The circus surrounding the hunt for Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader responsible for thousands of deaths during the 1990s, put on another performance yesterday. Under orders from their ringmasters, the Hague Tribunal, Italian clowns from EUFOR visited Pale, Karadzic’s stronghold of support just outside Sarajevo and raided the houses of Karadzic’s wife, daughter and neighbour.

Originally these manifestations of European intent were greeted with anticipation and good will. We all looked on and thought that it did not matter if Karadzic had got away on that particular occasion because it was only a matter of time before his luck would run out. We kept thinking that, and kept thinking it some more, but now it seems that our good will towards the European mission in Bosnia is running thin. For how much longer can the combined efforts Europe’s grandest states, complete with their far reaching intelligence networks, be thwarted by a handful of Balkan bandits?

This suggests two possible excuses for the failure to capture Karadzic, and also Ratko Mladic too. Either EUFOR are not up to the job and can not compete with the tight family ties that hide Karadzic or, as is more likely, they have not devoted enough time or effort to it. Having been on the ground since the end of 1995, it is not surprising that after twelve and a half years people’s patience is running out.

There have been reports that both Karadzic and Mladic have been spotted in Serbia. Given the current climate of mutual disrespect held between Belgrade and European institutions it is unlikely that there will be any symbolic handover if Serbian authorities are protecting the fugitives. As is too often the case, it will be the victims of atrocities who are denied justice because of political temper-tantrums that do not even concern them.

BBC report on Pale raid
RTV Pink local report
Finding Karadzic blog
Official EUFOR website