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Christopher Threatens Reimposition of Sanctions Against Yugoslavia 
GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Sunday sanctions could be reimposed on the rump Yugoslavia unless Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic ensured the removal from power of top Bosnian Serb leaders. Christopher told a news conference after talks with Milosevic that the Belgrade strongman had not done enough for the departure from the public scene of the Serbs' "president" Radovan Karadzic and military chief Ratko Mladic.
"I left him in no doubt what my views are.... that they (Karadzic and Mladic) should be removed from office and handed over (to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague which has indicted them)," Christopher said. Milosevic referred to assurances he had given that Karadzic would be stepping down, but Christopher said he told him "that just wasn't enough. What we wanted to see was real action."
And Christopher himself told news agency correspondents he wanted "tangible action" from Milosevic -- widely seen in the West as the only man who can ensure that the pair, both indicted as war criminals, leave the scene. At the luncheon at Geneva's Hotel Intercontinental, the U.S. official told reporters, "Christopher said the continued presence (in power) of Karadzic and Mladic was intolerable and that they should go to the Hague." The Dutch capital is the seat of the United Nations war crimes tribunal which has issued the indictment against both men for their role in the three-and-a-half year Bosnian civil war -- ended by a pact negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, last November. Christopher told his guests they should all be complying with the Dayton pact, which provided for the removal of indicted war criminals, and then pointedly thanked only Izetbagovic and Tudjman for cooperating with the tribunal, the official said. While the talks were under way, some 3,000 Albanians staged a demonstration a few hundred yards (metres) away calling for Milosevic himself to be indicted at the Hague over repression against Albanians in the Serbian provice of Kosovo. The three Balkan presidents came to Geneva for a day of talks with Christopher on prospects for full implementation of the Dayton accords and especially the holding of all-Bosnian elections set for September. At the luncheon -- also attended by officials of Russia, France, Germany and Britain who are linked with the United States in the peace process -- it was agreed the vote should go ahead even if conditions were not perfect, diplomats said. In an interview taped for CBS television, Christopher said that "having met with all the key figures here I would say that the elections will go forward on schedule." Earlier, Izetbegovic said conditions for a free and fair vote had not yet been met. Western countries see the elections as vital for setting the framework for a new Bosnian state before the December deadline for a withdrawal of the 60,000 NATO force overseeing the implementation of the Dayton agreements. But Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti -- whose country is closely involved in supervising the poll as current chairman of the Organisation for European Security and Cooperation (OSCE) -- offered a slightly different view after talks with Christopher. "There are some extremely negative elements for the elections....We have to make progress if we are to give the green light," he told reporters. The OSCE is due to say later this month whether it feels the vote -- to take place simultaneously in the Serbs' "Republika Sprpska" and Muslim- and Croat-controlled areas of the fragile federation between the two peoples -- should go ahead. However, it was the future of Karadzic -- who has been fiercely hanging on to power despite mounting Western pressure and himself removed at least one moderate rival -- and of Mladic which overshadowed the day's discussions. Earlier, international civilian coordinator for Bosnia Carl Bildt said he had told Milosevic that Karadzic had to go by the end of last month and that "things will start happen" because the Bosnian Serb leader was still in place. Bildt did not spell out what this might be, but U.S. officials have said repeatedly that sanctions -- lifted after Dayton -- might be reimposed on the rump Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Bosnian Serbs. Reports late last week suggested that Milosevic might be bringing to Geneva a letter of resignation from Karadzic or some other document attesting to the departure of the Bosnian Serb leader, an ethnic nationalist. But in his interview with news agency reporters, Christopher said: "What we want to see is tangible action. Letters have significance, but actually being out of the office and not exercising he powers of the office or influecing it is what is vital to us." |
Christopher said all that was needed for "a virtually automatic" reimposition of sanctions was a finding by the top international civilian or military officials in Bosnia that the Dayton accords which ended the Bosnian war last November were not being observed.
Berserkistan, June 3 · Sanctions, If Real, Would Spell Disaster
Berserkistan, June 2 · Bosnia: Fair Elections, but Not At Any Price
Berserkistan, June 2 · Christopher: Only Talk of Karadzic Trial
Berserkistan, June 1 · Marginalize Karadzic, Says West
Berserkistan, June 1 · Tomorrow’s Geneva Summit: Assuring Bosnia’s Elections
Berserkistan, May 31 · Warren Christopher to Intervene at Talks in Geneva
Berserkistan, May 31 · US: Cost Cost of Capturing Karadzic, Mladic Too Great
Berserkistan, May 30 · EU Administrator Sets Mostar Elections for June 30
U.S. State Department Policy on Bosnia
Warren Christopher Biography
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