Tell the Serbs Who the Bad Guys Are

“NATO confirms arrest of war crimes suspects.” Yippee! Couldn’t happen to nicer guys! Finally justice can be done! At long last the ethnic cleansers land where they belong, before The Hague Tribunal. Hasn’t everybody waited for several years for this simple headline?

Well, not everybody.

I don’t want to sound like a party pooper, but people in Republika Srpska, the part of Bosnia controlled by Serbs, do not view this turn of events as a particularly felicitous one. The reactions among the Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale and in Banja Luka ranged from hostile to very hostile.

Their press agency called it a “cruel assassination” that one of the suspects was killed while being apprehended; the deputy defense minister spoke of “premeditated murder,” and Republika Srpska President Biljana Plavsic (a notorious nationalist herself) wrote in a letter to peacekeeping commander Gen. William Crouch: “I fear the reaction of the people will be terrible and I cannot bear any responsibility for this.”

While the arrests should continue until all those accused of genocide and other atrocities are shipped to The Hague, the international community should not forget about the importance of communicating with the rank-and-file of Bosnian Serbs. It may be easier to capture the indicted war criminal if the hearts and minds of the Bosnian Serbs are captured first. Thus the international community should reach out to the citizens of Republika Srpska and blow the whistle on the indicted war criminals who live in their midst. Blow the whistle? Could the criminal record of the ethnic cleansers be news? Yes, in Republika Srpska very much so. The information blockade here is almost total, and five years of brainwashing has borne fruit. In Banja Luka, Pale and in other parts of Republika Srpska the charges that The Hague Tribunal makes against Radovan Karadzic and the other indictees are news.

Granted, there is widespread denial of guilt, and Bosnian Serbs tend to close ranks behind their leaders. But there also is genuine ignorance. And the international community does little to bridge this gap.

Take for instance exhibit No. 001: the “wanted” poster that bears pictures of 23 men indicted by The Hague Tribunal for war crimes and basic data about the 50 or so other indictees. This poster hangs in many military premises of the international forces throughout Bosnia and is often reproduced by Western media, but it is nowhere to be seen in public places where citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina could see it. Indeed it does not even exist in the local languages, only in English.

Bulletin boards and tree trunks in towns across Republika Srpska and other forms of public announcements, even simple things such as leaflets, could be used for getting out the message: Radovan Karadzic, Gen. Ratko Mladic and a whole lot of other Bosnian Serbs who live untroubled lives and go about their business are, in fact, indicted for war crimes and it is because of their roaming around loose that Republika Srpska is being ostracized by the civilized world and discriminated against by the donors of foreign aid.

Perhaps after reading in their own language and their own alphabet that their leaders are accused of genocide, war crimes, rape and murder, some citizens of Republika Srpska will choose not to stand by them. The impact of such an information offensive may be minimal, but if the international community is serious about its plans to go after the indictees, an effort must be made to gain the hearts and minds of Republika Srpska citizens. Plavsic had the guts to denounce corruption committed by some Bosnian Serb leaders. After she blew the whistle on the Pale clique, the Bosnian Serbs living in dire economic conditions were outraged and demonstrated in her support on the streets of Banja Luka, Bijelina and Prijedor. They have learned who pockets the money that would otherwise benefit the whole population. They don’t want to be punished by the criminal behavior of others, be they Bosnian Serbs, even their nationalist leaders, hitherto their heroes.

The international community must at least make an effort to inform the people of Republika Srpska of what those indicted in The Hague speak of. During her recent visit to the region, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, “Make no mistake, a price will be paid for the atrocities [that occurred] here.” The Pentagon is reluctant to give orders for hunting down indicted war criminals in Bosnia to U.S. troops because of the risk that such an action might repeat the 1993 debacle in Somalia in which 18 U.S. Army soldiers were killed in a failed attempt to capture Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid. I remember speaking with Somalis in Mogadishu. They told me then the same things as the Bosnian Serbs are telling me now: Hands off our man; he did nothing wrong.