Stunned and happy, Sarajevo awaits Karadzic trial

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Many people in Sarajevo expressed joy and surprise on Tuesday at the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, hailing it as a chance to get the truth about what happened during the 1992-95 war.

Many interviewed on Tuesday said they believed the former Bosnian Serb leader blamed for suffering and killings during the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital had been allowed to escape justice. He had been in hiding for 11 years.

"Is this possible?" asked Minka, a pensioner, hurrying to the market on a rainy day.

"I simply cannot believe it," said Minka, a Muslim trapped in the Serb-occupied Grbavica neighborhood during the siege.

Karadzic, who wanted the Serb areas of Bosnia to be linked to a greater Serbia, was indicted for genocide by the U.N. war crimes tribunal with his military commander Ratko Mladic over the siege of Sarajevo when some 11,000 people were killed.

He was also indicted over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Serbian officials said he was arrested on Monday evening while moving from one Belgrade suburb to another.

Hundreds poured onto the streets of Sarajevo when news of the arrest first broke. But many said they were disillusioned with the West for its failure to arrest him for years.

"They could have arrested him any time they wanted," said a man who identified himself as Mevludin.

"Whatever lies behind his arrest is now unimportant," said Monja Matovic, 24. "The arrest itself is significant for all of us who have been through the war and suffering."

The U.S.-brokered Dayton peace agreement ended the war without a clear winner, dividing the country into two ethnic-based halves -- the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic, which have co-existed in an uneasy alliance since.

Mladic is at large and believed to be hiding in Serbia.

Most Bosnian Muslim politicians said it should be used as an opportunity to get rid of his legacy.

"Karadzic and Mladic are not that important," said the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Zlatko Lagumdzija, a member of Bosnia's wartime presidency who was badly wounded in the war. "What is important is the project they personify."

The Bosnian Serbs have said they would secede if their republic's survival is threatened.