RECENT DEVELOPMENTS in Serbia are a reminder of the deep currents that flow beneath the surface in parts of the Balkans. The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, erstwhile political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, on charges of war crimes and genocide and his extradition to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has provoked a furious reaction among extreme Serbian nationalists.
This is to be expected and should not deter the new and relatively moderate government in Belgrade from pursuing its obligations and fashioning for itself a mature and proper relationship with the European Union. It is to be hoped that Karadzic's wartime army leader, Ratko Mladic, will also be detained and face similar charges.
It is in the interests of Europe generally, and the EU in particular, that the poisonous and deeply destructive mindsets that lay behind the horrific wars in the Balkans in the 1990s - revisited in recent days in a series of reports by Peter Murtagh in this newspaper and on irishtimes.com - are not allowed to re-emerge. More than this, it is in the interests of the various nationalities and ethnic groups in the Balkans that they become more tolerant of each other and develop relationships and structures that allow each feel secure in their environment and culture. The rest of the world cannot force people to change but it can engage and encourage. However, progress in parts of the Balkans will take decades.
Ireland's modest but not insignificant contribution to helping secure peace in the Balkans passed another milestone on Thursday. In Kosovo, Brig Gen Gerry Hegarty transferred command of a large sector of the Nato-led military mission there to his Finnish counterpart. Brig Gen Hegarty's year in charge, a first for an Irish Army officer, has been a success and he deserves congratulations. Irish and other troops in Kosovo are doing critically important work. Their visible presence brings a sense of security to mutually distrustful ethnic Serbs and Albanians. Soldiers and non -commissioned officers have established community and village based relationships with ordinary people. This is helping to keep the peace and may, over time, encourage people to see a different future for themselves. In Bosnia, Defence Forces members of the EUfor military mission and gardaí serving with the EU Police Mission there are doing similarly important work.
It is wrong that the military side of this work is occasionally viewed in Ireland through a distorting and insular prism. Military neutrality does not mean we must always refuse to allow our Defence Forces play, within an EU framework, a constructive role in helping other people in times of trauma and great difficulty. The work being done in the Balkans by Irish men and women is something of which the Irish people may be proud. But a lasting solution, in Kosovo in particular, will depend on the emergence there of a government and civil service whose workings are rooted in respect for shared European values of democracy and human rights. In this regard, EULEX, the EU programme of police and judicial reform in Kosovo, needs to move forward and EU leaders must redouble their efforts.