West Turns Up Heat on Serb Strongman

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The commander of the world’s most powerful military alliance travels to the village stronghold of war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic and suggests that he surrender “soon.” Simultaneously, NATO moves to hobble the special police guarding Karadzic. And Karadzic’s leading political opponent, with backing from Washington, fights on in her battle to sideline him and take control of the Bosnian Serb leadership.

In ways not seen in the 20 months since Bosnia’s war ended, Western officials are turning up the pressure on Karadzic, the most prominent of more than 70 Serbs, Croats and Muslims formally accused of committing atrocities during the savage 3 1/2-year conflict.

The psychological campaign is aimed at ending Karadzic’s behind-the-scenes hold on power, which Western officials say is undermining the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hints that he may be arrested soon--something NATO officers have thus far refused to do--are being made at all levels.

On Saturday, Biljana Plavsic, the Bosnian Serb president who has split with Karadzic and is now his greatest domestic nemesis, said she is confident that he will be out of the political picture within three months.

“He is only present through his party,” Plavsic said in an interview here in Banja Luka, her base, adding that she will forge ahead with efforts to create a political alternative, a new Bosnian Serb parliament and a government free of Karadzic’s influence.

Plavsic spent the day rallying support for a new political party that will challenge Karadzic’s omnipotence. A dozen defections were reported Saturday from Karadzic’s Serbian Democratic Party, or SDS, including key local officials expected to throw in their lot with Plavsic.

Saturday’s actions followed a setback for Plavsic: On Friday, the Bosnian Serbs’ highest court ruled that she acted illegally when she dissolved parliament July 3, a move she made as that legislative body schemed to oust her from office. The court similarly rejected Plavsic’s call for new parliamentary elections.

The ruling further polarizes the Bosnian Serb half of this country and sets the stage for a showdown between the pro-Karadzic leadership and the international mediators in charge of executing the U.S.-backed peace accords. The mediators sided with Plavsic and said they will ignore the court’s decision, which they labeled a “political” judgment made under pressure.

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Hard-liners loyal to Karadzic control the court, and one judge on the seven-member panel was reportedly beaten up after it became known he was planning to support Plavsic’s position. Bosnian Serb television, also controlled by Karadzic, reported that the judge had suffered a heart attack. He ultimately abstained.

Only one judge, Rajko Kuzmanovic of Banja Luka, dissented.

“I’m only sorry that the court’s authority is . . . compromised,” Plavsic said of Friday’s ruling.

Aleksa Buha, a senior official loyal to Karadzic, appeared on Bosnian Serb radio Saturday night to demand that Plavsic resign. Buha also waved off international officials who he said were about to “cross a dangerous line” by making Bosnia their protectorate.

Plavsic vowed to press ahead with elections to replace the legislative body that she dissolved, and international officials support her plan. But holding elections without the cooperation of the Karadzic faction, which controls all electoral machinery, seems virtually impossible.

Plavsic called on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Momcilo Krajisnik, a Karadzic ally who is the Serbian member of Bosnia’s three-man presidency, to hold up their end of the bargain as signatories to the December 1995 peace accords drafted in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton accords require the surrendering of Karadzic and all suspects indicted by the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, although Plavsic has previously said she would prefer that Karadzic be tried at home for corruption rather than on the genocide charges he faces.

Plavsic launched her attack on Karadzic in June, accusing him of getting rich through the smuggling of fuel and cigarettes while his impoverished people starve. She holds well-attended rallies and continues to speak out despite relentless criticism from the official Bosnian Serb media.

An ardent nationalist like Karadzic, Plavsic has been openly contemptuous of Muslims and has been an advocate of the wartime policy of “ethnic cleansing.” Her new political party, formed after she was kicked out of Karadzic’s SDS last month, is also ethnically based.

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But the West regards her as the Bosnian Serb official most willing to cooperate with international peacemakers.

“We are not supporting Plavsic as some vestal virgin,” said a senior Western official in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. “What we want is a leadership that will deal with the international community and not be influenced by Karadzic. Anything that erodes his power base is a good thing.”

Few in Bosnia believe that Plavsic can topple Karadzic. But international officials admire her staying power, noting that every day she hangs on is an achievement.

“Support for her is still big, but compared to the euphoria at the beginning, her support is significantly weakened,” said Miodrag Zivanovic, the leader of a small Banja Luka party who opposes both Plavsic and Karadzic.

“People are starting to think that in 50 days she didn’t achieve anything concrete. No arrests, no court proceedings. People here are getting the feeling that even she cannot change anything.”

Supporting Plavsic in her power struggle is but one prong in the West’s newly robust strategy to isolate Karadzic, part of an effort aimed at salvaging the moribund peace process before it collapses.

On Wednesday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme commander, U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark, traveled to Pale, the village that is the headquarters for Karadzic and his allies. Clark did not meet with Karadzic but said:

“I am encouraging Mr. Karadzic to turn himself in soon. I’m not setting a time limit; I’m saying, ‘Turn yourself in soon.’ ”

Earlier this month, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy who oversaw the drafting of the peace accords, was yanked out of retirement and dispatched to Bosnia to deliver stern warnings to Milosevic, who was long seen as the patron of the Bosnian Serbs.

In addition, NATO announced a crackdown on the paramilitary police who guard Karadzic and who are blamed for obstructing peace by blocking refugee returns and threatening Western officials. The so-called special police will no longer be allowed to carry long-barreled weapons or protect indicted war crimes suspects.

“All these things are pressures that are gradually, gradually building,” a senior Western official said. “You keep building the stress factors, and they [Karadzic’s people] become nervous. They do start to wobble.”