War criminals: What are they good for?

Mr Župljanin has had a tough decade of it, if anyone is to judge by his lament. He says "we have never had any support in Serbia from the democratic authorities," if you can imagine that. And as for the democratic authorities? They couldn't liquidate him, they couldn't arrest him, they couldn't get past their amusement at Mr Lovre's personal ads, they just couldn't do much. Where would we be without Mr Župljanin, without his "enormous suffering and superhuman efforts," and without his self-pity? In a much less bemused world, that's where.

1 down, 3 to go

With the arrest of Stojan Župljanin announced today, that leaves three more people indicted for war crimes on the list to be arrested: Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić, and Goran Hadžić. That will take care of one of the principal conditions for ratification of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the EU and Serbia. If the country succeeded in improving its wine and becoming a global tennis superpower, surely it can make that extra step. Samo napred!

Notes on prosecution

We finally saw the fine old Orson Welles film The Stranger. A war crimes prosecutor (played with a lot of enunciation by the great Edward G Robinson) inexplicably releases a major suspect (played by somebody who resembles Janez Drnovšek) without trial. The suspect leads him to a small town where the principal suspect (played with arrogant menace by the great Orson Welles) is hiding in plain sight, teaching history. The failure of witness protection is made painfully apparent in several instances, and Edward G Robinson has only a friendly high school student to help him reach the truth and apprehend the suspect. Everybody in town is unfamiliar with the purpose of prosecution and with criminal procedure. When the truth comes out, the suspect lays claim to a transcendent rationale, after which he is permitted to die without trial. The greatest menace is represented by the functioning of devices to measure time, to which everybody objects.

Prescient little film, that.