[Bosnia] 10 Years After Massacre - 2 Top Bosnian Serbs Still Hunted

10 Years After Massacre, 2 Top Bosnian Serbs Still Hunted

By NICHOLAS WOOD and DAVID ROHDE
July 8, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/international/europe/08bosnia.html

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 7 - With as many as 50,000 people
expected to gather in Bosnia on Monday to mark the 10th anniversary of
the killing of at least 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica area
during the Bosnian war, Western diplomats and military officials are
struggling to explain why the two Bosnian Serb leaders indicted in the
killings remain at large For close to a decade, Radovan Karadzic, the
wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and his military commander, Gen.
Ratko Mladic, have evaded capture in a compact area - Bosnia is half the
size of Kentucky.

They are regarded as the two most wanted people in Europe since the end of
World War II. Both are accused of genocide for seeking to exterminate
large parts of Bosnia's Muslim population during the civil war of 1992 to
1995. The failure to capture either man, despite the presence of thousands
of peacekeepers in the region, has prompted indignation from Bosnian
survivors as well as war crimes prosecutors. "You have a military
alliance in Europe whose job it was to do so," said Michael Johnson, the
former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia, referring to NATO. "Why not?"

Mevludin Oric, who survived one of the mass executions at Srebrenica by
hiding under his cousin's body for hours, said that as long as the two
men remained free, the effort to prosecute war criminals in the Balkans
would be a failure. "What kind of progress can it be when Karadzic and
Mladic are still walking around 10 years later?" he said.

American and European commanders contend that they are getting closer to
tracking down Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic and have carried out about
20 raids in the last six months on individuals and businesses suspected
of helping war criminals hide. On Thursday, NATO forces detained Dr.
Karadzic's son, Aleksander, on the ground that he had provided support to
a war criminal, a spokesman said.

"It's terribly important to get these two guys, plus the others," said
Douglas L. McElhany, the United States ambassador to Bosnia and
Herzegovina. "This is the major reason things can't go faster, if only in
terms of on-the-ground reconciliation between Croatians, Bosnians and
Serbs," the country's three ethnic groups. But war crimes investigators
and some NATO officials say the hunt continues to be held back by a lack
of detailed and accurate intelligence.

"Myself, I evaluate it was not enough intelligence," said Carla Del Ponte,
the current chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal, which has charged
both men with genocide. She said further support from the United States
was essential to arresting Dr. Karadzic in particular.

A NATO official based in Bosnia said cooperation among the military
intelligence agencies of the various countries involved in the
peacekeeping operation was poor. "They do complain bitterly that no one
put the pieces together," said the official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear of being reprimanded by his superiors.

Some Western diplomats contend that the best American intelligence assets
have been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan and that private contractors
have been used as part of the American intelligence-gathering operation
in Bosnia. "Their best assets are certainly not in Bosnia right now,"
said a European official who works closely with the international
tribunal and who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared
being reprimanded.

While hopes have risen recently that General Mladic, who is thought to be
in Serbia, might surrender because of heightened political pressure on
Serbian officials, which has led them to turn over a number of other men
accused in the Srebrenica killings, there has been little headway on Dr.
Karadzic.

The continued ability of Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic to remain at
large is seen as holding back development in the countries formed by the
breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990's. American and European officials have
made it clear that no country in the region will be allowed to join NATO
or the European Union until they transfer all war crimes suspects to the
tribunal, which is in The Hague.

"For to us will be their return; then it will be for us to call them to
account." (Holy Quran 88:25-26)

----------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my