COMMENT: Net Around Hague Fugitives May Tighten

In the year in which the tribunal celebrates its tenth anniversary, seven Hague indictees may well celebrate the eighth anniversary of their evasion of international justice.

Florence Hartmann, prosecution spokesperson, used the first press conference of the New Year to remind reporters of this fact, reading out a list of 24 Hague fugitives.

Since then, on Monday, January 20, Milan Milutinovic, former president of Serbia, indicted for the crimes against humanity in Kosovo in May 1999, turned himself in.

The majority of these fugitives, as Hartmann indicated, had been indicted in the Nineties, and seven among them in the period between February and November 1995.

The fugitive longest on the run is Goran Borovnica, indicted in February 1995 together with Dusko Tadic (who in the meantime was sentenced to twenty years in prison) for killings in Kozarac, near Prijedor.

There are then four whose indictments and arrest warrants were issued in July 1995. This group is headed by former political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide and other crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

At the same time, indictments were issued for Zeljko Meakic, commander of notorious Bosnian Serb Omarska camp, and Ivica Rajic, commander of Bosnian Croat forces which massacred the Muslim population of the village of Stupni Do in central Bosnia.

Also indicted in 1995 are officers of the former Yugoslav national army, JNA – Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic – accused of the massacre of more than 200 civilians taken from Vukovar hospital and shot at Ovcara farm.

A year later, these fugitives were joined by Gojko Jankovic and Dragan Zelenovic, indicted for rape and sexual enslavement of Muslim girls and women in Foca. Since then, three suspects named in the same indictment, Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic, have been sentenced to 28, 20 and 12 years in prison respectively. Another two Foca indictees, Dragan Gagovic and Janko Janjic, were killed during attempted arrests.

Indicted in 1997 and still at large are Savo Todovic and Mitar Rasevic, deputy and assistant of Milorad Krnojelac, former warden of Foca prison, who in the meantime was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for crimes committed against imprisoned Muslim civilians.

Unless something unexpected happens, General Dragomir Milosevic, former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska will also celebrate the fifth anniversary of his evasion of international justice. He is indicted for the second phase of the shelling and sniping of Sarajevo, which lasted from August 1994 until the end of the war. General Stanislav Galic is currently on trial for the first phase, from September 1992 until July 1994.

In 1998, Milan and Sredoje Lukic were indicted. They were commanders of paramilitary forces, which operated in Visegrad and committed some of the gravest crimes in eastern Bosnia, including two incidents in which more than 130 civilians were burned alive. Indicted with them was Mitar Vasiljevic, who was tried for Visegrad crimes and jailed for 20 years.

The list of alleged war criminals also indicted in 1998 includes Colonel Vinko Pandurevic, commander of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska, accused of genocide in Srebrenica. His superior officer at the time, General Radislav Krstic – commander of Drina corps during the Srebrenica operation – was sentenced to 46 years in prison for the same crime.

After the surrender of Milutinovic, there is one more fugitive from the Nineties remaining on Del Ponte’s list: Stojan Zupljanin, former chief of police of the so-called Autonomous Region of Krajina, who was indicted in March 1998 for genocide in north-western Bosnia. He was charged together with Radoslav Brdjanin, who is on trial, and General Momir Talic, provisionally released because of terminal illness.

Among those indicted in 2001 are former JNA captain Vladimir Kovacevic, also known as “Rambo”, who is accused of shelling Dubrovnik, and Croatian army general, Ante Gotovina, charged with crimes committed against Serbian civilians during and after Operation Storm in the summer of 1995.

The most recent addition to Del Ponte’s list is Croatian general Janko Bobetko, indicted last year for crimes committed against Serbs in the so-called Medak Pocket in Croatia, and a group of officers of the Army of Republika Srpska indicted for participation in the joint criminal enterprise in Srebrenica: Ljubomir Borovcanin, Ljubomir Beara, Vujadin Popovic and Drago Nikolic.

At least half of the fugitives are known, or at least assumed, to be hiding somewhere in Yugoslavia. Some are not hiding at all.

Until recently, Veselin Sljivancanin was an active Yugoslav army officer and a military academy lecturer. Locals joked that he taught international humanitarian law.

Mladic reportedly underwent a medical examination at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade and there are rumours that on this occasion he even visited General Talic, who was being treated there.

It is assumed that the majority of the indictees among the top ranking officers of the Army of Republika Srpska, all of whom served in the JNA until 1992 and remained on the payroll and pension benefit lists of its successor, the VJ, ever since, are also hiding in Yugoslavia.

The authorities in Belgrade, however, are not in a hurry to bring these fugitives to justice. Their level of cooperation with the tribunal is minimal to say the least.

After “persuading“ Milutinovic to turn himself, the Belgrade authorities, it seems, will request “a break“ from tribunal before the next delivery of fugitives from Del Ponte’s list.

However, they’re unlikely to get one. On the contrary, there’s a distinct possibility that in the year of the tribunal’s tenth anniversary, additional pressure will be applied, not only against Belgrade, but also Banja Luka and Zagreb, to clear, if not all then at least the most important, of The Hague prosecution’s “unsettled debts“.

For example, the likes of Karadzic and Mladic, Gotovina and Bobetko; the Srebrenica Five headed by Pandurovic and Beara; as well as the remaining two members of the Vukovar Three – Sljivancanin and Radic.

It is difficult even to imagine that the tribunal could finish its operation without bringing them to justice, in spite of the fact that many members of the international community are eager to see the tribunal wound down.

The fact that some have successfully evaded justice for more than seven years is a shame – not for the tribunal, which is not equipped with the instruments of coercion that could be used to bring them to trial – but for those who have such instruments at their disposal, but refrain from using them.

Most of all, the present situation is a consequence of 20 months of hesitation – from December 1995 until July 1997 – to arrest the accused who freely mingled under the nose of the 70,000-strong international forces of IFOR and SFOR.

There are already several indications that the international community will be placing greater pressure on Balkan states to deliver Hague fugitives.

The European Union has made fulfilment of obligations towards the tribunal one of the key prerequisites for integration of the countries from this region into European institutions.

Several EU member countries have already refused to ratify the Agreement on Stabilisation and Association, which had been already concluded with Croatia, because of its Hague cooperation record.

There is no doubt that Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, countries that have not concluded such agreements so far, will encounter similar problems.

US ambassador at-large for war crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, is travelling to the region this week in order to remind the authorities in Belgrade, Banja Luka and Zagreb of the strong link between their cooperation with the tribunal and US financial aid and political support in international institutions.

Washington is obviously in a hurry to disengage from the Balkans, but seemingly it would be embarrassing to do so while there is so much “unfinished work“ left in respect of the fugitives who keep evading international justice.

Finally, the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, and other international officials engaged in the implementation of the Dayton agreements, announced last week a new initiative which, they say, should weaken the network of support for Karadzic, and thus, possibly, make it easier for SFOR to arrest him.

A variety of measures are being considered, including, among others, freezing financial assets and visa bans for persons suspected of providing monetary and logistical support for the former Bosnian Serb leader and other suspects.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this late display of determination by the international community will yield results.

Mirko Klarin is a senior IWPR editor in The Hague and the editor in chief of SENSE news agency.