Saturday April 11, 1998
U.S. Predicts Eventual Arrest of Karadzic, Other Bosnia Suspects
* Balkans: Pentagon's policy of restraint in apprehending accused war
criminals is now praised.
By NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Proclaiming victory for the Pentagon's once-scorned approach to
accused war criminals in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Clinton administration officials
said Friday that the eventual arrest of all suspects, including Radovan
Karadzic, now seems certain.
Even officials at the State Department who had urged the Pentagon to
move much more quickly against all accused war criminals now concede that
the military's approach has been proven correct.
Karadzic, the wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, has lost
almost all of his power in the last year and has dropped from sight.
This week, rumors circulated in Europe that he was trying to negotiate
terms for surrender to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
"This could be very good news," an administration official said
referring to the rumors, which he said Washington cannot confirm. "But,
if not, it's only a matter of time."
Another administration official cautioned that it may take time to
spring the trap on Karadzic. But he said the former Bosnian Serb
president has virtually no chance of regaining his power.
After the 1995 Dayton, Ohio, conference that ended Bosnia's bloody
ethnic war, many analysts, including top State Department officials,
argued that the peace process would collapse if Karadzic and others
indicted for war crimes remained at large.
But the Pentagon, and other NATO military commands, insisted that the
first priority was to separate the warring factions and seize their heavy
weapons, with any attempt to apprehend war criminals coming much later.
"It was a real hot debate," a State Department official said. "There
were some who said you have to cut the head off the snake" and go after
war criminals immediately.
"I was one of them," the official said. "But the military's analysis
was that this would have been risky, would have involved the loss of
[U.S. and allied] soldiers and would have made things worse. This turned
out to be right, so I have to swallow a rather big pill."
As would be fitting for a policy that stressed gradualism, the
successes in the campaign to push to the margins and capture accused war
criminals have been incremental, and, at times, almost imperceptible. But
in contrast to the situation in November 1995, when the Dayton accords
were concluded, there has been progress.
In the first 20 months after Dayton, forces of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization did not arrest a single indicted war criminal,
although Karadzic taunted peacekeeping forces with regular public
appearances and flouted provisions of the peace accords intended to bar him
from politics.
The Pentagon's caution was regularly derided as a free pass given to
the perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities in Europe in half a century.
But in the last eight months, the situation has changed: 30 suspects
have been arrested or surrendered voluntarily, a number approaching half
of the 77 people who have been indicted by the tribunal.
Karadzic lost his hold on television broadcasting in the Bosnian Serb
entity, and a parliamentary election--held under intense pressure from
the United States and its allies--installed a government led by his
political foes.
U.S. officials say Karadzic is probably still in Pale, the former ski
resort near Sarajevo that was his wartime capital.
But, a Pentagon official said, he has stopped using the telephone and
other electronic means of communication and now communicates only by mail.
In the months immediately after the Dayton accords, NATO officials
warned that arresting Karadzic, Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic or other
high-profile war criminals would have touched off a new round of
violence, probably aimed at international peacekeeping troops. No one
believes that any longer because support for Karadzic has dissipated.
A State Department official said the NATO forces have established an
unexpected level of credibility with all sides to the complex conflict by
demonstrating an evenhanded approach.
If international troops had moved at once against war criminals, they
would have appeared to be anti-Serb because by far the largest number of
indictments were issued against Serbs, the official said. But now, the
peacekeepers and the tribunal have gained a reputation for impartiality.
Accused criminals from all three factions have surrendered or been apprehended.
"The war crimes tribunal has proved itself to be fair and just," the
official said. "Three people were released for lack of evidence. There is
one person who is out on bail. The word is spreading that you can get a
fair trial there."
When two Bosnian Serb suspects were picked up this month, Bosnian Serb
police witnessed the arrests. U.S. officials say this is a sharp change
from the situation a year ago when the police were loyal to Karadzic,
and, in the words of a senior administration official, "were little more
than roving bands practicing thuggery."
The turning point may have been last July 10, when British NATO troops
arrested one war crimes suspect and killed another in a shootout in the
town of Prijedor.
Although officials insist that the death of Simo Drljaca was not
planned, they admit that it has had an effect on those under indictment,
especially those who believe that the cases against them are thin.
Some experts outside the government say the administration's
self-congratulation may be premature, though they agree that the noose is
tightening around the 47 indicted war criminals who remain at large.
"There has been significant progress in terms of [Bosnian Serb] public
reaction to Karadzic and the fact that he is a hindrance to the peace
process," said John Heffernan of the Council for International Justice.
"Since . . . Prijedor in July, there has been a heightened fear among
those indicted. Karadzic has been less and less visible."
PHOTO: Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, though eluding
arrest, has lost almost all power.
