Barnaby Phillips

Serbia catches the last fugitive from UN justice

There are no demonstrations on the streets of Belgrade for Goran Hadzic, the last suspect wanted by the UN Court in the Hague, who was finally captured this week.

There have been no outpourings of nationalist rage.  In part, this is because even the extremists find it hard to justify the appalling deeds of the Serbian militiamen who were, in theory, under Hadzic's command in eastern Croatia in the early 1990s.

Their savagery was notorious, their motives often blatantly mercenary.

Throughout the Balkan wars, the line between nationalist and criminal activity was frequently blurred, [and not just by Serbs] but it was perhaps especially hard to tell if the militiamen in the Slavonia region were more interested in fighting, or smuggling and profiteering.

In part, too, it is simply because the events of the early 1990s, Vukovar et al, now seem an awfully long time ago, and increasingly irrelevant, and not just to a younger generation of Serbs.

Is Mladic's trial an opportunity for Serbia?

In war, Ratko Mladic was a feared general; despised and feared by his enemies and revered by his own men.

That is how he was preserved in our memory during all those years he was in hiding; a swaggering, confident, brutal man.

But the Ratko Mladic whom we eventually got a glimpse of this week was much changed.

Impoverished and in bad health, he is a pathetic, sunken figure.

The circle of powerful friends who had protected him had gradually melted away over the years, leaving him with little logistical support outside his immediate family. That is what made his arrest possible, both in practical and political terms.

Ugly violence after Nigeria's election

I was having dinner with two Nigerian friends in Lagos, just days before the recent presidential elections. One friend comes from the north of the country, the other from the south.

"There’s an ugly truth to this election campaign, which no-one is talking about," said the northerner.

“In the south, they won’t vote for Muhammadu Buhari simply because they don’t want to give power back to the north.  That’s all there is to it. We will vote along regional lines”, she explained.

A letter from Lagos

It’s been ten years since I lived in this vast and heaving city, and much has changed.

Superficially, Lagos looks better. In some places it’s cleaner and tidier, (all those new road-signs), and greener (carefully tended trees and flowers along the embankments and roundabouts).

There are decent public buses, with designated lanes….and even working traffic-lights! All things are relative, of course, and a new comer would be overwhelmed by the congestion and notorious “go-slows”, which are as bad as ever, (and in many parts of the city, decidedly worse).

But credit where credit is due; Governor Babatunde Fashola seems to be a popular man, and many friends here believe he’s working hard to improve things.

Lagos, for most of its inhabitants, is still a stressful, exhausting city, but at least there is now a sense that some of those in charge are trying to make things better. And, sadly, that is not typical of Nigeria’s post-independence history.