Posted on 06/20/2002 2:31:13 AM PDT by konijn
We Don't Have Mladic, Says Yugoslav Army Chief
June 20, 2002 04:42 AM ET
BELGRADE (Reuters) - The Yugoslav Army says it is not shielding the fugitive Bosnian war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic and does not know where he is.
Mladic, who Washington warns could be key to more U.S. economic aid for Yugoslavia next year, is not under army protection, Chief of Staff General Nebojsa Pavkovic told state television on Wednesday evening.
"We do not protect Mladic and we don't know where he is. For the last few months we have not had any information about where he is, because the Yugoslav Army security services are not dealing with retired generals," Pavkovic said.
Mladic was commander of the Bosnian Serb Army in the 1992-95 war and is wanted by the U.N. on charges of genocide. He is accused of the massacre of some 7,500 Muslims at Srebrenica in July, 1995 and other major war crimes.
A senior State Department official in Washington said on Wednesday that the issue of Mladic would be "a benchmark" for the U.S. Congress on judging whether Belgrade was cooperating on the handover of war crimes suspects to the Hague tribunal.
Mladic is widely believed to have lived in Belgrade quietly for several years after NATO ended the Bosnian war. He has adopted a lower profile since reformers took power in Serbia in 2000 but reports persist that he is still in the country.
Western diplomats believe Mladic has enjoyed substantial assistance from the Yugoslav army since the end of the war but are unsure whether the military is still protecting him.
Also at large is Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, wanted on genocide charges. The NATO-led peacekeeping force has tried twice to capture him this year without success. It recently appealed to him to surrender but was turned down.
Both men are seen as heroes by hard-line Serbian nationalists and their portraits are peddled on calendars and T-shirts.
Some U.S. aid which had been frozen was released to Yugoslavia in May after a handful of Serbian war crimes suspects turned themselves in. But the State Department official said progress was slow and cooperation as yet insufficient.
The U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, had told Serbia's reformist leaders last week in Belgrade that "we have not seen enough" cooperation to cut the link between handovers and future aid, he added.
The Yugoslav government also denies any knowledge of Mladic's whereabouts. But the U.N. tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, says she has reason to believe he is in the country somewhere.
The shiptars will be blackmailing NATO real soon..."Either you give us independence, or you get no underaged hookers..."
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