Stern Warning to Comply with Dayton Agreement
Tops Secretary of Defense's Message to Balkans
(ZAGREB, Croatia—Reuters) U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry warned Bosnian Croats and Muslims on Saturday to comply fully with peace accords and said NATO-led troops would shut down rogue checkpoints hindering freedom of movement. Talking tough on the fragile four-month-old peace at the start of a visit to Zagreb and Sarajevo, Perry said checkpoints set up by former warring parties to obstruct civilian free movement and extort money in Bosnia would no longer be tolerated.
"They (60,000 NATO peace implementation troops) will fan out all over the country and any place they come across a checkpoint, they are going to knock it out. And they are not going to be polite about the way they knock it out," he told reporters travelling with him from Washington. Perry arrived in Zagreb accompanied by Croatian Defense Minister Gojko Susak, who returned home in the defence secretary's Boeing 747 plane after lung surgery at a U.S. army hospital in Washington.
Perry to Press for Accused War Criminal Hand-Overs
Perry, who will visit Sarajevo on Sunday, was to meet Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Zagreb later on Saturday. The defense secretary said Croatia must turn over suspected war criminals among its Bosnian Croat proteges to an international tribunal. The Muslim-led Bosnian government must also force all remaining foreign troops such as Iranians to leave its soil, Perry told reporters on his plane. He said prisoner exchanges must be completed and he would press Tudjman and Bosnia's acting president Ejup Ganic to take steps to strengthen the federation.Croatia has not handed over some Bosnian Croat militia officers who have been indicted over the massacre of Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Perry said future U.S. military cooperation with Zagreb hung in the balance. "They must turn over indicted war criminals," he said. Civilians in Bosnia have complained that they are being forced to give up money and belongings at checkpoints set up by Croat and Muslim power-brokers within federation zones.
Propping Up Bosnia's Floundering Coalition
he main point of Perry's visit is to press Muslims and Croats to bolster a shaky Bosnian federation that anchors the Dayton peace accords and offsets separatist Serb power. Muslim and Croat nationalists maintain separate enclaves and refuse to cooperate on most issues, including return of refugees and free movement across old ceasefire lines. Diplomats in Bosnia fear another Muslim-Croat territorial war could erupt once NATO peace troops leave unless the federation becomes more than a paper entity soon."Some commentators have spoken about the unravelling of the federation," Perry said. "It is not unravelling. But it is not working as well as we would like either, and we would like both the Bosnian government and the Croatian government to put maximum effort and maximum pressure behind making this federation work," he said. "We are still not satisfied and one of the main purposes of this trip is to push for more thorough compliance with the Dayton agreement in both Zagreb and in Sarajevo."
NATO to Focus on Freedom of Movement
"Freedom of movement is fundamental to the Dayton agreement, it is fundamental to the success of all of the civil functions that are going on," he said. "IFOR (the peace implementation force) will have zero tolerance for units that try to stop freedom of movement in the country," Perry said. "We don't like checkpoints anywhere in the country, and anywhere we see them we're going to knock them down."Speculation on Gen. Maladic
Perry said there were reports of evidence that Bosnian Serb military leader General Ratko Mladic, indicted for war crimes, might be planning to move his headquarters from Han Pijesak, in part of eastern Bosnia patrolled by U.S. IFOR troops, to Banja Luka in the north, which is controlled by British forces. He refused to speculate on whether an attempt might be made by elite troops to capture Mladic and Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who has also been indicted."I don't think I want to speculate on why he (Mladic) wants to move," said Perry. "But any movement he makes makes him more susceptible to being sighted, and therefore being captured."
William Perry Biography
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Berserkistan is a world news service of Michael Linder Productions, Inc.
©1995-1996, All Rights Reserved
