A gambler’s last throw

The UN commanders were adamant that “he was lying through his teeth”. And indeed in the journey that we took in an armoured vehicle from Sarajevo airport to the meeting we had passed scattered tanks and artillery pieces. As he started, so he continued, fabricating stories and making flamboyant statements.

Within two weeks I had a major clash with him in Banja Luka over his denial that Serb troops had bussed refugees - old people and women with children - to the Serb-Muslim border and then fired rifles and mortars at the civilians as they crossed the field.

Dr Karadzic is a gambler, who played at the tables as well as gambling with the lives of others. His bitten-down nails revealed an inner tension, masked by his apparent self-confidence. His final gamble was an attempt to continue to practise medicine in Belgrade, albeit now with a long white beard, in the knowledge that a dramatic change had taken place in the Government of Serbia with the defeat of the nationalists. Ironically, the junior partner in President Tadic’s ruling coalition in Belgrade is the Socialist Party, once led by Slobodan Milosevic...

For the first time in my involvement in the former Yugoslavia I feel a sense of hope about the Balkans. Serbia is so crucial, economically and politically, that a new momentum for peace and reconciliation could now be established and the nationalist element in Serbian politics, while never to be underrated, should fade in significance and power.

Excerpted from a comment by David Owen in ‘The Times’.