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OSCE Chief Calls for Elections by September 14
Conference Highlights:
By Steve Pagani
Robert Frowick, head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) election mission in Bosnia, told a ministerial conference enough progress had been made in Bosnia to warrant the go-ahead for country-wide polls by September 14.
Listing steps made towards requirements for free and fair elections, Frowick said: "All of these things have gone into my decision announced today to recommend... that we proceed with preparations for these elections by the 14th of September."
But he stressed that one of the biggest factors to influence the staging of democratic polls was the extradition of war criminals indicted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. He said steps to detain Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and army chief Ratko Mladic had to come from Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic or from forces inside Bosnia. "Somebody has to act soon whilst the international community is there in maximum strength both militarily and on the civilian side," Frowick said. "This is the time to do it."
The OSCE chairman-in-office, Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti, told the conference called to review six months of faltering peace in Bosnia that the delivery of war criminals to the Hague tribunal was of paramount importance and urged international action to secure it. "Their presence and exertion of influence call into question not only the staging of free and fair elections, but also the entire process of democratisation and peace," he said.
The OSCE has been charged with organising the polls, which cannot go ahead unless Cotti certifies that minimal conditions exist for a free, fair and democratic ballot. He said the meeting in Florence was the last chance to hear whether foreign governments were satisfied that enough progress had been made to hold the elections.
"The opinions expressed here today played for us a very important role," Cotti told reporters, adding that he would announce his final decision before the end of the month.
Carl Bildt, the major powers' chief mediator in Bosnia, also threw his weight behind September elections as envisaged in the Dayton agreement that ended 43 months of war in Bosnia.
French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette said that while conditions were not ideal, polls were a key step in building peace and common institutions for Serbs, Muslims and Croats. "It is therefore imperative that the elections take place under the planned timetable. To call them off would be to block the peace process. To delay them would set back that process."
The major powers have insisted that indicted war criminals be held to account but have not made their extradition an explicit condition for proceeding with elections.
But Bosnia's ambassador to the United Nations, Muhamed Sacirbey, argued that the basic requirement of arresting war criminals before the elections could not be swept away. "Free and fair elections are inconsistent and inconceivable as long as war criminals are free," he said.
In a tough speech to the conference, the U.N. tribunal's president Antonio Cassese said Karadzic, Mladic and former Bosnian Croat leader Dario Kordic had to be detained before September to prevent them jeopardising the polls. British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind sided with Cassese, urging every effort to bring Karadzic to book. "Karadzic has to go now. He has to be eliminated from all power and influence, literally in the next few days, in the next few weeks," Rifkind said.
But Bosnian Serbs remained defiant, telling reporters in Florence that Karadzic may even try to run in the elections and dismissed demands for his extradition as "hysteria." As an indicted war criminal, Karadzic is barred from holding office under the Dayton pact or running for election.
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FLORENCE, Italy, June 14 (Reuters) - A top U.S. envoy recommended on Friday that Bosnian elections take place by September 14 as laid out in the Dayton agreement and added his voice to calls for immediate action to extradite war criminals.
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FLORENCE, ITALY
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