Nato Pulls Plug On Hard-Line Bosnia TV Karadzic Clique Had Managed To Sneak Back On Air For Anti-West Propaganda

Backed by helicopters and armored vehicles, NATO troops Saturday took control of a television system that had been hijacked by hard-line Bosnian Serb nationalists for two days of broadcasting laced with anti-West commentary.

The Serbs’ signal fell silent just after noon, in the middle of a showing of the Disney cartoon “101 Dalmatians.” At the same time, U.S. troops, accompanied by cooperative Bosnian Serb technicians, occupied the site of a transmission tower about 50 miles north of Sarajevo that was the suspected origin of the renegade broadcasts.

Saturday’s actions ended, at least temporarily, pirate transmissions that have embarrassed officials in charge of enforcing the December 1995 treaty that stopped Bosnia-Herzegovina’s 3-1/2-year war.

Serbs loyal to indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic were banished from the airwaves Oct. 1, when the NATO seized key Bosnian Serb transmitting towers in order to silence what international officials said was “poisonous” propaganda hat incited violence against peacekeepers.

Television transmission, which until then had come out of the hard-liners’ bastion in Pale, was turned over to Western-backed Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, who is based in the northern city of Banja Luka. This deprived the Karadzic faction of its chief propaganda tool just as it was fighting a bitter power struggle with Plavsic.

But the Karadzic clique managed to circumvent the ban and sneak back onto the airwaves Thursday, pre-empting the Banja Luka television transmission in parts of the Republika Srpska, as the Bosnian Serb half of the country is known.

Karadzic’s supporters complained that they were being unfairly denied their right to speak out. Aleksa Buha, an official of Karadzic’s Serbian Democratic Party, contended in a broadcast Friday night that NATO peacekeepers are an occupation force that is constantly changing the rules.

Although Saturday’s operation by NATO forces succeeded in driving the Pale Serbs off the airwaves, it failed to restart the Banja Luka signal. British Maj. Chris Riley, a spokesman for NATO’s Stabilization Force in Bosnia, said the transmission tower had been sabotaged before the U.S. troops arrived and that some equipment had been removed.

Riley said the Pale Serbs’ hijacking of the airwaves was a “foolish” action and that unspecified “further steps” would be taken to bring the Serbs into line.

Earlier this month, the chief international agency in charge of the peace process, the Office of the High Representative, set conditions for the Pale Serbs to fulfill before they would be allowed back on the air. International officials said Saturday that it seems less likely than ever that the Pale leadership will comply.

The demands include the removal of Karadzic proxy Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb member of Bosnia’s three-man presidency, and of other political appointees from the board of the Pale television station. Journalists would have to submit to training, and news programs to a set of ethical standards.

Privately, U.S. officials have vowed to keep the Pale Serbs off the air at least until after Nov. 23 parliamentary elections.