Nato Troops Spot War Crimes Suspect Peacekeepers Feared Deadly Shootout If Bosnian Serb Leader Detained
The resolve of NATO’s peacekeeping force to apprehend indicted war crimes suspects was called into question Wednesday when NATO officials acknowledged that troops had encountered Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic but did not detain him.
NATO officials said peacekeeping troops spotted Karadzic four or five times Tuesday in the northern town of Banja Luka, where the Bosnian Serb leader keeps an office and where U.N. High Representative Carl Bildt was meeting with Bosnian Serb and Bosnian government officials.
Karadzic was said to be heavily guarded, and Adm. Leighton W. Smith, commander of the peacekeeping force, said a confrontation could have set off a deadly shootout.
“I admire their responsible reaction in not trying to do something that would have very, very likely created a considerable problem and potentially resulted in death or serious injury of some civilians in the area,” Smith said of the NATO troops on Bosnian television.
Karadzic has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, and NATO troops are obligated under the Dayton, Ohio, peace accord to cooperate with the tribunal. Smith had said NATO troops would not “hunt down” war crimes suspects but would apprehend them if they came across them in the course of regular duties.
Just last week, the NATO peacekeeping force, known as IFOR, distributed posters of Karadzic and 50 other indictees to troops in the field, in response to news reports that Karadzic had passed freely through NATO checkpoints. A NATO investigation determined that the reports were false, but officials distributed the posters anyway after a public outcry over NATO’s seeming indifference to the issue.
“At no time did (Karadzic) come into contact with any IFOR patrol or checkpoint,” said IFOR spokesman Lt. Col. Brian Hoey of the Tuesday incident. “Those soldiers that did catch sight of him were generally in pairs and did not have the strength of numbers to detain him.”
Hoey said he did not know how many IFOR troops were in Banja Luka at the time, although Bildt reportedly had asked for a stepped-up presence because of his meetings.
NATO officials also could not explain why additional troops were not summoned to assist in detaining Karadzic, since he was seen by the patrols over a three-hour period.
“There is a big possibility that Karadzic was there because of a very simple reason,” said Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic, who was in Banja Luka to meet Bildt. “Because he thought then that nobody can or would dare to arrest him, because in that case he would take us as hostages.”