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| MAKING THE ARREST | |
 December 3, 1998 
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Radislav Krstic, a high-ranking Serb military official suspected of war crimes in Bosnia, was arrested by NATO troops on Wednesday. Margaret Warner and guests discuss the arrest and its implications for other suspected war criminals.
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MARGARET WARNER: Yesterday, US - NATO troops arrested Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic in the American-patrolled sector of Bosnia. The arrest came on a secret indictment issued October 30th by the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague. The indictment charges Krstic with having committed genocide during the Bosnian-Serb siege of the town of Srebrenica in the summer and fall of 1995. We have an update on today's developments from Paul Davies of Independent Television News. PAUL DAVIES: Cameras were kept well away as the military transport plane carrying the Bosnian-Serb general arrived in the Netherlands. General Krstic was driven under armed escort to the Hague, where he'll stand trial. Radislav Krstic is the most senior member of the Bosnian-Serb army arrested for alleged war crimes. He commanded Serb forces besieging the so-called Muslim safe haven of Srebrenica, and he's said in the tribunal's indictment to have been a key figure in planning and executing the slaughter of its Muslim inhabitants. The general answered only to the Bosnian-Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who remains on the tribunal's wanted list. General Krstic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He's also accused of obstructing investigators trying to hide the mass graves where the bodies of Srebrenica's victims were buried. MARGARET WARNER: For more now we're joined by Roy Gutman, international security reporter for Newsday. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his coverage of wartime atrocities in Bosnia; and Ivo Daalder, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, from 1995 to '96 he oversaw US-Bosnia policy as director for European affairs on the National Security Council. Roy, tell us a little bit more about Krstic. How significant a figure is he within the Bosnian military? |
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MARGARET WARNER: And are his fingers all over Srebrenica? ROY GUTMAN: In a very major way. He was promoted to major general just on the eve of the assault on Srebrenica, and so he took over the command. He was the field commander. I - in 1996 - came across some intercepts that the Bosnian government - army had made, which had - actually link Krstic directly to the killing, in fact. MARGARET WARNER: By intercepts, what do you mean? ROY GUTMAN: Well, the Bosnian army was monitoring by radio the short
wave and walkie talkie communications. It wasn't very far away in Srebrenica
while the assault was going on. In fact, I could read you one that I
took down at the time. This was on the 14th of July, 1995. MARGARET WARNER: Even in a war noted for some real atrocities, Srebrenica did stand out, didn't it? IVO DAALDER, Brookings Institution: Srebrenica is the turning point in the war, both in terms of the large scale of atrocities in a space of about six, seven days, 7,000 men from young boys to old men were slaughtered in the most horrible fashion. And at that point the West finally said, enough is enough, so it was a major, major event. It came three years into the war, which has already seen many thousands die, but this short massacre, the worst kind of massacre we've seen in Europe since 1945, became the galvanizing force for the West to finally act. MARGARET WARNER: How significant is his arrest? In other words, he is - as Roy was saying - the highest-ranking officer so far to be arrested, but there have been others. Is this - is the timing of this significant, or the fact that he's been arrested particularly significant? |
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Significance of the arrest. |
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IVO DAALDER: Well, it's significant in the fact that he was only indicted
about a month ago, and within that spate of a month we found MARGARET WARNER: What do you want to add to that, in terms of the significance of the decision to arrest him and arresting him? ROY GUTMAN: You know, if - just give it a historical context - it's 50 years since the genocide convention was signed and drafted. This is the first time really in history that people are being arrested who are, you know, top-serving officers charged with genocide. So that's one significance. Secondly, there is a kind of - in the more immediate sense - a kind of a warning that's attached to this, which is that NATO troops are going to be more active, and I think the Americans are going to be more active. And there's been other signs of the same increased attention and really determination to get these indictees before the tribunal. In the last few days I've heard that the administration has decided - they've had congressional support - to offer a kind of bounty for some of the top missing or at large war criminals, up to $5 million for Radovan Karadzic, who was the civilian leader, or Ratko - the same amount probably for Ratko Mladic - who was the military commander. So you have - you know - a whole variety of different ways of going at the same issue. And it seems that there's a much more intense effort now to do this. It may be that they're even beginning to develop a policy - a strategy - that's going to lead to a change in the whole region. But these are - you know - beginning signs. I don't want to draw any conclusions. MARGARET WARNER: The US troops did nab this guy. As I think we all remember, back at the negotiation of the Dayton peace accords, the US military was very wary of being put in a position of having to confront and arrest people like this. Is this a change? |
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Change of policy? |
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IVO DAALDER: It's an evolution from where we were in the beginning. In the beginning - when NATO troops went in - the US military and all the other NATO troops said we don't know the situation we're going in - if we were to arrest immediately major war criminals or even minor war criminals. We don't know what the Bosnian-Serb reaction is. But we're now three years into this. We have been with troops on the ground almost for three years. December 20th is the anniversary. And we know the situation. We now can take greater risks. And starting in July 1997, NATO troops - first British, then Dutch - now Americans - have started to nab those guys that we can find. And as Roy said, with the possibility of putting bounties on the top of the - on the heads of the most major war criminals, there seems to be an effort here to move from an opportunistic - an opportunistic means to arrest war criminals to a strategy to get the real big guys. IVO DAALDER: Yes, I would feel very nervous. It's clear again showing that NATO is willing to take action. If I were somebody who had committed atrocities but was not yet indicted, I would also feel very nervous, but because this was an indictment that was not publicized, Mr. Karadzic did not know that he was about to be named and anybody who has a bad conscience now must feel, well, wait a minute, can I travel this road, maybe I meet a NATO road block, which will get me to the Hague, because I don't know whether I'm indicted or not. And it is that kind of caution that starts to move the bad guys out of Bosnia and allows a new reconciliation to emerge. MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Roy, that this will make it - I notice that the Bosnian-Serbs were very outraged at this - and their president called it a terrorist act - and they were going to cooperate as much with the NATO troops. Do you think this could even in the short term undermine the peacekeeping operation?
