By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 4, 2006

ROME, May 3 -- The European Union suspended membership talks with Serbia after a deadline passed Wednesday for the arrest of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic.

The deadline was the latest of several set by the E.U. and the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Mladic's capture. Serbia's failure to apprehend him has become the main obstacle to the eventual integration of Serbia into the E.U., despite progress in meeting economic parameters for membership.

Mladic commanded Serb troops during the single most notorious atrocity of the Bosnian war: the July 1995 killing of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys captured in the east Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Video footage at the time showed Mladic promising the captives that they would not be hurt and then arranging their transportation. They were executed in remote regions throughout eastern Bosnia and buried in mass graves.

Serbian officials have acknowledged that Mladic has received help in avoiding arrest from army and intelligence officials. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica appealed Wednesday to Mladic's sense of patriotism to end the chase and surrender to the U.N. court, which is based in The Hague.

"It would be best for everyone for Ratko Mladic to follow the example of other officers and go to The Hague. Never in our history has the entire state and nation been made to suffer because of one officer," Kostunica said. "By hiding, Ratko Mladic is inflicting enormous damage to our state and national interests."

Kostunica said that his government has "done absolutely everything in its power" to capture Mladic and round up his accomplices. "His entire network has been uncovered. Mladic is now hiding all alone," Kostunica said in a statement issued in Belgrade, the Serbian capital.

While Kostunica criticized Mladic, the chief negotiator with the E.U., Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus, blamed the government and resigned. "Our government betrayed the most important interest of the country and citizens of Serbia," Labus wrote in his resignation letter.

Speaking to reporters, Labus said Serbian security services were not trying to find Mladic. "They searched for Mladic everywhere except where he was hiding," Labus said.

Cabinet minister Velimir Ilic seconded the criticism. "We arrested several of his aides and bodyguards and discovered several of his hiding places. But he wasn't there," he said. "Certain services shouldn't have allowed that to happen."

Olli Rehn, the E.U. commissioner in charge of the bloc's enlargement, said that talks with Serbia can only resume "if there is dramatic improvement in cooperation" with the U.N. tribunal.

The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said Serbia risks economic sanctions, pending possible discussion of the issue by the U.N. Security Council. "I was misled when I was told at the end of March that the arrest of Mladic was a matter of days or weeks," she said. She called Serbia's pursuit of Mladic "unprofessional."

Another top Serb war crimes fugitive, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader during the war, also remains at large. Foreign diplomats in the Balkans say he moves between Montenegro and an autonomous Serb region of Bosnia. Montenegro is the sister republic of Serbia in the country Serbia and Montenegro, a loose federation.

E.U. membership discussions are working toward the induction of Serbia and Montenegro as a national unit. However, voting in a May 21 referendum in Montenegro could lead to a complete break with Serbia and the birth of Montenegro as a fully sovereign state.