BOSNIANS EASE STAND ON ARRESTS\War crimes court must be consulted.Byline: Chris Hedges Christopher L. Hedges (born 18 September, 1956 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont) is a journalist and author, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Trying to defuse the latest threat to the Bosnian peace effort, the Bosnian government announced Monday that it no longer would arrest people on suspicion of war crimes without authorization from the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The announcement followed talks with Assistant Secretary of State Richard C. Holbrooke, an architect of the Dayton peace agreement, who shuttled between Sarajevo and Belgrade to reduce tensions that arose after Bosnian officials arrested several Serbs, including two senior military officers, on suspicion of war crimes. On Monday night, in what appeared to be a result of the same negotiations, NATO NATO: see North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO in full North Atlantic Treaty Organization International military alliance created to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. officials here announced that they had provided an aircraft to fly the two Serbian officers at the center of the controversy to The Hague, and turned them over to the custody of the war crimes tribunal. But even as NATO ferried the Serbian officers, officials of its peacekeeping force peacekeeping force n → fuerza de pacificación peacekeeping force n → forces fpl qui assurent le maintien de la paix suggested that the approximately 60,000 troops deployed in Bosnia would not seek to detain any of the 52 people indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. for war crimes so far, including the Bosnian Serb commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and the Bosnian Serb political leader, Radovan Karadzic. The peace agreement, when it was drawn up in Ohio last fall, called on the soldiers stationed here to detain war criminals if they encountered them. The detention of the two officers and at least eight other military men prompted the Bosnian Serbs to sever all contact with the United Nations and the NATO-led force Wednesday. Four of the detainees were later released, and the order to cut off contact was later rescinded by the Bosnian Serb political leadership. The Bosnian government said it would send a list of suspects to The Hague. Those certified as suspects can be arrested at will on federation territory, said Muhamed Sacirbey Muhamed Sacirbey (born Muhamed Šaćirbegović on July 20 1956) is a Bosnian-American lawyer and businessman who served at the pleasure of the Bosnian government during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and shortly after. , the Bosnian foreign minister. Holbrooke said: "We feel that the better understanding of what we would call rules of the road is now in effect, and tensions that have risen in recent days should now begin to abate abate v. to do away with a problem, such as a public or private nuisance or some structure built contrary to public policy. This can include dikes which illegally direct water onto a neighbors property, high volume noise from a rock band or a factory, an improvement ." The two senior officers, Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic, were arrested Jan. 30 after taking a wrong turn into government territory. On Monday evening, they were taken handcuffed from a Sarajevo prison, driven from the city in a NATO armored vehicle and flown to the Netherlands in an American C-130 transport. A NATO spokesman in Sarajevo said the alliance's military force carried out the transfer after Bosnian government authorities had approved the release. "It is a further indication of NATO's active support for the work of the international war crimes tribunal and its readiness, within its capabilities, to assist the tribunal in carrying out its tasks," the statement said. It remains unclear whether Mladic, who issued the ultimatum ultimatum (ŭl'tĭmā`təm), in international law, final, definitive terms submitted by one disputant nation to the other for immediate acceptance or rejection. to sever ties with the NATO-led force, is a party to the agreement. But along with the transfer of the two officers held by the Bosnian government to the tribunal, the NATO force also made significant concessions to the Bosnian Serbs. IFOR IFOR Implementation Force IFOR International Fellowship of Reconciliation IFOR International Force (less common) IFOR International Peacekeeping Force IFOR Intelligent Forces IFOR Inertial Frame of Reference officials said soldiers in the field do not have sufficient background material to identify and detain any of the 52 indicted war criminals. The soldiers, they said, have not been briefed on who the indicted war criminals are, what they look like or what proper procedures would be if a patrol encountered one. That stance has angered many in the Bosnian government, who had hoped to see IFOR troops bring indicted war criminals, most of whom are Serbian, to trial. Sacirbey said IFOR "has not been entirely consistent with what we agreed to in Dayton." CAPTION(S): PHOTO One of two Bosnian Serb officers later flown to the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague is led from the central Sarajevo jail. Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. |
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