Pentagon mulling over indictment

[Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>]

Pentagon mulling over indictment

 Thursday, 27 May 1999 22:37 (GMT)

 (NOTE: adds more comment form other pentagon officials)
 (UPI Focus)
 Pentagon mulling over indictment
    WASHINGTON, May 27 (UPI) - Pentagon officials close to the Balkans
 crisis say the indictment of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and
 four other Serb leaders for crimes against humanity is unlikely to lead
 to an arrest, but could embolden political opposition to the leader and
 drive him underground.
    The indictment and arrest warrants issued by the International War
 Crimes tribunal in The Hague "really don't give NATO any special
 powers," a Pentagon official said.
    NATO troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina attached to the peacekeeping force
 do have the power to arrest indicted war criminals, but it is under
 authority of a U.N. mandate and their own rules of engagement, said John
 Heffernan, executive director of the Coalition for International
 Justice. The indicted can not be tried in abstentia.
    The soldiers may arrest known perpetrators, but are only to do so
 when they "come across them" and only when it is tactically feasible,
 the Pentagon source said.
    "The mandate doesn't call for hunting them down like bounty hunters,
 " he said.
    Several of the indicted maintain large personal security forces,
 making their arrest a dangerous endeavor for troops, the source said.
    The net effect of the indictment, then, may not be their imprisonment
 but their being driven underground, which in turn could diminish their
 influence over the country, the official said.
    "The indictment itself represents an effort to marginalize
 Milosevic, to say he can't and shouldn't participate in negotiating
 peace," said Heffernan.
    That has happened in the cases of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic,
 leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the conflict there. They were
 indicted in 1995 and remain at large. However, they are no longer in
 power and are hiding; their absence has allowed political gains for more
 moderate Serb leaders, the source said.
    "This makes it easier for dissenting voices within the elite regime
 to oppose Milosevic," he said.
    That possibility is certainly on the minds of Pentagon leaders.
    "I would believe - this might be optimistic, but there may be a lot
 of leadership in the military or security services who would like to
 disassociate themselves from indicted war criminals, especially if
 they're not responsible for these kind of atrocities," said Rear Adm.
 Thomas Wilson, director of the Joint Staff's intelligence office.
    According to Heffernan, the indictments help NATO both politically
 and morally in its continuing war against Milosevic's regime.
    But the indictment also makes it harder for Milosevic to agree to
 NATO's demands to end the conflict, knowing that with peace comes a
 peacekeeping force and the very means for his apprehension. If captured,
 he would be forced to stand trial at The Hague and if found guilty,
 could spend the rest of his life in jail.
    "It cuts both ways," the official said.
    Wilson agrees with that either/or assessment.
    "I think it could make negotiations a challenge, and it could make
 fissures more likely. But it's too early to tell," Wilson said.
    In the meantime, NATO will not let it affect its two-month-old
 campaign.
    "It's not going to affect our military campaign. We can bomb an
 indicted war criminal as easy as we can one that we just suspect," said
 Wilson.
    The war crimes tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has a total of 28
 indicted criminals in its custody from the Bosnian-Serb war, 10 of which
 were arrested by the Bosnian peackeeping force.