in the deaths of their husbands and son was still at large was unbearable.

But he also stressed that the arrest of Mladić is a -

... message to the dictators in the Middle East like Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Libyan leader Gaddafi, who think they can kill without being punished. The era of impunity is behind us.

In the Netherlands, whose peacekeepers were responsible for the security of the protected zone of Srebrenica at the time of the massacre, Mladić’s arrest carries “special significance”, as Paul Brill explains in the Volkskrant:

He commanded the troops that after the fall of Srebrenica took away and killed about 8,000 Muslims. He was the man who humiliated the completely overwhelmed Dutch contingent.

Brill recalls that:

The Netherlands have played an active role [in the international pressure], by constantly bringing up the need for better cooperation from Serbia with the ICTY and making that a condition in negotiations for Belgrade’s entry into the European Union.

Mladić should be transferred to The Hague in the coming days to face trial. According to the Prague daily Hospodářské noviny, however, it would be better if “the trial were held in Belgrade and the verdict pronounced by the Serbs” so that they “may face their own history.” As Mlada Fronta DNES stresses, “twenty years after the start of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the Serbs do not want to hear anything about fighting or guilt.”

The Serbs are drawing closer to Europe, the newspaper adds, noting that they -

... can travel in Europe without a visa, and the country is making progress on the economic front as well. However, for a dialogue about the war and their responsibilities, we must wait for future generations.