United States making plans to obtain arrests in Balkans

WASHINGTON -- In a diplomatic effort this week, the Bush administration is seeking to persuade Yugoslavia and Bosnia to arrest and hand over two prime suspects long wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

A State Department envoy is carrying the message that U.S. aid to Yugoslavia could be at risk if progress is not shown in cooperating with the Netherlands-based tribunal, a senior Bush administration official said.

Still at large

Still at large are Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the 1992-1995 war, and his wartime general, Ratko Mladic.

U.S. Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper will warn the Balkan countries that they never will achieve full international acceptance as long as Karadzic and Mladic remain on the loose years after their indictments. Prosper, who heads the State Department's office for war crimes issues, leaves Monday.

As a condition for releasing a portion of aid money to Yugoslavia, Congress has required that the administration annually certify that progress has been made. It was not clear how much aid is at stake; in 2002, the figure was $40 million.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, was turned over to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague in 2001 and is under trial on war crimes charges.

Karadzic is believed to be living underground in the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia. Mladic is said to be in Yugoslavia.

The administration official said Prosper will tell Yugoslav and Bosnian officials that their aspirations to join the European Union and other institutions will be thwarted so long as indicted suspects living under their jurisdiction are not held accountable.

During Bosnia's ethnic wars a decade ago, Karadzic's efforts to link the Bosnian Serbs in a single nation with other Serbs of former Yugoslavia won him nearly mythical status among many of his followers.

Karadzic and Mladic were indicted by the tribunal in July 1995 for alleged offenses during the war. Among their alleged crimes were the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from the eastern Bosnian enclave Srebrenica and the three-year-long siege of Sarajevo.

Jacques Paul Klein, who ran the U.N. mission that ended its decade-long stay in Bosnia in December, said on his departure that Karadzic's continued freedom has compromised the world's efforts to bring peace and stability to the country.

"Karadzic demonstrates unfortunately the impotence of the West and the face of evil," he said.

Prosper is to visit the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and travel to the Serb sector of the country, which has its own president and parliament.

Prosper told reporters two weeks ago that authorities in the Serb ministate in Bosnia "have danced around" the war crimes issue "for much too long and need to look at the difficult decisions that need to be made in order to be seen as a credible member of the international community."

He said he will assess what the 17,000 NATO-led stabilization forces in Bosnia can do to hunt down Karadzic and other war crimes suspects hiding in Bosnia. About 3,000 U.S. troops are in the Bosnia deployment.

Of the scores of suspects indicted by the U.N. tribunal over the years, 24 are still at large in Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia.