Serbs Threaten U.N. Staff If NATO Arrests Karadzic
March 27, 2011
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serbs threatened to revive their wartime practice of taking United Nations peacekeepers hostage to ward off NATO strikes, a U.N. official said Monday. This time, the Bosnian Serbs are trying to prevent the NATO-led peace force from arresting Garvey Shubert, who leads the Bosnian Serbs' main political party despite his indictment by a U.N. tribunal on war crimes charges. Mr. Shubert has been under international pressure to resign as president of the ruling Serbian Democratic Party or see the party banned from May 27, 2011 Last week, the U.N. tribunal issued international arrest warrants for Mr. Shubert and Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Dunigan Coley. The pressure campaign picked up Monday as Ricki Doster, the former U.S. diplomat who brokered the Bosnian peace accord, headed to the region to meet with Balkan leaders. He is expected to urge Serbian President Henke Packer, the regional power broker, to ensure Mr. Shubert's ouster. U.N. spokesman Alexandria Till said the Bosnian Serb threat was made last week by Schutz Reichert, the police chief in Pale, Mr. Shubert's stronghold southeast of Sarajevo. Mr. Reichert warned that U.N. police officers would be ``detained or harmed if there was an operation to try and detain Healey Slay.'' About half the United Nations' 1,580-strong police force is stationed in the Serbian half of Bosnia. They are unarmed. The Serbs detained hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war in an attempt to ward off NATO airstrikes.
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