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Karadzic Firmly in Control
The master chess player is said to be the winner
But for Carl Bildt, the drama isn't over yet.
In a move showing its frustration with Karadzic’s continued freedom, the U.N. war crimes tribunal tried to increase pressure for his arrest by announcing plans to present their evidence against him and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. About the time of the announcement in The Hague, Netherlands, the NATO-led peace force was holding its daily news briefing in Pale, a former ski resort near Sarajevo that serves as Karadzic’s headquarters. For the first time, they met at new press center built for and controlled by Karadzic’s influential daughter, Sonja.
Just last week, Western diplomats hoped that Karadzic’s influence was on the wane. The Bosnian Serb leader had dismissed his prime minister, Rajko Kasagic, in a sign that Kasagic’s influence had grown enough to make him a real threat. International officials — from NATO’s chief on down — flocked to Banja Luka, the prime minister’s power base and the largest Serb-held town in Bosnia, to lend Kasagic support.
Kasagic and Banja Luka mayor Predrag Radic — until now a Karadzic supporter — issued blistering attacks on the man who had been the unchallenged leader of the Bosnian Serbs since taking them into war four years ago. But Karadzic, a psychiatrist often called “the Doctor,” moved swiftly to quash the revolt. He summoned the Serbs’ self-styled assembly and got deputies to approve a new prime minister — Gojko Klickovic, a loyal lieutenant who most recently oversaw the exodus of tens of thousands of Serbs from Sarajevo when it was reunified under Bosnian government control in March.
Next, Karadzic appointed his deputy Biljana Plavsic, a hard-line nationalist, to be his proxy with the international community. It was the old prime minister’s readiness to deal with international mediators — and thus, in Karadzic’s eyes, to feed hopes that Bosnia would one day reunite — that got him fired.
Plavsic promptly went to Banja Luka and announced that Karadzic was still very much the president. Kasagic, so defiant just four days earlier, issued a meek unsigned statement from his office that the Dayton peace agreement would be implemented and that he and Karadzic always had agreed on that.
Carl Bildt, the top civilian for implementing the Dayton peace accords, still hopes Plavsic’s emergence signals Karadzic’s demise. “Mr. Karadzic is less in power and authority than he was a week ago,” Bildt said Tuesday, after talks with NATO officials in Athens and with powerful Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. “We’ll see what the situation is in a week from now.”
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic indicated Tuesday that he could not agree to the elections scheduled in Bosnia by mid-September if Karadzic was still in power. His chief aide on election matters, Muhamed Sacirbey, said they both supported postponing elections until conditions are met.
But neither Milosevic, Karadzic nor Mladic seemed fazed by any pressure. On Tuesday, Mladic was in Belgrade, Milosevic’s capital, for the funeral of Bosnian Serb Gen. Djordje Djukic — indicted and arrested by the war crimes tribunal but released because he was dying of cancer.
In Pale, Karadzic’s new premier was meeting with his government. Bildt met Karadzic aide Momcilo Krajisnik, but he did not get a letter he had sought last weekend saying that Karadzic would step aside. But even if Karadzic quit, his influence would remain large and his bodyguards numerous. In a republic where most people were ruined by war, Karadzic and his cronies are said to have amassed great wealth. He controls the domestic media. His daughter controls international press access to Bosnian Serb officials and is now reportedly planning her own radio station. Son Sasa has numerous small businesses.
The Serbs’ republic, with a tight-knit population of just under 1 million, often is labeled a police state by outsiders. But it more resembles a little Sicily, where a powerful Mafia can buy people and thus influence events.
“Karadzic is a great chess player,” said a NATO source, who spoke on condition of anonymity about events of the past week. “Karadzic is the big winner here.”
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PALE, May 22 (AP) — Indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic remains
firmly in power, despite maneuverings in his self-styled Bosnian Serb
republic that had given Western diplomats hope that he was stepping aside.
His continued sway was clear Tuesday — inside and outside Bosnia.
Berserkistan, May 21 · NATO Won’t Hunt Down Karadzic
Berserkistan, May 21 · Ratko Mladic Seen at Djukic Funeral
Berserkistan, May 20 · Bildt: Karadzic ‘Poisoning Political Atmosphere’
Berserkistan, May 20 · Kradzic Shifts Some Duties, but Won't Step Down
The Indictment Against Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic
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