MARGARET WARNER: He's running the - ROY GUTMAN: He's sort of the deputy in charge of the entire Bosnia international operation there. And I think they can manage. For the longest time they had great support from Serbia, itself, from the old - what's left of Yugoslavia from Milosevic. The top officers are still being paid. But that has attenuated over time because simply Serbia is going downhill very quickly, and the Bosnian-Serb Republic has to sort of make it - if it's going to survive at all, it's got to find a way with the rest of Bosnia. So I think that sooner or later, even though there's now a very radical man who's the president of - Mr. Ploplasin - who's made some of these threats - there's no future in that, and I'm sure the Americans and the others will make that very clear if he doesn't understand it. MARGARET WARNER: Now also we've heard a few new words this week from the State Department about Milosevic, himself. Jamie Rubin, the State Department spokesman, said earlier this week, well, he's not just part of the problem; he is the problem. That's new, isn't it? IVO DAALDER: It's new for the State Department. It's not new for some
of us who have been arguing that for quite a long time. But it is gratifying
that the State Department at least is now moving to look at Milosevic
not as part of the solution, as the man you go to, to negotiate the
peace deal, but as the man who, in fact, underlies the problem that
we have. In essence, I think the State Department has come to the conclusion
that Mr. Milosevic is weak, and that from this weakness it is now possible
that by rhetoric and other kinds of actions, one can push him in order
to force a democratization of Serbia, if not his actual departure from
power. I don't think you can have democratization of Serbia with him
in power. And the next couple of months with the MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you very much, Ivo Daalder and Roy Gutman. |
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ROY
GUTMAN, Newsday: Krstic is actually and still a serving officer
in the Bosnian-Serb army. He's - the payroll, of course, is that of
Yugoslavia. He's paid by Slobodan Milosevic's government. He is the
- probably the most high-ranking of all of the indictees who have been
arrested so far. He commanded a corps, the Drina River Corps, of the
Bosnian-Serb army, which makes him, I suppose, one of the top half dozen
military officials - officers in the Bosnian-Serb army. 
Major General Ogrenovic had reported in to General Krstic that his troops
had captured a group of refugees, stopped a group of refugees three
kilometers long, which is two miles in length, in the area of Glojanje,
and reported this to Krstic. Krstic replied - these were his orders
- you must kill everybody; we don't need anyone alive. And that was
what happened.
him
- we presumably already knew where he was - and we picked him up. And
picking up probably the number four or five person in the Bosnian-Serb
army when the NATO troops who are now in Bosnia also would like to cooperate
with that army in the sense that they're not at war with the Bosnian-Serb
army and they would like to continue to cooperate, picking up a major
figure is gutsy, and tells you how much it is - how much this man has
done, how responsible he is personally for the genocide that happened
in Srebrenica. 
MARGARET
WARNER: So if you were Karadzic or Mladic, should you feel more nervous
now? 
ROY
GUTMAN: I think that it's well enough established. I think they've got
- they know who everybody is in the Bosnian-Serb leadership. They know
everybody who's capable of making trouble, and they know how to deal
with it. They've done it very effectively, General Jacques Klein, in
particular, knows how to deal with -
Kosovo
deal in its implementation and the confrontation that is now emerging
between Montenegro, one of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, that
would like to have a more independent economically liberal and politically
liberal course, and has opposed Mr. Milosevic for the last year or so,
that kind of confrontation is starting to call the power base of Mr.
Milosevic into question. 
