Radovan Karadzic: one-way ticket to The Hague

Karadzic's capture occurred at a very strange time, just a few days before the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz was due to visit Serbia, just a few weeks after the formation of the new Serbian Government, and a few months after the government signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) treaty with the European Union. This arrest also came just after Milosevic's top party member and now president of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs.

The strangest thing is that the new government was formed between pro-European/democratic parties led by the Democratic Party (Demokratska Stranka - DS) which was a party of former (assassinated) Prime Minister of Serbia, Dr Zoran Djindjic, now succeeded by the current President of Serbia Boris Tadic, and the Socialist Party of Serbia (Socijalisticka Partija Srbije - SPS) which was the party of former President of Serbia and Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, now succeeded by Ivica Dacic.

As a reminder: democratic/pro-European parties came to power in the so-called October 5th Revolution in 2000, when they striped Milosevic and his regime of power and replace him with new President of Yugoslavia, Dr Vojislav Kostunica, and established the first democratic government. Now, after eight years of scandals and prosecutions of Slobodan Milosevic, his party and close associates, the Democratic Party has formed a coalition government with Socialist Party of Serbia.

According to the latest development there are some pertinent questions that should be asked - these include:

1. Given that Karadzic's arrest took place after Vojislav Kostunica ceased to be in power, was Kostunica protecting him all along?
2. Did the Democratic Party decide that it was time to give Karadzic up since they had formed a new coalition government with the Socialist Party of Serbia, or was it an attempt to divert attention and prove that they are a pro-European government, no matter who is in coalition with them?
3. Did the Socialist Party of Serbia know the whereabouts of Karadzic, and use that information to arrest him in order to bring their party closer to the West, and maybe get some support from them in the next elections?
4. Was some other government, organisation or institution protecting and financing Karadzic all this time before deciding that is was time to give him up?
5. Did somebody collect the $5 million reward?

No matter if we get the answers to these questions or not, the international community will never allow Karadzic to walk free again. After all these years, Karadzic received a one-way ticket to the UN Tribunal.