Why the search failed to find him

Ed Vulliamy
Sunday December 2, 2007
The Guardian

The issue is not only that Karadzic is at liberty, but why. For nearly
a decade, rumours have persisted that Karadzic is protected from The
Hague by the authorities that are supposed to be hunting him. For
years, the prosecutor's office in The Hague has complained of what one
source calls 'the dead hand' of the search effort. The 'dead hand' is
the subject of Gere's film. Indeed, a visit to any establishment of
the European Union military presence in Bosnia shows it to be utterly
unconcerned with and unprepared for Karadzic's capture - to the point
at which the conspiracy theories can become tempting.

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One explanation is that Karadzic knows too much - about arrangements
with senior diplomats, about promises made by them during and after
the war, sufficient to make his defence from the dock a liability to
those with whom he cut these deals. This is certainly how Karadzic's
entourage, sought out by The Observer, see the hunt today and,
ironically, some of the hunters from The Hague privately agree that
they may have a point. There is even a suggestion from the entourage
that rather than be taken if he were ever found, Karadzic would be
shot on sight.

In the summer of 1992, Karadzic sent a message - intercepted by a
Bosnian stage intelligence wire-tap, subsequently passed on to the
Hague - to Milovan Bjelica, head of the Crisis Committee in Sokolac,
east of Sarajevo, congratulating him on the wholesale and vicious
elimination of Muslims from his region. Bjelica remained close to
Karadzic and after the war became mayor of East Sarajevo, as the all-
Serbian area around Pale became known, until - tainted - he was
removed in 2003 by order of Ashdown.

Sitting in a spanking new but empty and echoing hotel, Bjelica - known
as Cicko ('the kitten') - recalls from behind his dead eyes how,
throughout the war, western diplomats 'always took Radovan seriously,
treated him with respect and as the president of a small country
[referring to his self- proclaimed statelet]. The highest people came
to see him, and what they agreed he knows and they know. I'm sure he
was promised many things that they would not want to hear him say now,
were he to go to The Hague'.

Bjelica describes Karadzic calling a meeting of his inner circle to
report the deal with Holbrooke. His imitation of Karadzic's imitation
of Holbrooke has a hint of authenticity - a sweep of the arm, with
gusto, assuring Karadzic that 'for you, The Hague does not exist'. It
makes sense: to Holbrooke, a momentary, expedient gesture, worth
little; to the obsessive Karadzic, with his characteristic and
dichotomous mixture of disdain and awe towards the West, a deal. But
Bjelica says it was forged over two stages: one face to face in
Belgrade and another by document, taken from Pale to Belgrade by the
chief of Milosevic's secret service, Jovica Stanicic.

Into this maze of mirrors a book, Paix et Chatiment ('Peace and
Punishment'), was published in September by Florence Hartmann, for
years Del Ponte's spokeswoman, about the 'persistent refusal to arrest
Karadzic and Mladic' on the part of the three main powers, the US,
Britain and France. Throughout the book weaves a spat between Paris
and Washington, each blaming the other for impeding an arrest. A
sighting in Foca in April 2005, writes Hartmann, was reported by The
Hague to Nato, only for Del Ponte's office to be told: 'Impossible, he
was in Belgrade.'

'If deals were done, they are irrelevant now,' Del Ponte says today.
'All politicians do deals. If they did, so what? Mladic is in Serbia,'
she says, outright. 'And Karadzic is probably hiding in the mountains
between Serbia and Bosnia and Montenegro.'

The international community's collective embassy to Bosnia, the Office
of the High Representative, dismisses the conspiracy theories,
pointing to the centrality of official protection not only from Serbia
but also the Republika Srpska in Bosnia. 'I only wish there was a
conspiracy,' says Raffi Gregorian, deputy High Representative. 'I
can't wait to get him in and make up for all those goofs. The longer
it takes, the less our credibility.' Gregorian works from within the
clean, white lines of the Office of the High Representative on the
banks of the river Miljecka in Sarajevo, headquarters of the colonial
strata the Bosnians call 'the Internationals'. Gregorian's righteous
rage is refreshing and our meeting overruns by an hour; he is one of
an estimable, driven and sadly rare type of 'International' in Bosnia
- usually American in my experience - unlike many of those who swan
around in Chelsea tractors. He is frank about failure in the immediate
postwar years when 'they started at the bottom of the pyramid, picking
up the lower ranks, thinking that would put pressure on Karadzic and
Mladic from the bottom up. That was a big mistake - they should have
gone directly for Karadzic and Mladic and worked from the top down'.
Del Ponte agrees. 'To arrest them then would have been so easy, but
they left them alone, because of Dayton,' she says, with barely
concealed disdain.

Continued financial support for Karadzic and other fugitives goes well
beyond what Gregorian calls 'the widows and orphans fund. Our audits
reveal this to be big business', he says. 'Indeed, you could describe
the entire Republika Srpska as a "joint criminal enterprise" (one of
the legal terms used in indictments from The Hague) and well
established to support Karadzic and Mladic. The audits reveal how
money moves as loans to fictitious companies,' Gregorian says, as well
as to Serbian political parties. 'These days, however, it is not only
about Karadzic and Mladic, but about lining the pockets of people
using Karadzic and Mladic as a protective shield for their own
rackets.'

Since 2004, after years of slack, says Gregorian, Ashdown and he have
'changed the dynamic' in an effort to force those close to the
fugitives to 'either cough these people up or have your life made
difficult'. Gregorian has extended financial sanctions and asset-
freezing from the families of the fugitives so that, in addition,
'anyone considered a member of their support network is now eligible
for this benefit', as he puts it. Speaking of the Karadzic family, he
says: 'We go after these people not because they are related by blood,
but because we know they are members of the support network, in
contact, and able to bring about a surrender. They are obstructing
justice. Karadzic is not just a writer and doctor, this is not just a
brother, son and daughter - these are not nice people and this is not
a nice family.'