Serb Chief Gives Power To Loyalist War Crimes Suspect Still Defies International Calls To Resign

Radovan Karadzic, an indicted war crimes suspect who has repeatedly foiled international attempts to topple him, has handed over all powers of the so-called Bosnian Serb presidency to a hard-line loyalist, Western officials announced Sunday.

But Bosnian Serb officials, in a development that cast a heavy shadow on the announcement, insisted that although Karadzic had transferred power to ultranationalist Biljana Plavsic, he had not resigned as president and would continue to influence policy, at least until national elections in September.

Plavsic, a former biology professor who once described the practice of “ethnic cleansing” as “a completely natural thing,” said she had assumed Karadzic’s duties because he is “temporarily incapable of fulfilling his functions.”

She said Karadzic needs to devote all of his time to the upcoming elections.

The unsettled situation, in the context of the ever-murky Balkans political scene, was seen as progress in the agonizing Western effort to sideline Karadzic. But no one was willing to claim more than a partial victory.

“We have a step in the right direction, but at the same time we don’t have what we want,” said Michael Steiner, deputy to High Representative Carl Bildt, the Swedish diplomat in charge of overseeing civilian aspects of last year’s peace accord.

There was considerable consternation Sunday among some international officials, Western diplomats and opposition Bosnian Serb politicians that the wily Bosnian Serb leader was pulling yet another fast one.

“I don’t like these charades,” said one top-ranking official with an international organization in Sarajevo. “I want to see him (at the international war crimes tribunal) in The Hague. Nothing short of that is satisfactory.”

MEMO: Changed from the Idaho edition.