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Bosnian Serb Army Repudiates Threats Against NATO Troops
Senior Serb officers told the commander of ground forces
By Mark Heinrich
Senior Serb officers told the commander of ground forces in NATO's peace force in Bosnia that the Serb military had nothing to do with the threats. Serb civilian authorities in three towns threatened to kidnap and kill NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police monitors if NATO tried to grab Karadzic for trial by a U.N. war crimes court. The warnings were made before the separatist leader, indicted for ethnic atrocities, resigned all public offices on Friday to meet international conditions for his party to take part in Bosnia's first postwar elections in September.
Colonel Max Mariner, spokesman for NATO's peace Implementation Force (IFOR), said IFOR ground forces commander"
Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Walker brought up the threats in talks with Bosnian Serb generals on Friday. "The Bosnian Serb army stated that as far as it was concerned these intemperate outbursts were not sanctioned, nor were they reflective of a wider view and should not be accepted as indicative of any degree of rising tensions," said Mariner.
He said General Zdravko Tolimir, deputy to Serb army chief General Ratko Mladic with whom IFOR does not communicate because he too is a war-crimes indictee, assured Walker the Serb military was indifferent to Karadzic's removal. The Bosnian Serb army, led by former Yugoslav army officers close to President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, a Socialist, has had chilly relations with the ultra-rightist Karadzic and his closest allies for some time.
Bosnian Serb generals blame Karadzic and his circle for stunning territorial losses to Muslim-Croat forces near the end of the war, accusing them of profiteering and graft that sapped resources needed for the battlefield. The International Police Task Force (IPTF) said some regional Serb authorities had also disowned the death threats.
Police in the major northern Serb town of Prijedor told IPTF monitors they had "absolutely nothing to worry about and are welcome everywhere, quote, "regardless of whether Karadzic is arrested or not'," said IPTF spokesman Alex Ivanko. |
SARAJEVO, July 20 (Reuters) - The Bosnian Serb army has repudiated threats by local Serb authorities to harm NATO and U.N. personnel in retaliation for any attempt to arrest Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, NATO said on Saturday.
Berserkistan, July 19 · Bosnian Serbs Pledge to Protect Radovan Karadzic
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Berserkistan, July 15 · Bosnian Serbs Threaten NATO in Showdown Over War Criminals
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