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US: No Intention of Punishing Serbia For Refusal to Arrest Mladic, Karadzic
Elections Will Proceed in Bosnia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The United States said Wednesday it had no intention of moving now to punish Serbia despite President Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to comply with a vow to apprehend Bosnian Serb leaders accused of war crimes. Officials also said that Bosnia's first elections expected in mid-September would go forward even if Radovan Karadzic — the most influential Bosnian Serb leader — remains in power.
Seeking to have the international community reimpose sanctions "is an option available to us" that has been repeatedly made clear to Milosevic, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters. But he added: "We have not yet decided to exercise that option." Although it has been six months since the Bosnia peace deal was reached at Dayton, Ohio, "We're going to give (Serbians) a chance to make sure there is full compliance," he said.
"I don't think it would be wise for us to react emotionally just because we've seen... the video of (Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko) Mladic in Belgrade yesterday," he said. "And we have Karadzic striking back and countering a move to displace him over the weekend." Milosevic violated the Dayton agreement by not having Mladic arrested when the Bosnian Serb military commander attended a funeral in Belgrade at the weekend, Burns said.
Under the 1995 Bosnian peace deal brokered by the United States, Karadzic and Mladic are barred from holding power. But Karadzic in particular still exercises influence in the Bosnian Serb sector and his presence is seen increasingly as an impediment to free and fair elections due by mid-September.
Asked if the vote could be free and fair if Karadzic stays in power, Burns said as long as he is confined to his
headquarters at Pale and marginalized "to this extent, he won't be a candidate in the elections, and he won't prevent the elections from occurring. Then, I think the elections can go forward and will go forward with him sitting in his bitter isolation in Pale. I think that is possible. And it may be that we'll be presented with that scenario, and we'll have to face it," he said.
Bosnia's Muslim-led government has threatened to boycott the elections unless Karadzic and Mladic, indicted by the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, are arrested. But Burns chided the Muslims for adding "new conditions that would effectively put off the elections. The elections must be held if the environment can be created in which to hold them... And we will calmly and patiently continue to work with all the parties to create the conditions for the elections," he said.
He acknowledged that the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, pressed unsuccessfully during talks in Washington this week for the United States to support giving NATO-led implementation forces (IFOR) in Bosnia a greater role in apprehending Karadzic and Mladic. Burns stressed that responsibility for that job rests primarily with the parties to the Dayton accords, including Serbia, which represented Bosnian Serbs in the talks. Nevertheless, Burns reiterated that "if IFOR can be helpful, if these people (Karadzic and Mladic), in essence, run into IFOR patrols, then IFOR has a responsibility to secure them for transport to The Hague."
IFOR troops are "everywhere" in Bosnia, and hence a practical limit on how far Karadzic can travel, he said. In the meantime, he said, "what we are going to do is calmly, deliberately and very forcefully assert our continuing belief that as we proceed towards elections the Bosnian Serbs must commit themselves to full compliance with all of the conditions for elections such as freedom of movement and that the conditions in the Dayton accord that call for fulfillment of war crimes requirements, that they be adhered to as well."
Burns acknowledged, however, "at some point, we'll have to sit back and say, has the measure of compliance by Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs been adequate? And if the answer is no, then we have some quite significant options at our disposal."
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Berserkistan, May 22 · U.S. Says 'Not Now' on Serb Sanctions
Berserkistan, May 22 · U.S. Warns Milosevic of Possible Sanctions
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