Posted on 03/22/2007 8:41:56 AM PDT by Bokababe
Banjaluka, 22 March (AKI) - Former Bosnian Serb leader and top war crimes indictee Radovan Karadzic, made a secret deal with the United States in May 1996 to spare him from prosecution in return for abandoning politics and withdrawing from public life, Banjaluka weekly Fokus alleges in its latest issue. Karadzic and his wartime military commander Ratko Mladic are the two top fugitives wanted for trial at the United Nations Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague.
Fokus published what it claimed is a copy of the alleged pact signed by Karadzic and the chief US mediator in the Balkan conflicts, Richard Holbrooke (who later became US secretary of state). The pact states that Karadzic would be spared from prosecution by the UN tribunal if he resigned from the post of president of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS), withdrew from politics and refrained from making public statements.
Contacted in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, Vladimir Nadezdin, former aid of Serbian foreign minister Milan Milutinovic on Thursday confirmed the existence of the document. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” he told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Thursday.
Karadzic disappeared in 1996, but Holbrooke has repeatedly denied the existence of a document such as that published by Fokus - rumours of which have been circulating for some time. Karadzic has been accused of genocide against Bosnian Muslims and is one of the six indictees accused by UN tribunal who are still at large.
According to Fokus, the document provided for a secure hideaway for Karadzic and a sum of 600,000 dollars to ensure his protection and "decent living conditions." The existence of a secret deal has been confirmed by Karadzic’s elder brother Luka. "I appeal to the honour, dignity and the office held by Richard Holbrooke to make public the details of the gentleman's agreement which he had signed with my brother Radovan,” Luka Karadzic told Fokus.
He said that several former Bosnian Serb officials and Nadezdin, could vouch for the existence of the alleged agreement between Karadic and Holbrooke.
Nadezdin, now working for a state trading company Progres, told AKI that Karadzic forwarded the document to former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic who was later himself accused of war crimes and died in the Hague jail in March last year. “The document should still be in the foreign ministry archives, if it wasn’t destroyed in a suspicious fire there two years ago,” Nadezdin said.
He contested, however, Fokus' report that 600,000 dollars was part of the deal and said that Karadzic’s signature on the document published by Fokus seemed to have been forged, but could not explain the alleged discrepancies.
The behaviour of the international community, which seems to be giving priority to the arrest of Mladic over Karadic, is grist to the mill of those who believe in the existence of the alleged pact.
Speak for yourself, ma bell, not me. And quit behaving like you are "the adult" here. It's rude & uncalled for.
And most especially, Holbrooke!
Richard C. Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, on the left, enjoying company with a Kosovo Albanian Florin Krasniqi, a weapons smuggler from New York pictured in the middle, and Wesley Clark on the right at a political fundraiser for John Kerry.
But really, the sentencing scheme is baloney. All of these guys, Bos, Serb, Cro, never got more than five to ten years for crimes that would have guuaranteed a haning in Nuremberg, or Iraq for that matter.
Isn't that the guy from that docu-movie...? "The Brooklyn Connection" or something?
Especially when you're not acute enough to realize you're simply reinforcing my point regarding your intellectual abilities with each successive post.
Have as much fun with it as you see fit.
"War crimes" my ass. Clinton told us there were "mass graves" all over the Balkans from Muslims the Serbs murdered. I remember Holbrooke saying perhaps 200,000 civilians were "exterminated". Where are they? Where are all these tens of thousands of corpses? I don't see the media blasting Clinton and Wes Clark for destroying Serbia and killing 4,000 civilians for "bad intelligence". Meanwhile people carp about "no WMDs" in Iraq, however we have already found 50 times as many bodies in mass graves as we ever found in all of the Balkans. Yet we are told that Iraq was "better off with Saddam". Hypocrites!
Yes. Shortly aster this scene, Krasniqi says, "Here, Mr. Holbrooke, come see YOUR KLA!" And Holbrooke smiles for pictures with them.
Ever read some of what one of the original prosecutors from the Nurenberg Trials, Walter Rockler, had to say about the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia and the ICTY?
