July 8, 1996

ABROAD AT HOME / By ANTHONY LEWIS

Crime and Blunder

OSTON -- Secretary of Defense William Perry is ordinarily an unflappable man, radiating inner confidence. But the other day, while on a visit to Bosnia, he blew up at a reporter who asked him why NATO forces did not arrest Radovan Karadzic, the accused war criminal who leads the Bosnian Serbs.

On that subject Mr. Perry is evidently uneasy. He knows that Dr. Karadzic and his fellow-indictee, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are making the United States and its allies look like weakling fools. He knows that the failure to bring them before the International War Crimes Tribunal threatens to turn the whole Dayton peace process into a bitter farce.

Through the years of their genocidal war, the Bosnian Serb leaders repeatedly made and broke promises to the U.N. Protection Force. The grisly climax came when General Mladic seized the supposed safe area of Srebrenica and butchered thousands while Unprofor did nothing.

Exactly the same tactic of false promises has been used again in recent months. Incredibly, the top civilian administrator of the Dayton peace process, Carl Bildt, has fallen for assurances that would not fool a child.

The Dayton accords forbid anyone under indictment for war crimes to hold office. Two months ago Mr. Bildt announced proudly that Dr. Karadzic had promised to step down as president of the Bosnian Serb Republic. He did not. Mr. Bildt threatened to reimpose sanctions on Serbia, which he has power to do under the Dayton terms. Then he said sanctions were not a good idea.

Last week Dr. Karadzic said that he was turning his "powers" over to the deputy he chose, Biljana Plavsic, another fanatical nationalist. That was hardly even a nod to appearances. And the Serb Democratic Party re-elected Dr. Karadzic as its leader.

The resulting prospect is this: In September Bosnia is to hold an election that, under Dayton, is supposed to start reknitting the country. But the main Serbian party will be controlled by an accused mass murderer, and its candidates will be his pawns. Under those conditions an election would legitimize Bosnia's division and the ethnic cleansing that brought it about. Dayton's promise of a restored Bosnia would be written off.

Carl Bildt was a dubious choice for civilian administrator all along. But in the end the responsibility is not his. The political leaders who produced the Dayton agreement will determine whether it survives or becomes another broken promise. Above all, that means President Clinton.

The Clinton Administration is taking some useful new steps. At the G-7 meeting the President announced creation of an international commission on the missing in the former Yugoslavia. It will be headed by former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who was once again willing to undertake a daunting assignment.

But there again the Karadzic-Mladic issue is critical. How can a commission hope to account for the missing in Bosnia while the authors of the violence are still in charge of the Serbian sector?

After Secretary Perry left Bosnia on this latest visit, he said the plan was to try "diplomatic means" to get Dr. Karadzic to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. That would be a fine idea if it worked, but history should make anyone skeptical.

The only thing that ever moved the Bosnian Serbs to more than empty promises during the war was force. Indeed, the Dayton negotiations took place only because NATO carried out serious bombing of Serbian military targets last summer. My belief is that Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic will surrender only if NATO, under American leadership, uses force or credibly threatens to use it.

The fate of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic has a significance much larger than Bosnia or the Dayton accords. Last week the War Crimes Tribunal heard ghastly evidence of their crimes. The commitments the world made against genocide after the Nazi experience are at stake in the effort to hold these men accountable for their evil.

But there is also an immediate political stake for President Clinton. Dayton has been touted as one of his prime foreign-policy achievements. He will pay a price if Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic get away with undoing Dayton -- and mocking American leadership. нн