Indicted Bosnian Serb Claims Immunity (Karadzic vs. Holbrooke)

New York Times, Europe ^ | 21 March 2009 | Marlise Simons

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

PARIS — Every time Radovan Karadzic, the onetime Bosnian Serb leader, appears in court on war crimes charges, he has hammered on one recurring claim: a senior American official pledged that he would never be standing there.

The official, Richard C. Holbrooke, now a special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Obama administration, has repeatedly denied promising Mr. Karadzic immunity from prosecution in exchange for abandoning power after the Bosnian war.

But the rumor persists, and different versions have recently emerged that line up with Mr. Karadzic’s assertion, including a new historical study of the Yugoslav wars published by Purdue University in Indiana.

Charles W. Ingrao, the study’s co-editor, said that three senior State Department officials, one of them retired, and several other people with knowledge of Mr. Holbrooke’s activities told him that Mr. Holbrooke assured Mr. Karadzic in July 1996 that he would not be pursued by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague if he left politics.

[Texas Fossil]

Richard C. Holbrooke is a treacherous liar. That is a fact.

No one should expect him to keep his word, because his word is worthless.

[Kolokotronis]

You know, it had been believed impossible for any creature to slither lower than a snake. The snake, after all, drags his belly across the dirt. That person Holbrooke, however, has managed, along with Hitlery and Albright to accomplish the impossible.

[Verginius Rufus]

I don’t know what the truth of the matter is, but Holbrooke was a Clintonista. The whole point of the Dayton Accords was to get the Bosnia issue out of the headlines before the 1996 election, so I can imagine Holbrooke making a deal to help Clinton (but wouldn’t it have to have been OK’d by Clinton to have any meaning? they should be questioning Bill Clinton). Holbrooke apparently claims Karadzic did not keep his end of the bargain (staying out of politics) so therefore he doesn’t have to keep his end of it.

[Texas Fossil]

I have watched Balkan’s politics for many years.

I have no Serbian ancestors, and have only know a few American Serbs. But the ones I know I have the upmost respect for.

The Treachery of Richard Holbrooke is an area that I have spent some time studying. The Dayton Accord was a really bad example of diplomacy.

You are correct about Bill Clinton, but Holbrooke and Madeleine (HalfBright) Albright are right there with Slick Willie when it comes to being sleezy.

I did not miss the picture of Madeleine with Hashim Tachi (KLA), the man that Carla del Ponte accused of organ trafficing. Carla was anti-Serb but made the accusation against Tachi after she stepped down as the Judge at the Hague.

My conclusion about why the Serbs were treated this way is that the powers that be who want a world government, accessed that they would never cooperate. They are correct, but that is not a reason to demonize the Serbs.

The English called the Serbs the “keepers of the gate” between the Christian and Muslim worlds. They are extremely tough fighters in a very harsh world. I have read about the few Serb military that escaped their Nazi/Muzlim enemy and went to Corfu off the Coast of Greece to recover. They later helped us take that part of Europe.

We have not always been trustworthy allies.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think Corfu is where they went during the First World War, after the Austro-Hungarian army overran Serbia. In WWII Corfu was part of occupied Greece.

I have heard that some Partisans in WWII were evacuated to other countries for medical treatment, including Egypt...that would have included Serbs but also Partisans from other ethnic groups.

[Texas Fossil]

You are correct. It was WWI and that is also when the English called them “little brother”.

Corfu still has a Serb element. One of my American Serb friends has relatives there. Evidently the past is a subject that is still very sensitive for them there.

They were good allies in both WWI and WWII, and it is a shame how we have treated them since WWII.

I think the Yalta Accord was the black mark of our WWII history.

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

My conclusion about why the Serbs were treated this way is that the powers that be who want a world government, accessed that they would never cooperate. They are correct, but that is not a reason to demonize the Serbs.

Well, let me (a Serb) try and explain to you and the others who are reading this thread.

Specifically, Milosevic's "original sin" was that he was a socialist (or Communist) who resisted the West's push (led mainly by Germany and the US) for the breakup of Yugoslavia as far back as 1989.

He (Milosevic) didn't want to subject Yugoslavia to the painful economic reforms of privatization, strict IMF rules, etc. that were afflicting so many of the other former Eastern-Bloc countries under communist rule.

Because of his resistance to the West, the western media painted the conflicts in the Balkans as a war of good (The Muslims) against evil (The Serbs). As such, and with strong media support, it was easy for the Clinton administration to stigmatize Serbia as a rogue nation.

That said, Milosevic was also a thief, he stole approximately 900K from the Yusoslav treasury.

Mkay.

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, I know that Milosevic was a Commie.

I also know that Serbia was our ally in both World Wars, and that they were allied with Russia during the Czars rule, before the Russian Revolution. They were allied to Russia because of the Austrian/Hungarian/German repression of the Serbs.

They were blamed for the beginning of WWII because of the assassination or Arch Duke Ferdinand.

The material I have read about the end of WWII and the Yalta Accord, indicated the Serbs would have been pro West, except the Accord gave them to Tito.