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Karadzic Plays Desperate Game of Survival
By Jovan Kovacic
Karadzic last week sacked his Prime Minister Rajko Kasagic, who was being groomed by Bildt as an alternative to hardline Bosnian separatists based in Pale, near Sarajevo.
Karadzic's outright defiance of Bildt irritated the international community and led to fresh pressure for the man who led the Bosnian Serbs through the war to step down. Bildt sought the help of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, once Karadzic's mentor, to bring him to heel.
Under the Dayton peace deal for Bosnia Karadzic, a twice-indicted war criminal like his army commander General Ratko Mladic, should give up power and be extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. But Karadzic has kept his position. He has stepped in and out of the shadows to quietly direct Bosnian Serb defiance of the peace process while not providing NATO peacekeepers the opportunity to arrest him.
The question remains if, with international pressure growing, his many enemies will finally decide to sacrifice him.
The wild-haired doctor forced Mladic into open hostility last year when he tried to sack the insubordinate general whom most Bosnian Serbs revere as their protector. More dangerously, the part-time poet clashed with Milosevic, the ultimate power broker in the region, when he rejected peace plans for Bosnia in 1993. Milosevic slapped sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs in 1994 to force Karadzic to toe the line.
Karadzic has excelled at saying "No" to peace proposals, relying on equally hardline Bosnian Serb parliament speaker Momcilo Krajisnik to rubber stamp his rejections. One exasperated deputy had asked Karadzic: "All I hear from you is 'No.' Don't you think that it is time you came up with a plan which you could say 'Yes' to and spare us the suffering?"
That was in early 1995 and a few months later Karadzic's army, undermined by the split betweeen the generals and the politicians, lost a third of the 70 percent of Bosnia it held. Karadzic's popularity with Bosnian Serbs suffered badly.
Many remembered Milosevic's plea to Karadzic to accept the 1993 peace deal and the warning he made then: "Do not squander away your winnings like a drunken poker player," in direct reference to Karadzic's compulsive gambling. The late-night party lover reportedly lost a fortune during the war in a Belgrade casino. Charges of corruption circle around him and his coterie.
The Montenegran-born Karadzic has used his good English to put the Serb cause to Western audiences, though his melodramatic manner and florid appearance has undermined his message. He is compared by some to Roman Emperor Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. Karadzic wrote a poem in 1969 where he said he wanted to burn Sarajevo down and plays the gusle, a traditional Montenegrin string instrument.
Karadzic may worry that if the international community's succeeds in using the threat of sanctions to pressure Milosevic into acting to depose him his future will be bleak and his personal safety unsure. "He now clings to power by the skin of his teeth knowing full well he has no where to go," one opposition leader said.
"He can't flee town, no city in the world will accept him except The Hague and if he stays and his party loses elections, he stands to face trial for a lot of charges," Nebojsa Radmanovic of the rival Socialist Party recently said. "He is now desperate and will sow a lot of confusion to obfuscate the situation," he said.
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BELGRADE, May 19 (Reuters) — Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, under mounting pressure to quit his post as "President," is playing a desperate game with the international community to save his skin, analysts say. Although hardliners around the former psychiatrist have significantly tightened their grip on power peace mediator Carl Bildt believed on Sunday he had secured the "beginning of the end" of Karadzic's political influence.
Berserkistan, May 18 · New Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Sets Out Hard Line
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic Outflanks Bildt Over Prime Minister's Firing
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic Names New Prime Minister to Replace Moderate Kasagic
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic's Actions Intensify U.S. Sanctions Threats
Berserkistan, May 17 · Ousted Kasagic Still Controls Bosnian Serb Government
Berserkistan, May 17 · Death Threats to Media Supporting Rajko Kasagic
Berserkistan, May 16 · Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Rajko Kasagic Rejects His Dismissal
Berserkistan May 15 · Radovan Karadzic Dismisses Prime Minister Kasagic
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