UN judge takes aim at Yugoslav warlords

TONY BARBER

Europe Editor

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia is expected to issue another indictment today, capping a week in which it has taken aim at some of the highest-ranking Serb and Croat commanders in the conflicts. Brushing aside Serb and Croat complaints that this may derail peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, the tribunal is giving notice that political considerations will not deflect it from the application of universal principles of justice.

"What politicians have the moral, legal or political right to forgive people charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, without consulting the victims? I just find it abhorrent," the chief UN prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, said on Tuesday in The Hague, where the tribunal is based.

The war crimes under investigation are the worst committed in Europe since 1945, and include the Serb killing of 260 Croats in Vukovar in 1991, the Serb slaughter of thousands of Muslims near Srebrenica last July, and Croat atrocities against Muslims in central Bosnia in 1993.

All those indicted so far are Serbs or Croats, although one Muslim commander from eastern Bosnia, Naser Oric, has been unofficially tipped as a possible suspect.

Officials at the tribunal have indicated they want the long arm of international justice to extend as high as possible up the ladder of the Serbian leadership in Belgrade. In theory, this could mean naming President Slobodan Milosevic, an act that would severely test the world's determination to back the tribunal, as the Serbian leader's co-operation is deemed vital to securing a peace settlement in former Yugoslavia.

A list of the tribunal's suspects reads like a roll-call of the Bosnian Serb, Croatian Serb and Bosnian Croat leaderships of the last four years. Those charged include four Serbs who directed the war effort in Bosnia and Croatia - Radovan Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic, Milan Martic and General Mile Mrksic - as well as two Bosnian Croat leaders, Dario Kordic and General Tihomir Blaskic.

However, there is one problem. Out of 52 suspects, including 45 Serbs and seven Croats, the tribunal has custody of only one, a Bosnian Serb karate instructor, Dusan Tadic, whose trial is expected to start early next year.

The tribunal, strongly supported by the United States, says it expects the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian governments to surrender all suspects in their territories. But Croatia's President, Franjo Tudjman, treated the tribunal to a gesture of contempt on Tuesday by giving General Blaskic a job in Croatia's army inspectorate only a day after he had been charged with war crimes against Muslims in central Bosnia.

The move was a slap in the face to Bosnia's Muslim-led government and underlined the ease with which the Croatsswitch between military, political and administrative positions in Croatia and the Croat-controlled Bosnia. The Muslims and Croats signed an agreement in Ohio earlier this month on strengthening co-operation in Bosnia, but the accord looks somewhat hollow in the light of the protection extended by Mr Tudjman to a leading war-crimes suspect.

The US ambassador to Zagreb, Peter Galbraith, warned Croatia yesterday that the treatment of General Blaskic would be an important factor weighing on US relations with Croatia. "The only appointment Mr Blaskic can legally have now is with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague," the ambassador said.

The Ohio negotiations could run into even deeper trouble over the fate of Mr Karadzic and General Mladic, whom the US and the Bosnian government want removed from power and brought to trial as part of a peace deal. The official Bosnian Serb news service, quoting a source in the Bosnian Serb leadership, said this week that the two men would not withdraw from politics after peace was achieved.

The Belgrade magazine Nin reported last weekend that Mr Milosevic had secured the two men's agreement to make a "quiet departure" from public life in return for not being handed over to the UN tribunal. But the US government has flatly rejected any such deal, saying the indictments are not negotiable.

For his part, Mr Goldstone made clear this week that he and his staff would consider resigning rather than see such important suspected war criminals as Mr Karadzic and General Mladic escape trial.