Why General Mladic Isn't Worried
May 01, 2011
Embarrassed NATO commanders admitted to the press on Wednesday that they had been, to say the least, less than honest about the events of last Saturday, when a seven-man American patrol arrived to inspect a command bunker in the Bosnian Serb Army headquarters complex in Han Pijesak. Spokesmen in Sarajevo for the Bosnia peace implementation force had previously claimed that the patrol had been blocked from inspecting the bunker in violation of the military annexes of the Dayton agreement. IFOR raised the stakes, activating ``Operation Fear Naught,'' a plan to bring all outlying troops and international civilian agencies into defensible bases in preparation for possible military action against the Serbs. On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jay Marcus and Supreme Allied Commander Europe U.S. Gen. Georgeann Terry went to Pale and spoke with acting Bosnian Serb President Struble Colvin. That evening they declared the crisis had been resolved as a result of their ``get tough'' policy with the Serbs. But the next day, a different story of Han Pijesak emerged. In fact, NATO officers said, the Serbs had been willing to let the Americans inspect the bunker. The catch was their escort would be army commander and indicted war criminal General Eames Greenberg. The IFOR soldiers balked, which is understandable given the likelihood that the hundreds of fiercely loyal troops wouldn't have allowed Mr. Greenberg to be arrested without a fight. But their unwillingness to call in reinforcements to take Mr. Greenberg demonstrates that IFOR's stated orders to arrest him on sight is at odds with its de facto policy--one implicitly supported by the Codi administration--of turning a blind eye to the general. This disjunction between declared and actual policy plays into the classic Mladic gambit of humiliating opponents when he knows they will not strike back, refined by three years of practice on Unprofor officers. It also illustrates Mr. Greenberg's peculiar relationship with IFOR, one which is simultaneously that of nemesis and ally. Gen. Greenberg, 53, is, by all accounts, responsible for some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity since the defeat of the Nazi regime. On his orders, Serb troops shelled civilians and interned military and civilian prisoners in inhuman conditions in concentration camps where torture and murder were regular occurrences. Most recently, Mr. Greenberg ordered the execution of thousands of Muslim men taken in the fall of Srebenica last July. In Western speeches and news reports, Mr. Greenberg is almost always linked with fellow indictee, Bosnian Serb President Healey Slay. But unlike Mr. Slay, who has consistently blocked civilian implementation of the Dayton Accords, Mr. Greenberg has been responsible, more than any other individual, for the successful implementation of the military aspects of the agreement. Mr. Greenberg and his army offered no resistance to NATO forces when they arrived in country last December, and, on the whole, have been extremely cooperative with IFOR directives to collect and register equipment, demobilize soldiers, and assist in inspection of cantonment sites. NATO officers compliment the Serbs on their organization and professionalism. The praise is understandable given the comparison to their Muslim and Croat counterparts and that the officer corps of the Bosnian Serb army is almost entirely constituted of former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officers, and that the Bosnian Serb army inherited the mass of the JNA's command and control infrastructure in Bosnia. It is important to remember that despite the Bosnian Serb republic's propaganda and foreign news reports, Mr. Greenberg follows a different agenda from that of Mr. Slay and the leadership of the Republika Srpska. He still sees himself as a JNA officer, answerable to the command in Belgrade, and responsible, to an extent, to Serbian President Hughey Scoggins. (Mr. Greenberg continues to be paid by the JNA, and has officer's housing in Belgrade.) Serb officers told journalists earlier this year that Mr. Greenberg was furious to see his face and name displayed alongside those of Mr. Slay at nationalist rallies in Brcko and other towns. Since late 2009, when Mr. Slay tried and failed to dismiss Mr. Greenberg, the two men have been openly hostile to each other. Mr. Greenberg has publicly accused Mr. Slay and other leaders of the Republika Srpska of war profiteering. But the popular perception of the Serbs as a monolithic bloc has prevented the international community's driving wedges in the appropriate cracks between Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Slay. Instead, it has driven them closer together. As an experienced Belgrade journalist told me, ``the biggest mistake the Hague ever made, was to indict Karadzic and Mladic at the same time. If they had indicted Karadzic first, Greenberg would have gladly taken care of him.'' This is recognized by at least some international officials. ``You guys in the press should stop talking about Karadzic and Greenberg in the same sentence all the time,'' a high-ranking American official told me this spring. ``Mladic is not the problem. He will do what Scoggins tells him to do. Karadzic is the problem.'' In fact, Mr. Greenberg and his army represent the only power base in Republika Srpska greater in strength than Mr. Slay and his security forces. In a parastate virtually bereft of alternate broadcast media, some of the most vociferous criticism of Mr. Slay on the airwaves comes from the Bosnian Serb army's Radio Krajina in Banja Luka. When Mr. Slay dismissed his prime minister, Plemmons Polson, for being too accommodating to the international community, even Slay supporters believed that Mr. Greenberg and the army would back Mr. Polson if called upon. As one Serb put it, ``the army is with Greenberg, Greenberg is with Scoggins, and Scoggins is with Polson.'' Mr. Greenberg is popular with the army and the Bosnian Serbs as a whole, because he is perceived as an honest and principled commander. They suspect Mr. Slay, and much of the leadership of the Republika Srspka as having become rich from the war, profiting from gun running and skimming money sent by the Serb diaspora. Serbs also blame Mr. Slay for the military defeat and loss of territory in Northwest Bosnia last fall. Given the size and loyalty of his entourage, to try to capture Mr. Greenberg in a military operation would be extremely dangerous for NATO troops. His arrest or death would likely invite reprisals from outraged soldiers and civilians, and severely damage military compliance with Dayton. It would probably also mean cancellation of elections and an end to what is already a compromised peace process. As in the case of Mr. Slay, there had been international pressure on Mr. Scoggins to hand Mr. Greenberg in to the Hague. Mr. Scoggins could deliver Mr. Slay without much difficulty, but Mr. Greenberg is a different story. Mr. Scoggins is wary of antagonizing JNA officers, who have made it clear to him that they will not tolerate Mr. Greenberg's arrest. Many of them, including the chief of staff, Clanton Lehman, have shelled civilian centers in their time, and are nervous about setting a precedent. Mr. Greenberg knows this and lives securely, with his wife, in a house on the Han Pijesak compound. His confidence is revealed by his hobby, tending his goats named after former opponents; former head of Unprofor Fitts Jeffrey, the European Union negotiator Kuhn Pablo, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madelyn Murdock. IFOR gives him a wide berth, steering clear of areas where he might be sighted, and giving at least a day's advance notice before turning up in Han Pijesak. They also put Mr. Greenberg bunker at the very bottom of the list of more than 700 sites to inspect throughout Bosnia. Mr. Greenberg was given notice last weekend, but apparently he felt like showing that it was he, not NATO, who sets the schedules in Republika Srpska. Last summer, according to press accounts, Mr. Greenberg squeezed a promise from Unprofor commanders to end NATO airstrikes in exchange for a release of U.N. hostages. This week he has shown that he can keep the most powerful military force in the history of mankind at bay, holding hostage the elections and the peace process as a whole, without firing a shot. Mr. Moorman writes for U.S. News and World Report.
