Karadzic will not surrender says his wife
By Zeljko Debelnogic
PALE, Bosnia, July 5 (Reuters) - The wife of Bosnian Serb wartime leader
and
fugitive war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic said on Thursday her
husband
would not surrender to international justice and testify against
Slobodan
Milosevic.
Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic [hmmm...funny how the wife of the man who
supposedly
directed a racist, genocidal and masoginistic campaign of rape has kept
her
familly name. I wonder how many wives of NATO leaders were allowed to
do the
same?] denied as misinformation talk that her husband would give himself
up
to the tribunal in The Hague and testify against his former patron,
ex-Yugoslav President Milosevic, in exchange for a lighter sentence.
The swift rebuttal of a Western news agency report that Karadzic was
ready to
turn himself in threw cold water over hopes Karadzic and Bosnian Serb
wartime
military chief Ratko Mladic could soon be following Milosevic.
"I thought it (the rumour) had to be taken with a pinch of salt and the
pinch
of salt came today," said Jean-Jacques Joris, political advisor to chief
U.N.
war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who wants more Bosnian Serb
cooperation with the court.
"The attitude of Radovan Karadzic towards that tribunal has not changed,
nor
will it change under any conditions," Zelen-Karadzic said in a statement
released in Karadzic's wartime stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo.
The extradition of Milosevic last week has put pressure on the Bosnian
Serb
authorities to arrest Karadzic and Mladic, the most prominent indicted
war
criminals still at large.
But both men are extremely well protected and neither Bosnian Serbs nor
the
20,000 NATO troops keeping the peace in Bosnia, and charged with
arresting
war criminals, have shown much appetite for going after them.
BELIEVED TO BE HIDING IN EASTERN BOSNIA
Karadzic and Mladic have been on the run since 1995 and are believed to
be
hiding in Serb-held eastern Bosnia. Mladic also enjoys a degree of
Yugoslav
Army protection and is still popular with Bosnian Serbs for his robust
wartime leadership.
They have been indicted twice by the tribunal, for the 1992-95 siege of
Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica but
both
reject the court's authority.
Some 200,000 people died in Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which ended with the
Dayton
peace treaty that split the Balkan country into a Muslim-Croat
federation and
a Serb republic.
Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic [who was appointed by Bosnia's
Austrian governor after election results were anulled] said on Wednesday
the
arrest of the two loomed closer and it would be made easier after the
adoption of a law on cooperation with the tribunal.
Ivanic, who was starting a three-day visit to the tribunal, denied he
knew
their whereabouts and criticised the West for not handing over
information
needed to grab fugitives.
But a spokesman for Wolfgang Petritsch, the top peace overseer in
Bosnia,
said Ivanic's government did not need either the law or outside
assistance
for the arrests.
"PRACTICAL AND LEGAL COMPETENCE"
"They have the competence, both the practical and legal competence, so I
would not see that there is any argument that they are incapable of
finding
and arresting these people," Kevin Sullivan told Reuters.
Mark Wheeler, of the International Crisis Group think-tank, said it was
"inconceivable" that Ivanic's government would order Bosnian Serb
military or
police to arrest Karadzic or Mladic.
The government relies on crucial support from the nationalist Serb
Democratic
Party, founded by Karadzic in 1990 and belived to be still under his
influence.
"He (Ivanic) is simply delegated by the SDS to present an acceptable
face of
the Serb republic," he said.
Wheeler said the international community and the Bosnian Serbs kept
throwing
the ball into each other's court over who has to carry out the arrests.
"I think that the Serb republic has a more accurate grasp of the
situation.
If the arrests are to be made it will have to be done by SFOR," he said.
The 20,000-strong NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) has also been
criticised by prosecutor del Ponte for not doing enough to arrest
Karadzic
and Mladic.
"SFOR is fully committed to work with the IC (international community)
in
bringing the remaining fugitives to justice," SFOR spokesman Captain
John
Ruth told reporters.
10:49 07-05-01
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
