July 6, 1996

U.S. Decides Belgrade Won't Oust Bosnian Allies

By RAYMOND BONNER

he Clinton administration, and its allies in Bosnia, have concluded that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic will not deliver on his earlier promises to remove two Bosnian Serb leaders indicted on war crimes charges from their positions of power, U.S. and European diplomats say.

That leaves the allies facing limited and unappetizing options, which include reimposing sanctions on Yugoslavia or taking military action to seize Dr. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader, and possibly the Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Both men have been indicted on charges of genocide, and there is a near-universal agreement in Washington and European capitals that as long as Dr. Karadzic is in Bosnia, moderate Serbs won't have a chance in the coming elections, even if he is not a candidate.

In fact, officials say his very presence prevents other provisions of the peace agreement, such as returning refugees to their homes, from being carried out fully.

An administration official in Washington said, "There is an intense debate going on over what to do now."

While no one wants to say so specifically, there is enough glancing and guarded talk about a military operation to leave little doubt that one is being considered.

There is a need to act quickly, to get Karadzic completely off the political stage within the next two weeks, a European official said.

Next week, the leaders of the so-called Contact Group on Bosnia -- the United States, France, Britain, Russia and Italy -- will meet in London to wrestle with the matter.

Experience shows that sanctions here are unwieldy, take time to crank up, are difficult to enforce and are of limited effectiveness.

A military operation to seize indicted war criminals is not likely to be an official operation of the NATO forces in Bosnia, NATO officials say. That would require changing the NATO mandate that NATO forces may seize an indicted war criminal only if they happen to come upon him.

The consensus needed to do that is lacking, with Greece and Britain being the leading opponents. Some advocates of capturing Karadzic believe it can be done within the current mandate.

In a recent interview, Adm. Leighton Smith, commander of the NATO forces in Bosnia, said that the military was more willing to take risks in Bosnia than has been the public perception, and that if the politicians gave the order to arrest war criminals, his forces would do so.

Smith's statement shocked the State Department, which had been accustomed to hearing the military explain why it could not more aggressively pursue the war criminals.

The most likely scenario, Western officials say, is that in private meetings Clinton will seek the support of Prime Minister John Major of Britain and President Jacques Chirac of France, for an operation to seize Karadzic.

A Western official likened such a capture to a personal medical operation. For the first few days afterwards, the official explained, there is pain, and you wonder why you did it, but then the pain goes away and you realize it was worth it.

There is also a consensus that getting Karadzic out of political power is more important for the immediate future in Bosnia than capturing Mladic, or any of the other indicted war criminals. They also believe that Mladic is far more popular with the Bosnian Serbs than Karadzic, and so arresting him might raise more of a public outcry.

Karadzic, in his effort to stay in power, and out of The Hague, made a show Monday of handing over power to the Bosnian Serb vice-president Biljana Plavsic. Wednesday, he announced that he would not be a candidate in the elections scheduled for Sept. 14.

"It is not enough," said an administration official in Washington. Karadzic remains head of the Serb Democratic Party, and as one official pointed out, under the communist system -- the only system Karadzic and most of the other Serbian leaders have any experience with -- the head of the party is the most powerful official.

What's more, U.S. and NATO officials say, as long as Karadzic is around, moderate Bosnian Serb leaders, who are anxious to integrate their zone into the West, will not have a chance of developing any public support.

Karadzic's presence further leads to divisiveness in Bosnia, by giving militant Muslims a rallying cry, Western officials say.

The Dayton accord prohibits indicted war criminals from holding office and requires the signers of the agreement to cooperate with the tribunal. During the Dayton talks and in the months afterwards, Milosevic repeatedly assured U.S. and NATO envoys that he would take care of sidelining Karadzic and Mladic.

Some officials always felt that relying on these assurances was naive, given Milosevic's role in starting the war. But, unable to come up with any other solution, they clung to Milosevic.

But in a recent meeting with his top advisers on Bosnia, Clinton asked if Milosevic could be counted on to deliver the Bosnian Serb leaders.

"It was the right question," said an administration official, who said that the answer from everyone at the meeting was no.

In Geneva on June 2, Milosevic told U.S. officials, for the first time, that he was not in a position to deliver Karadzic, or Mladic, to the Hague, and indeed, that he would not even arrest Mladic if he came to Belgrade, which he does regularly.

Then at the end of June, in meetings with U.S. and NATO officials, Milosevic made it clear that he did not even have the power to remove Karadzic from the political scene.

He told NATO officials the elections would take care of Karadzic. But the officials say that is too late.

In recent weeks, NATO soldiers have dramatically increased their patrols in Pale, Karadzic's mountain stronghold, and jets and helicopters continually buzz overhead.

Some U.S. and NATO officials believe, or at least hope, that this activity will intimidate Karadzic sufficiently so that he can not play an active political role.

But this appears to be a minority view, the broader one being that more drastic measures will have to be taken.