Editorials
Monday, July 15, 1996
U.N. force must arrest
accused Bosnian Serbs
THE United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, making it harder for the United States and its allies to continue to ignore the need to bring them to justice. Karadzic is the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs and Mladic is his military commander. Both have remained at liberty while under indictment by the war crimes panel, although the U.N. peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia already had a mandate to detain them if they were encountered during the soldiers' course of duties. Commanders on the ground have avoided going out of their way to hunt down the two, in order to avoid an armed confrontation.
Now that arrest warrants have been issued following a series of grisly hearings on atrocities committed by Bosnian Serb soldiers under Mladic's command, the need to apprehend the leaders must be faced. As the president of the tribunal, Judge Antonio Cassese, said, by failing to act the international community was signaling that all dictators and military leaders were free to act with impunity. "Go ahead - maim, torture, commit acts of genocide," as he put it.
Defense Secretary William Perry said the United States would use "diplomatic means" in an attempt to bring Karadzic before the tribunal, but this seems unlikely to succeed in view of past failures. The Clinton administration evidently fears there might be casualties among the American troops in Bosnia if force was used to apprehend him.
The U.N. Security Council should issue stronger orders to its commanders to bring in the Bosnian Serb leaders even at the risk of violence. Otherwise in the elections scheduled for September the main Serbian party may be controlled by an accused mass murderer and the results could legitimize the murderous tactics of ethnic cleansing. That would discredit the entire effort to make peace in the former Yugoslavia.
Other editorials in brief:
Hawaiian plebiscite
THE state is not going to accept the recommendation of a group imported by Ka Lahui Hawaii that it cancel the plebiscite on Hawaiian sovereignty, nor should it. This is an attempt to discredit a good-faith effort to determine the Hawaiian community's desires. Opponents say the vote is tainted because it is financed by the state government, but the real reason may be that they do not command a majority in the Hawaiian community for their views.
Indonesia's leader
PRESIDENT Suharto has governed Indonesia for 29 years, and people are wondering how much longer he will remain at the helm of the largest country in Southeast Asia. Rumors that the 75-year-old president had suffered a heart attack sent Indonesian financial markets tumbling, but they recovered when a checkup in Germany last week reportedly found that his health was reasonably good for a man his age. But the question of whether the former general will seek a seventh term in the 1998 election remains unanswered. No successor has as yet been anointed.
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Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor