The Kosovo conflict marked the end of the 20th century in Europe, and it also provided the framework for the current situation in southern Europe, in which most of the leaders of the parties to the conflict did not escape their tragic fate.
Among them, Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, has all but disappeared from public view since leaving the presidency in 1996.
U.S. officials even joked that tracking Karadzic was more difficult than hunting down bin Laden, for which the U.S. government offered a million-dollar bounty.
Pursued by the US-led NATO countries, Karadzic miraculously fled for 13 years, only to finally fall into the hands of an international tribunal in 2008.
So, what has happened to this globally wanted criminal during his long 13-year career on the run? What happened to him when he was arrested? Let's talk about it today.
Create a party and become president
A person's career development is inseparable from personal cognition, and the seeds of extreme racism planted in Karadzic's heart came from the environmental influence of his childhood.
Karadzic's father, a yeoman farmer with his own land, was a petty-bourgeois member, and later chose to join the anti-German group known as the Chetnik, the Yugoslav Fatherland Army.
The group, which is composed mainly of Serbs, has strong racist and chauvinistic overtones, and during the Second World War, the Yugoslav Fatherland Army joined forces with Nazi forces.
As World War II drew to a close, the communist guerrillas led by Tito grew in strength, and the Motherland Army was reduced from "brave men" to "war criminals".
Karadzic's family, as supporters of the Yugoslav Fatherland Army, was naturally not spared, and the whole family was thrown into prison.
Growing up in prison, Karadzic did not change his political beliefs, but rather entrenched his Serb nationalist ideology.
Karadzic had always had a dream of becoming a doctor, and in 1960 he entered the medical school of the University of Sarajevo, and in 1975 he set foot on the soil of Columbia University in the United States to continue his pursuit of advanced knowledge.
After returning to China after completing his studies, he devoted himself to the field of psychiatry, but this life path did not last long. In 1985, when the situation in Eastern Europe changed, Karadzic had to let go of his childhood dream of being a doctor and plunge into the turbulent political arena.
At the end of 1990, he founded a party called "Serbian Democracy" in Sarajevo and assumed the responsibility of party leadership, setting goals with his comrades:
Help Bosnia and Herzegovina to break away from the Yugoslav Federation and integrate into the arms of the Republic of Serbia together with the Serbs in Croatia.
With the smoke of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the strife in the former Yugoslavia, Karadzic rose rapidly in the troubled times. Just two years later, in 1992, he became President of the Republic of Serbia in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During his tenure, Karadzic demonstrated not only exceptional leadership, but also political acumen that nearly brought the Balkans back together.
At this time, it is necessary to understand the international situation at that time, some people in Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to move closer to the West, and the purpose of the Republika Srpska was to bring Bosnia and Herzegovina back into the arms of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which could also be said to be under the administration of the Republic of Serbia.
As a leader with nationalist sentiments, Karadzic's governing philosophy naturally blended with strong nationalist overtones, wanting to unify the Balkans "with strength".
Although this kind of nationalism strengthens the cohesion within the nation, it will inevitably intensify the contradictions with other ethnic groups, and the result is to arouse strong resentment among the Croats and Muslims.
NATO, as a military organization, naturally did not want a socialist alliance to emerge again in Europe, and during the turbulent years of 1992-1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina was drawn into a bloody war due to the intensification of national contradictions.
The fundamental reason for this war was the strong desire of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina to gain independence from Yugoslavia, but Karadzic simply refused, and NATO fanned the flames to promote the secession of the "republic".
Bosnia-Herzegovina war, 13 years on the run
As the war broke out, chaos quickly swept through every corner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with clashes between government forces, Serb forces, Croat militias, and other ethnic armies throughout the country.
War is not just a contest between armies, but is accompanied by heinous acts of ethnic cleansing, including mass killings, rape, arrests and deportations of innocent people, and countless civilians have been unjustly subjected.
It is outrageous that many people did not die in battle, but fell victim to premeditated attacks and massacres. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has killed 278,000 people, forced more than 2 million people to leave their homes, and caused direct economic losses of up to $100 billion.
It is undoubtedly a devastating blow to this country, which has a weak economic foundation.
In August 1993, under the mediation of the international community, the leaders of the three parties to the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina finally sat down at the negotiating table in Geneva again and resumed dialogue and negotiations on the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After lengthy negotiations, under the influence of the United States, Britain, France, and other countries, the Serbs gradually lost their military superiority and had to accept the Bosnian peace talks led by the United States with the participation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
On 21 November 1995, in the presence of the United States, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia signed the Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the "Dayton Accords".
