Bosnian Serb President Wins the Support of a Crucial Police Force

A vital police post that has so far served the Bosnian Serb hard-liners loyal to indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic pledged loyalty to moderate President Biljana Plavsic on Sunday, police sources said.

The pledge of loyalty by the police force in Prnjavor, about 110 miles east of Banja Luka, Plavsic’s northwest stronghold, followed the replacement of public security and police leaders by her minister of the interior, the sources said.

Changes in the police began in early August, when Plavsic’s security took over the main police building in Banja Luka, raising the stakes in her power struggle with Karadzic and his ally Momcilo Krajisnik, who controlled the Bosnian Serb police.

Krajisnik is also the Serbian member of the Bosnian three-man presidency, but he has neglected his duties over the past two months to combat Plavsic, risking impeachment by the international community’s high representative in Bosnia, Carlos Westendorp.

Plavsic has accused both Karadzic and Krajisnik of crime and corruption and of blocking the peace process for personal gain. That stand won her the backing of Western governments.

Prnjavor was the last big police station loyal to the hard-liners in the region, and it is strategically important because it straddles the main road linking western and eastern Bosnian Serb lands and neighboring Yugoslavia.