BALKAN PEACE TREATY : With Peace at Hand, Is Justice Beyond Reach? : War crimes: Many remain doubtful that those accused of atrocities will be brought to account.

President Clinton said Thursday that the peace accord signed in Paris would help “call to account those accused of war crimes” in the Balkan conflict, but it appears unlikely that the governments of Croatia and the rump Yugoslavia will jump at the chance to fulfill that pledge.

Cooperation from the Serbs and Croats in bringing suspected war criminals to justice has been so poor that the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia this week publicly accused them of “a direct breach” of international obligations.

In the 2 1/2 years since the war crimes court was established, none of the Balkan governments--Serbian, Croatian or Muslim--has turned over an indicted suspect, nor have they been consistently forthcoming with evidence to build cases against the accused.

The peace accord signed Thursday requires the three signatories to “fully cooperate” with the tribunal, but without intense pressure from the United States and the European Union--which seem preoccupied with other pressing problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina--few are optimistic that the situation will improve.

“They will make the appearance of greater cooperation, but in fact they will do everything to sabotage it,” said Konstantin Obradovic, a professor of international law in Belgrade and a former Serbian government official. “There is a fear that anyone who goes to The Hague will open their bags and disclose everything there is to know.”

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who wields influence over the Bosnian Serbs, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who has similar sway over Bosnian Croats, want to avoid any embarrassing revelations that could link them to the atrocities of the past 3 1/2 years, legal experts said.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic does not share the same concerns, particularly since no Muslim has been indicted, and it is believed that Muslims committed the fewest war crimes.

The Serbs and Croats have also questioned the jurisdiction of the tribunal--the first since the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II. They complain that similar tribunals were not set up for Americans and Soviets during the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts, and they insist that national courts can adjudicate war crimes without international help.

Recently, a Croatian court in the seaside town of Zadar sentenced 18 rebel Serbs to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years for killing 43 Croatian villagers in 1991. All but one of the accused, however, was tried in absentia, a process not permitted by the international tribunal, and critics have raised questions about the ability of local courts to be objective so soon after the war.

“Politics remains the basic obstacle for domestic courts to conduct serious investigations and trials of war crimes,” Tanja Petovar, director of Civic Link, a human rights group, wrote recently in a Belgrade newspaper.

Last Friday, the court in The Hague was forced to release a Muslim soldier in the Bosnian Croat militia who was suspected of murdering Bosnian Serbs, because Serbia did not reply to repeated requests for evidence that would have justified his detention and possible indictment.

In an earlier case, a Bosnian Croat military commander under indictment by the tribunal was released by Croatian authorities over the objections of the court, which had issued a warrant for his arrest.

The commander, Ivica Rajic, has been accused of killing civilians in central Bosnia.

“They are worried about the precedent,” said Michael Williams, senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London and the former U.N. Protection Force spokesman in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. “If you cooperate on one case, then you should cooperate on them all. They reject the validity of it all.”

In all, 52 people have been indicted, but only one is in the custody of the tribunal. The suspect, Dusan Tadic, is a Bosnian Serb accused of numerous crimes involving rape, murder and torture--including forcing one prisoner to bite off the testicles of at least three others. Tadic was arrested while visiting relatives in Germany.

Tadic’s Belgrade attorney said the timing of the indictment, while the war was still going on, and the disproportionate number of Bosnian Serbs among those accused raises questions about the impartiality of lead prosector Richard Goldstone. Forty-five of those indicted are Serbs, including Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic.

“So far he acts more like a politician than a lawyer,” attorney Milan Vujin said of Goldstone. “This court was established to obtain political objectives. Up until now, there had never been a court of this kind created while the conflict was still on. As a result, events that were still developing were influenced by the actions of the court.”

A spokeswoman for the tribunal defended its impartiality and expressed hope that the court will get greater cooperation now that the peace accord has been signed. She also described as encouraging a decision by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to allow its troops to detain any suspected war criminals encountered while enforcing the peace deal.

“It is more than we had before,” spokeswoman Christiane van Oosterhout said. “We are optimistic.”

But Williams, the former U.N. official, and other experts were doubtful.

“I don’t think these guys, despite the fact they signed . . . are going to live up to it all,” Williams said. “That is pretty shameful.”