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US: No Amnesty Deals for Karadzic and Mladic
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States denied Friday that
it would make any deal that would allow Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karadzic and military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic to
escape prosecution for war crimes.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Washington
had rejected a suggestion from Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic for an arrangement that would merely take Karadzic out
of mainstream political life in Bosnia.
The New York Times Friday quoted unidentified senior Western
officials as saying they would probably end up accepting an
arrangement under which Karadzic and Mladic continued to wield
power in Bosnia.
"The answer from the United States is no deal," Burns told
a news briefing. "The United States will not agree to any deal
for Karadzic and Mladic. They are indicted war criminals. The
only deal for them is to be arrested and brought to The Hague
for prosecution, for a trial as war criminals."
Burns said Milosevic offered earlier this week to U.S.
assistant secretary of State John Kornblum to take Karadzic out
of the mainstream of Bosnian Serb political life, but Kornblum's
answer was: "Sorry, it's not good enough for us."
Burns conceded, however, that if it was not possible to
arrest Karadzic in the near future, having him "effectively
marginalized" would be "better than the current situation
where he remains an actor in political life."
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Berserkistan,May 24 · US: Milosevic Assurances on Karadzic Are Lacking
May 24 · Commentary: Will Karadzic Be Allowed to Retain Power? by Tom Warrick
U.S. Calls Effort to Oust Top Serbs a Failure The New York Times
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