Posted on 07/01/2005 3:06:12 PM PDT by Jomini
BANJA LUKA -- British intelligence has located alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal General Ratko Mladic in Bosnia's Republika Srpska and will launch a raid to capture him before the end of July according to a senior U.S. official just returned from the region. Mladic, along with former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, is among the world's most wanted men for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
"The Brits picked up his trail the end of last week and have him pinpointed in the R.S. mountains," said the official who asked not to be identified. "London is ready to send the SAS in for the snatch but Washington is wavering due to recent fallout from the Milan indictments. Blair is under pressure to act unilaterally and the word is he will go in soon."
(An Italian judge recently issued arrest warrants for 13 Americans accused of kidnapping a foreign national in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt for interrogation within the American rendition framework.)
With the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in July the international community is under increased pressure to apprehend Mladic and Karadzic and have them stand trial. However the two suspects have remained at large for a decade despite several confirmed sightings in Bosnia, Serbia and Russia in recent years.
"Both of these guys (Mladic and Karadzic) have extensive influence within the R.S. organized crime structures. They get a cut of every illegal deal and this funds their evasion program. Washington argues that instead of going in with the guns and risking failure in a massive shootout, it would be best to eliminate the criminal elements that provide their funding," the official said.
Retired British Colonel David Evans disagrees. "The Republika Srpska is a transit point for smuggling in drugs and arms and operates a sophisticated money laundering operation within the framework of the Ivanic government. The international community does not have the manpower and funding resources to defeat this massive criminal enterprise. Let's send the SAS lads in and get it over with," he said from his Oxford home.
Ten years after the Dayton Accords Bosnia remains a divided country. In the Bosnian Serb Republic Mladic and Karadzic remain national heroes, men that stood up to the perceived Muslim onslaught years before the September 11 attacks against America. In both Pale, the wartime capital, and Banja Luka, the current government seat of the Republika Srpska, emotions run high against the International Community. Washington argues that a failed raid would destroy years of development work in the war-torn former Yugoslav entity.
The stakes will be high in the coming weeks. Unlike Iraq, in Bosnia it is the British that are pushing for the military option to capture Mladic and the United States voicing concern over the use of force. Should Blair, ever the statesman, decide to call in his political marker, the American president may have little choice but to override his State Department advisors and give his wartime ally the green light for the elite unit strike.
Colonel Evans believes this the likely outcome. "Mladic will be in the Hague by the start of August. We know where he is and he has no place to run."
I believe mark prefers the Serbs as being the most passive of victims. He hates them because they refuse to play that role this time.
As I've noted in the past, Mladic will be given up voluntarily by anyone in the Serbian Govt. This deal is going to assure that Radovan remains out of the political picture for life.
Mladic is the key for the CPC honchos to be marginalized in the future. Mladic was their flame to be heard and felt for the emotional Serbian psyche in the CPC's quest for power. With Mladic in custody, he can be easily silenced and therefore, lowering the political flame for CPC and raising the more centrist parties to the forefront in the near future.
. . . have extensive influence within the R.S. organized crime structures . . .
Republic of Srpska
http://www.vladars.net/en/srpska/
Some people talk a good talk, but can't walk that talk. He is one of them, sorry if that disturbs your image or any other person image of destro. He's a talker with very little substance behind his symbolic words/text.
There is more to then reading what a foreign paper writes..:) Things are not always what they seem to be, remember that.
"Some people talk a good talk, but can't walk that talk."
Destro is gone on vacation for a month. Didn't he say it would be in the Balkans (Greece maybe) and that he was going (or would try) to visit Serbia?
Why is it I show a coldness to him?
Any one can go to Greece, Macedonia, Serbia etc... Vacation, Joan, vacation.
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