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Serbs in Brcko Contradict Karadzic
BRCKO, Bosnia, May 22 (Reuters) — Local Serb authorities in the disputed town of Brcko said on Wednesday they would accept any arbitration ruling on its fate, contradicting hardline Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic. Last November's Dayton peace treaty divided Bosnia evenly between a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb Republic but left the issue of control over Brcko to be decided by international arbitration within a year.
A narrow land corridor anchored by Brcko in far northeastern Bosnia is the only link between Serb lands in the north and east of Bosnia. It is also the sole connection between Serb north Bosnia and Serbia proper. But the federation seeks control of Brcko for access northwards to the heart of Croatia and central Europe, a major pre-war commercial route needed to revive its economy.
Zarko Cosic, Brcko's security chief and chief local negotiator, told Reuterss on Wednesday that area Serbs would agree to any arbitration verdict. "Those who have NATO and the world behind them should work this (Brcko) out in such a way that we can all respect it. We shall accept everything the arbitration decides," he said.
"This has to be resolved by those who made up the Dayton agreement. If we had been able to solve it on a local level, we wouldn't have waged the war in the first place." But Karadzic, the ultra-nationalist leader who has resisted international pressure to step down and face trial before a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, said his people would not accept the loss of Brcko through arbitration.
"The town of Brcko itself and the existing six-km (four-mile)-wide corridor cannot be the subject of arbitration," Karadzic was quoted by the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA as saying late last week. "If we take this position and do not reach agreement with the Muslim side on the subject of arbitration — and there should be a corridor of 20 km (12 miles) width, the Dayton agreement prescribes that the existing regime should remain in force," he said in a Serbian newspaper interview quoted by SRNA.
Karadzic said he wanted to reassure the population of the Serb Republic, particularly in its northern part and citizens of Brcko itself, that "they can put their minds at rest." He said he expected the outcome of arbitration would probably be the current boundary between the Serb Republic and Muslim-Croat federation.
Brcko was captured by separatist Serbs early in Bosnia's war and its Muslim majority community was expelled. Cosic spoke after local Serb, Croat and Muslim delegations met under NATO peace force supervision at a U.S. military camp and agreed to start repairing war-damaged homes in front-line zones of the Brcko region.
Munib Jusufovic, the Muslim mayor-in-exile of Brcko, said: "Our attitude is well-known. Brcko should be assigned to the federation and the Serbs would be granted safe passage for travelling."
International aid workers say Serb authorities have been packing Brcko with Serb refugees from federation territory in a bid to influence the arbitration, whose deliberations are to begin in June. |
Berserkistan, May 17 · Muslims Cross Peacefully into Brcko
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