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Bosnia Mediator Likens Karadzic to Nazi’s Himmler By Michael Shields
But German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel played down the prospects of using force to detain Karadzic and Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic under arrest warrants issued on Thursday by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Schwarz-Schilling, a Bonn deputy who has mediated conflicts between Bosnian Muslims and Croats for more than a year, told German radio it was imperative to grab Karadzic before Bosnia's first post-war elections in September.
Himmler headed the infamous SS, the Nazi party's own police and military arm that helped Hitler carry out his reign of terror in Europe. Himmler killed himself at the end of World War Two.
Kinkel insisted all other avenues had to be exhausted before the world used force to snatch the men accused of genocide. He said the international arrest warrants did not change the mandate for the IFOR peacekeeping force. "We have to say loud and clear that we are also thinking of sanctions," he said, pointing out that IFOR could have swooped on the men if the political will had existed to do this.
"Forcibly detaining them can be -- perhaps must be -- the last resort," he added. "Honestly, I cannot imagine that an international force or an intervention force will be set up in addition to IFOR to apprehend Mladic and Karadzic."
Schwarz-Schilling said it was hard to see why IFOR did not use its might to grab Karadzic. "It cannot be that the entire community of nations is unable to arrest a war criminal. If we capitulate to such an extent then the outlook for peace is the world is very bleak." He suggested western countries unleash special force trained to fight terrorists or rescue hostages with the mission of bringing Karadzic and Mladic to justice.
"These people are now seen as almost untouchable. The moment they are led away in handcuffs the myth is over, and it is high time for this," he added.
Hertha Daeubler-Gmelin, deputy leader of the opposition Social Democrats, went a step further and called for German soldiers to help IFOR hunt down the men. Bonn has kept its peacekeepers well away from Serbs to avoid any clashes that could dredge up memories of the Nazis' brutal wartime occupation of the region.
Diplomats say Germany is the only major nation to support the idea of launching a manhunt for the indicted war criminals, although some in the U.S. administration also favour it. But Britain and France remain resolutely opposed and would veto any move to change the mandate of the NATO force in Bosnia.
Defence Minister Volker Ruehe suggested at the weekend IFOR try to grab the two Serb figures if all else fails, but officials in Bonn said he was just turning up the pressure. "It would be counterproductive for IFOR to detain them before the elections in September because the whole electoral process could be jeopardised." one defence official said.
"We won't send a company (of soldiers) with the goal of detaining them both. The idea is rather to isolate them so much that they lose influence and have no chances." |
BONN, July 12 (Reuters) - Bosnia mediator Christian Schwarz-Schilling likened Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to top Nazi Heinrich Himmler on Friday and urged NATO-led peacekeeping troops to seize him for trial as a war criminal.
"One cannot have democratic elections when such a war criminal is left a leader," the former cabinet minister said. "Just imagine if at our first German parliamentary elections in 1949 Himmler and the old Nazi party would have run in part of Germany and (he) would say: 'I am even running for chancellor.' You just have to imagine it to see how absurd this is."
Berserkistan, July 11· Tribunal Issues Arrest Warrants for Karadzic, Mladic
Berserkistan, July 11· Warrant Aims at Pair Who Ran Bosnian Serbs’ War Machine
HEINRICH HIMMLER
Heinrich Himmler biography Who’s Who
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