The Warrant Goes to Tolstojeva 33

On April 3, the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Ha5gue ended its hearing on three officers of the former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) charged with the killing of 261 people, POWs and patients at the Vukovar hospital, at the Ovcara farm near Vukovar. The outcome of the public hearing which included testimony from a number of witnesses (including some who escaped the firing squad) was an international warrant for Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic. All three are know to be in the FRY: Mrksic was retired as a general last year and lives quietly in Belgrade; Captain Radic was demobilized at his own request in 1993 and runs a business; the whereabouts of Veselin Sljivancanin are well known - he's a colonel in the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and teaches at the military school centre in Belgrade.

The whole issue would not have caused any fuss in Belgrade if Sljivancanin had left active service or got lost somewhere in Bosnia between November 21, 1991 (when the alleged crime was committed) and this April: most of the 47 Serbs charged by the tribunal are citizens of other states (Bosnian Serb Republic or Republic of Serb Krajina) or, as in the case of Mrksic and Radic their residence is unknown. But the authorities in Belgrade can't use any of those excuses for Sljivancanin, and they face a huge dilemma: hand him over and suffer political damage or openly disregard the tribunal demand and risk coming under total international isolation again. The day the warrants for Mrksic, Sljivancanin and Radic were issued, tribunal prosecutor Richard Goldstone officially declared Yugoslavia a criminal state since it hadn't extradited the men the tribunal had charged six months ago. Under UN Security Council resolution 827, the tribunal will inform the UN, and the Council can reimpose the sanctions without a possible veto from Russia or China.

Before trying to predict a possible outcome, let's look at how Croatia, whose authorities behaved similarly towards the tribunal, solved a similar problem. General Tihomir Blaskic, a former commander of the Bosnian Croat Defence Council (HVO) and chief inspector of the Croatian army was charged with the massacre of Moslem civilians in central Bosnia in April 1993. Those charges met with fierce criticism in Zagreb. When President Franjo Tudjman decided to promote Blaskic and appoint him chief inspector, the public thought Croatia had decided to resist the tribunal at any cost. Then, suddenly, reports late last month said Blaskic had decided to turn himself over to the tribunal.

Blaskic did appear at The Hague voluntarily on April 1. But, judging by his and his family's expressions, some force was used to bring him there.

There had also been pressure on Belgrade, and that is shown by the fact that all of Belgrade's steps towards cooperation with the tribunal came after high ranking US officials met Milosevic. First, in January Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck forced Milosevic to accept a visit by tribunal president Antonio Cassese to Belgrade and got agreement in principle for the tribunal to open offices in the city.

Then came Warren Christopher's visit in February. He was followed by Richard Kornblum, Holbrooke's successor, in March and two new steps towards The Hague. First, a way was found to overcome the persistent refusal by the Yugoslav authorities to hand over the evidence they collected on crimes against Serbs by Croats and Moslems. That refusal was the main reason for the lopsided ethnic structure of the people charged by the tribunal (47 Serbs, five Croats and one Moslem), tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said.

The second example of cooperation is much more specific: Milosevic immediately agreed to send Drazen Erdemovic and Radoslav Kremenovic to The Hague to testify about their involvement in the alleged massacre of Moslems in Srebrenica last autumn. They were arrested near Novi Sad on March 2 after Erdemovic, who said he was part of a firing squad, told ABC and Figaro reporters of the alleged massacre. They were arrested by state security officers in what was initially assessed as Belgrade's attempt to prevent Erdemovic's planned departure for The Hague as a repentant witness in exchange for immunity and money. The information ministry issued a statement leaving the impression that the two men were only on loan to The Hague and will be returned after questioning. The tribunal statement that denied the claim was not reported by any of the regime media.

All that is not enough. The warrant for Sljivancanin ends the possibility of continuing the push-pull game which replaced Milosevic's firm No after Dayton and forces the Serbian president to choose an option. The extradition of an active officer who was promoted twice since the start of the war in former Yugoslavia will be painful for the army and the civilian authorities who are preparing for elections in October. The political damage in terms of national pride would be much lower than the damage inflicted by the reimposition of the sanctions and Milosevic knows that. The model Tudjman used for Blaskic (promote and extradite) could work for Sljivancanin, especially if followed by a media campaign.

Two events that point to a possible further development happened last Wednesday. The first was a visit by John Kornblum to Belgrade, which he said was used for an intensive discussion on cooperation with The Hague tribunal. The other is Sljivancanin's interview to "Intervju" weekly in which he denied involvement in the Ovcara killings and the indisputable fact that 261 people were killed there. He added that none of his superiors told him what to do. The interview portrays a frightened man.