According to the agreement, Bosnia became a unified sovereign state, with the Muslim and Croatian federation occupying 51% of the land, while the Serbs retained 49%, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina finally came to an end.
At this time, Karadzic stood in the dock of the ICTY on charges of ordering his men to kill more than 9,000 Muslim civilians and deport millions of Muslims and Croatian civilians.
It is not difficult to guess if such a situation arises, after all, NATO will not allow such a person to exist, especially if this person is still contrary to their philosophy.
In 1996, in the face of intense pressure, Radovan Karadzic announced his resignation from the presidency in public, and his deputy took over his job.
In the days that followed, Karadzic seemed to evaporate from the world, suddenly disappeared from public view, and became a figure that aroused widespread attention and curiosity.
Although he is hiding in the shadows, the pace of the police pursuit has not slowed down, but has become more tense, and a lot of manpower and material resources have been invested in the determination to bring the fugitive to justice.
NATO special forces are working hard through the rugged mountains of eastern and southern Bosnia, using a variety of listening devices and issuing bounty announcements in the hope of capturing clues to their targets through a sea of information.
When Karadzic disappeared like a stone into the sea, the Hague Tribunal quickly issued an international arrest warrant, and the United States generously offered a $5 million reward to motivate those who could provide Karadzic's whereabouts.
In 2004, NATO intelligence picked up a seemingly credible clue that the wounded Karadzic was secretly returning to his hometown of Palai, intending to heal there while spending time with his family.
After learning this information, NATO quickly deployed a large number of troops to Palai, blocked all the surrounding passages, and launched a large-scale search and arrest operation against Karadzic.
Arrested and imprisoned for life
As with much of the previous intelligence, the operation revealed no trace of Karadzic himself, except for the arrest of a so-called "supporter" at Karadzic's home.
In fact, Karadzic did not hide too deeply, but lived under people's noses, and it is reported that he has been living in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, just by growing a beard, wearing glasses, and changing his appearance to blend in with the crowd.
In a clinic in the new district of Belgrade, he leads an uneventful life, taking the bus to work every day, and is diligent and humble, which is deeply loved by colleagues and patients.
In his spare time, Karadzic even openly attended medical lectures, and hundreds of listeners lectured on medical knowledge, but no one recognized him as the wanted "Radovan Karadzic".
During this time, he also indulged in poetry and fiction, and published a full-length romance novel, The Legend of the Night God, which tells the story of his love affair with his wife and depicts the true face of Bosnian society in the seventies and eighties of the last century.
The novel quickly became a bestseller, topping the best-selling charts in Serbia, and NATO, of course, knew it was Karadzic's book, but it just couldn't find him personally.
In 2008, the situation took a turn when the fugitive, who had been at large for 13 years, was finally arrested and extradited to the International Tribunal in The Hague, where he was finally locked up in Scheveningen Prison, just a stone's throw from The Hague.
So, how did Karadzic come to light after years of hiding?
It is rumored that two months before his arrest, an unidentified man called the Serbian security intelligence service and revealed that a doctor's voice was strikingly similar to that of Karadzic on the wanted notice, hoping that the intelligence services would verify the matter.
From the mysterious "anonymous phone call" to Karadzic's arrest, no one came forward to claim the $5 million prize offered by the United States.
On 31 July 2008, two years after President Slobodan Milosevic's death in prison in The Hague, Karadzic was also brought to the International Tribunal in The Hague as a former Serbian leader.
The tribunal, which is widely believed to be the product of European and American interests under the influence of the United States, seems to have been doomed by the fact that Karadzic was sent here for trial.
Karadzic, who was well aware of this, decided to follow Milosevic's example in the subsequent trial and personally defend himself.
On March 24, 2016, the Hague Tribunal convicted Karadzic of 11 war crimes charges and sentenced him to 40 years behind bars.
Karadzic was so unfairly impressed by the previous ruling that he decided to appeal to the International Criminal Court in 2018.
On 20 March 2019, the International Mechanism for the Settlement of Remaining Matters of the United Nations Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, held a new trial against Karadzic, which upheld his original sentence of life imprisonment.
The name Karadzic has always caused countless controversies and discussions, and he is an undoubted "hero" in the hearts of the Serbs;
In the eyes of the West, however, he is seen as a "warmonger" who promotes the war, accusing him of committing countless killings.
Because of this, the Serbs called him "the best politician in Serbia" and "the hero who played the European and American powers in the palm of his hand", and has become a legendary figure in Serbian history.
What do you think differently about this?