 |
 Milosevic 'Deal' for Karadzic is a Bad Idea
From The Washington Post
WASHINGTON, May 26 (The Washington Post) - This is do-or-die time for the future of Bosnia, and Serbia's shrewd president, Slobodan Milosevic, has offered NATO a deal. He will take the war criminals who run the satellite Bosnian Serb republic out of the political picture if NATO will not insist on bringing them to trial. It sounds like a "something for you, something for me" compromise. But that was not the Dayton deal. The peace agreement called on the parties, including Serbia, to send war criminals to the Hague. Anything less mocks the common pledge to launch a new Bosnia and invites leading criminals like Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to lie low for a while in order to reclaim power when peacekeepers depart in December.
This is not the only bad idea bumping around the Balkans while the West tries to meet a cruel deadline to build a reasonably democratic and Bosnian Bosnia—a Bosnia with a structure and a chance to avoid full ethnic partition and to stay at least in outline a single state. There is also the idea of holding elections throughout the country regardless of the particular conditions in its three parts. But what kind of elections can be expected in places where there is not a free press, equal political access for opposition parties and a generally pressure-free political environment? The State Department spokesman, skipping past such essential considerations, observes that Bosnia is no "Jeffersonian democracy"—a telltale phrase indicating a distaste to hold the process to democratic standards. Bosnia's Croat and Muslim sections are far from fully measuring up. Bosnia's Serbs, under the Karadzic-Mladic criminal gang, don't even come close.
The obvious answer is to put off elections until local conditions are improved. That means an unhappy slippage on the Dayton timetable, but it also means avoidance of electoral farce. Further, it means the NATO-led peacekeeping force is going to have to consider not only expanding but also extending its mission. Expansion involves a readiness to edge into such tasks as picking up war criminals, escorting refugees home and steadying things for elections. Extension involves acknowledging the artificiality of the current departure date and lingering beyond December. Bill Clinton set that deadline for his political convenience. But he's more than a candidate, he's president, and as president he should reconsider. |
Berserkistan offers its readers an opportunity to Beta Test
the new Washington Post World Wide Web site.
Use "Wash" as your user name, "Post" as your password.
The Washington Post
Berserkistan is a world news service of Michael Linder Productions, Inc.
©1995-1996, All Rights Reserved