Akcija planiranja

According to the indictment issued by prosecutors against some of the (less highly placed) people who aided in harboring the fugitive Ratko Mladić, he shifted hiding places several times between 2002 and the end of 2005, but was hanging out principally in a series of rented apartments in Novi Beograd. This was, naturally, entirely unknown to DB, the police, landlords, neighbours, and to the mother of one of the conspirators who was dragged over to cook for the genocide indictee, who no doubt had quite an appetite.

All this should change utterly now that the government has adopted something called an "Action Plan." Nobody seems to know quite what this is, but the most vocal members of the government appear to be quite happy about it. Apparently it amounts to an effort to reproduce the success that the Croatian government had not too long ago in overcoming political barriers to continuing negotiations with the EU without actually arresting Ante Gotovina. Except that there are a couple of key differences. One is that eventually, Gotovina was in fact arrested: there was a shift from "action plans" to action. By contrast, responsible figures like interior minister Dragan Jočić continue to deny that planning to engage in action involves any obligation to act at all. Another is that, at least according to some reports, one of the preconditions for "action" is restructuring the state security services, which provided the base for Mladić's power at one point, and which (despite the existence any indictments of people with no rank or official position) facilitated his flitting about thereafter. People who have tried to touch these structures of power since the regime that operated through them appeared to have left power in 2000 have found themselves the targets of aggression and violence.

But not to worry: anybody who stands in the way will have to face prosecution by the special prosecutors for organised crime. Except there will be a couple of difficulties here, as the court to which this prosecution office brings cases is about to be abolished, and the prosecutor seems to be getting rid of prosecutors who actually want to bring cases at impressive speed.

Update: Politika continues its series. How did Mladić come to be under the protection of the real estate traders of Novi Beograd? Delivered by an agent of the military security service in 2002, apparently. Politika's journalist Milorad Vesić stops just short of saying that the agent in question, who is not charged in the indictment, is Radomir Ćosić.