 |
Despite Pressure, Rumors Karadzic Still President
Ambiguous statement lures Carl Bildt into declaring
the Bosnian Serb president had resigned. But as before,
Karadzic has the last laugh.
By Kurt Schork
Citing an ambiguously worded bit of paper bearing Karadzic's signature, international mediator Carl Bildt announced on Sunday that the world's most wanted war criminal was out of office.
Bosnian Serbs denied it at once and a day later Bildt's office was declaring the Karadzic defiance unacceptable and calling for immediate action by the international community. The trip-up occurred even though Bildt's staff had actually drafted Karadzic's "letter of resignation."
As has happened scores of times before in Bosnia, the showdown was surrounded by massive confusion -- except as to the fact that Karadzic's grip on power was undiminished.
On Saturday Karadzic had been re-elected head of the Serbs' ruling nationalist SDS party, which controls the police and media on Serb territory, ensuring he remained the kingmaker in their 49 percent of Bosnia.
Economic sanctions, sole arrow in Carl Bildt's quiver unless talk is counted as a weapon, had been threatened as a penalty if Karadzic remained in power beyond July 1. But on Sunday evening Bildt told reporters there were no current plans to reimpose sanctions.
By Monday morning diplomats were warning that when it came to sanctions the cure might be worse than the illness, calling into question what if anything would be done to speed Karadzic along to his appointment with a war crimes tribunal.
Bosnian Serb leaders are past masters at playing on the international community's internal divisions and fear of casualties among its armed forces. Thus U.N.-declared "safe areas" were left virtually undefended by peacekeepers during the Bosnian war, enabling Serb forces to overrun Srebrenica a year ago this month.
Thousands of Muslims civilians remain missing and are presumed to have been killed in the rout -- a war crime for which both Karadzic and his army commander General Ratko Mladic were indicted.
There are now 50,000 heavily armed NATO-led combat troops in Bosnia who may arrest Karadzic if he crosses their path. But they have no orders to ferret him out, enabling the former psychiatrist and unreconstructed Serb separatist to move around Bosnia actively undermining the Dayton peace agreement which NATO was sent here to implement.
Even NATO officers speak with embarrassment about the "UNPROFOR-isation" of their mission, the process whereby U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia were so compromised by political dithering they could not do their job and had to be replaced.
The same diplomats who championed a strict interpretation of the Dayton agreement when it was signed in December recently authorised nationwide elections for September while admitting that preconditions laid out in the accord had not been met. Intended to reconstitute Bosnia as a multi-ethnic democracy, Dayton now seems a prescription for partition.
Bosnians who longed for justice are instead getting the right to vote -- in elections without the freedom of movement, freedom of press or neutral political environment Dayton ordained. "The thing you have to remember is that containment (of the Bosnian conflict) was the international community's goal during the war and remains its goal in the peace," said a western diplomat who asked not to be named.
"The major powers are so exhausted by Bosnia their instinct is still to build a fence around the problem. Principle, other than the principle of containment, was abandoned long ago. Everyone, including the Serbs, know that and they exploit it." |
SARAJEVO, July 1 (Reuters) - Brave words, bold declarations, dire threats followed by little or no action -- the pattern of posturing on the part of the international community in Bosnia is well established. The latest instance involved Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, twice indicted for war crimes, who was supposed to have stepped down from public life on Sunday.
Berserkistan, June 29 · G7 Summit Tells Karadzic to Quit or Face Sanctions
Berserkistan, June 29 · By a Landslide, Karadzic is Re-elected SDS Party Chief
Berserkistan, June 28 · Bosnian Serbs Told to 'Break from False Leaders'
Berserkistan, June 28 · G7 Nations Discussing Karadzic Sanctions
Berserkistan is the world news service of
Pacific Interactive Media Corp.
EMail Berserkistan
©1995-1996, All Rights Reserved