cross live now to john laughlin to the interests of the institute of democracy corp there live from paris there are thank you for joining us now for almost a decade former serbian leaders have enjoyed safe haven in serbia why are we witnessing so many arrests now do you think i have to say it's very difficult to know exactly why the same mystery really surrounds the arrest of. the former commander of the bosnian serb army which is you know a. few weeks ago after he'd been on the run for a decade and a half it's not clear at all what events have led to these sudden the arrests what is clear is as you said in your questions that serbia the republic of serbia wants these men handed over in order to remove obstacles to joining the european union that's absolutely clear the government in belgrade has been determined to do this for a long time and for whatever reason it is now come up with two notable successes successes at least in its own terms well now that he has been arrested will we see serbia joining the e.u. soon do you think. oh not soon know i mean. e.u. membership takes a very long t

a marathon don't you see paris right now or to discuss this story further we're joined live by john laughlin the director of the interview from ocracy and cooperation in paris thanks for joining us today so opponents accused nicolas sarkozy of trying to score political points by indulging in imperial politics as the operation seems to have become a stalemate do you think he's still happy with the role that france is playing. no i expect those very great concern in the elysee palace as there is quite clearly across the whole political class the fact is that france and britain and america went into this libyan adventure with exactly the same intention as they started the attack on yugoslavia in one thousand nine hundred nine on both occasions they thought it would be a short campaign which would bring a dictator quick quickly to his knees well that's proved to be very wrong we're now in the second week of july the campaign has been going on since march and we can see tensions are rising we can see that ministers are speaking out of turn and as you said in your report we can see that other memb

membership beds john laughlin director of the institute of democracy and cooperation and friends says serbia strategy for improving its image is misguided its. i've never been a supporter of this. policy towards the hague tribunal or indeed towards the european union in general it's my view that i've expressed many times that the hague tribunal is a politically rigged court whose trials are a disgrace to the principles of due process and i moreover think that the prosecutions that have been brought against serbian. indictees are qualitatively different and more aggressive than those that have been brought against other nationalities including against croats you don't improve your image by effectively admitting as the present government in belgrade has done that serbia's role in the breakup of yugoslavia was qualitatively worse than that of the other states. go with r.t. and still ahead this hour georges which home for alleged spies is paid to talk of the challenge for the f.b.i. people guilty local journalists say the suspects were forced to confess to send a clear message the rest of

falls short of authorizing ground invasion and arms supplies but paris based political analyst john laughlin says three countries have hijacked the mandate. the admission that france is arming the rebels is very obviously an admission that what's going on in libya is a fight between the government and armed rebels and armed rebels are not civilians so any attack by the government on armed rebels in libya is therefore not necessarily a war crime in other words this news is not only incompatible with the case that's being made for war in libya it completely contradict it there is no doubt that the three countries britain france and america who are waging this war under the disguise of nato of course wish to see the rebels seize power by force and overthrow gadhafi we must be careful about using the word nato this war is being fought by britain france and america they use nato is their figley but nato itself is of course much bigger and there is not unanimity in nato only a few days ago the italian foreign minister said that there should be a ceasefire in order to allow humanitarian aid through

john laughlin's director of the institute for democracy and cooperation in paris he says france now realize it realizes it has to find a way to save face in libya here we see a european union which very obviously cannot manage its own affairs which is falling apart at the seams whose founding member states and the members of whose single currency cannot afford to pay their own debts setting off on a military escapade which seems doomed to failure and which is going to cost them and has already cost them a huge amount of money it's absolutely ridiculous but n n o in a perverse way that's what makes their determination only the more dog get to continue just as their determination to shore up the euro the euro is completely doget they have invested infinite amounts of political capital in these ventures in nato and in the european union and if they fail then these men's careers and reputation are completely on the line and that's why they're determined to find some way out of this mess. nato is lying when it says it's a made libya is to protect civilians says independent journalist mess sand y