"What have we accomplished? What is this triumph? The triumph, in my judgment, is to undermine the UN Charter; destroy a substantial part of the Nuremberg judgments directed at Nazi war criminals; and reduce an imperfect international law to something more closely resembling anarchy and the use of untrammelled power.
NATO, which was originally conceived to be a defensive alliance under the umbrella of the Security Council of the U.N., has been transformed into an instrument for aggression and that is my primary thesis.
The thing that I find particularly offensive to this campaign is that I am a citizen of the United States and it's being done in my name. I object to that. I just don't have the characteristics used to describe a "good German." A "good German," for those of you who do not know what the expression means, was someone who did whatever his government told him to do."
Rockler was vehemently against the comparison of the ICTY to Nurenberg, and called the ICTY "legal anarchy".
The U.S. killed far more Vietnam civilians than the total of the Bosnian 3-way civil war killed (including military), and no one served any time for that. The mass murderer of My Lai only received 3 years of house arrest, then was pardoned.
So you're telling us you have no idea whatsoever?
LMAO!
just i knew what "stuff happens" and sort/kinda knew what was happening, hot stuff...:) of that time... stuff that you dont have privy too. but, ive seen the dark side of it and its not what you think it is.
"You are outright lying as several Serbs have gotten longer sentences, including life sentences of 40 yrs., 44 yrs., etc."
I stand corrected. I made a mistake and I did not lie. Still, if someone is guilty for crimes such as torture, rape, and murder, is a sentence of 40-50 years appropriate?
I bet these assinine sentences are the same for the case of Rwanda. The UN Criminal Court is a joke. Justice has been better executed at Nuremberg, Tokyo, and Iraq.
"The U.S. killed far more Vietnam civilians than the total of the Bosnian 3-way civil war killed (including military), and no one served any time for that. The mass murderer of My Lai only received 3 years of house arrest, then was pardoned."
It was not US policy to murder civillians. We did everything in our power to stop Vietnamese civillians from getting killed. No such considerations were given in Bosnia/Kosovo. That's the difference.
Don't buy the liberal line on My Lai. What actually happened is not that clear, which may help explain the sentencing. In fact, there was even a high likelihood that the three years for Calley was too much.
Counterpunch is a socialist hippie site while the other site you used is opposed to every war since Korea. There are much, much better sources.
This doesn't change the fact that the UN Courts are a joke and the sentences are ludicrous.
Correct. But back in 1999, everyone was so "rah, rah, let's kill Serbs", that even someone like Walter Rockler, a real Nurenberg prosecutor, couldn't get a respectable media audience.
The great irony was that this was in spite of the fact that the ICTY was being compared to "Nurenberg", Clinton & Blair were being compared to "Roosevelt and Churchill", and Islamofacists in Bosnia & Kosovo were being compared to "WWII Jews" by both our politicans and the media. Who better to comment on the comparison than someone who lived through both and was part of the Nurenberg trials? Unless it was just all war propaganda and they couldn't afford close scrutiny-- which it was and they couldn't.
Yeah, I remembered the mania. It was like the Serbs are pure evil and the Croats and Muslims are all sweetness and light. What we are doing in Iraq now serves as a good example of what should have been done. If the Shias are out of line, we smack them. Same with the Sunnis.
No idea how you're going to spin the following, sure:
Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 23, 2007
QUESTION: Do you have any comment on this information about Radovan Karadzic? Apparently, the newspaper in Montenegro published again information about an agreement he would have passed with Richard Holbrooke --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: -- to grant him immunity. Can you --
MR. MCCORMACK: Right. You know, I've checked into this with people here in the Department. They've said absolutely false. The people have checked with Ambassador Holbrooke. He has told them absolutely false. The United States does not and will not stand aside and allow war criminals to escape the hands of justice. We continue to call for his being handed over to The Hague so that he can face justice for the crimes that he has committed.
QUESTION: So how do you explain these rumors which you are facing now?
MR. MCCORMACK: I -- you know, I can't explain it.
Maybe you could get a job with the State Dept and help folks like Mr. McCormack explain how some folks are so gullible?
If you only had a brain...
And we know Dhimmis are completely lacking in Courage as well.
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