Last week while in Kosovo, NATO’s Secretary-General George Robertson spoke glowingly of the political progress being made there and that as a result, the alliance is now in a position to reduce its troops in the province. How extraordinary then that at the same time, the UN Development Program in New York should release a report saying that Kosovo continues to be plagued by poverty, corruption and discrimination.
These are diametrically opposed views. Both cannot be right. Assuming that the UN agency is correct (and UN agencies usually are) then either NATO is remarkably ill-informed and complacent or Robertson has deliberately downplayed the situation for the benefit of those members with troops in Kosovo, in particular the US and the UK, and who want to reduce their commitment there. Presumably, that is now going to happen.
This is not the first time that Robertson has given an upbeat message on the Balkans when the reality is rather different. Four months ago, he announced boldly that the net was "closing in" on indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic. There was, he said confidently, no way of escape, no place to hide. Fine words. Except that they came after NATO-led SFOR troops had just failed to capture the former Bosnian Serb leader, the fourth such occasion that he had slipped their net. Yesterday morning, NATO soldiers once again raided the Karadzic family home; for a fifth time he was nowhere to be found.
It is astonishing that with some 18,000 troops in the region, NATO has failed to arrest him. Its officials, from Robertson downward, speak of their determination to bring him to justice, and there is absolutely no reason to disbelieve them, but that determination appears woefully ineffective on the ground. Someone seems to keep Karadzic well-informed about plans to seize him. It cannot be coincidence that every time there is an attempt to grab him, he vanishes before the soldiers arrive.
It may be that in this case the raid was designed more with PR in mind than results. The NATO-led troops say that they were looking primarily for weapons (which also they did not find) but the timing follows suspiciously close on the US veto on the UN peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia, a move which has cast doubt on SFOR’s future.
It may well be a message from NATO forces on the ground, possibly even from France whose troops carried out the raid, saying that there still a job to do.
There can be no doubt about that while Karadzic and others remain free, including his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic.. Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, said two weeks ago that she had information that Karadzic was in the Bosnian Serb state and that Mladic was in Yugoslavia, which means mean Serbia proper; if she knows it, so does NATO.
There are two lessons here. First, NATO has to improve its act and find Karadzic once and for all, making sure meanwhile that there are no leaks on any raid. Second, it needs to speak with less hype. Words have a tremendous role in the pursuit of justice — but at the court stage. What is wanted now is success. No amount of words, however upbeat, can disguise the fact that Karadzic and his cronies are still at large.
