scoone
01-14-2004, 08:48 AM
BELGRADE (*******) - Defiant fans of fugitive former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic taunted NATO after a failed manhunt for the genocide suspect this week, saying "our people" would keep him out of the clutches of the West.
The four-day manhunt was triggered by a tip that Karadzic was hurt and needed medical treatment so badly he had to risk going back to one of his most closely-watched old haunts, the Bosnian Serb wartime headquarters at Pale, near Sarajevo.
But there has been no sighting of him whatever.
While hastening to say he did not know where the ex-leader was hiding, the head of the "International Committee for Truth on Radovan Karadzic," Kosta Cavoski, said Karadzic and his wartime commander General Ratko Mladic were well guarded.
Both men are wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague on two counts of alleged genocide for the slaughter of Bosnians in the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim males. "I don't know where he is," Cavoski told the weekly Nedeljni Telegraf in an interview published Wednesday.
"And it is not good for me to get interested in his whereabouts because many domestic and foreign agents are following me and tapping my conversations," he added.
Like hard-line supporters of the Radical Party, which scored high in the general election in Serbia last month, the Karadzic fan club reveres him as some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel hero and is given to occasional statements of bravado on his behalf.
"Our people are guarding both Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic well," Cavoski said. "That is why this action will not succeed and Dr Karadzic will continue to be in safety, in the myth and legend of the Serb people." To foil NATO wiretaps, "our people in Republika Srpska speak a lot about Karadzic and his hideouts ... boast that they're sitting and drinking coffee with Karadzic," he said.
"This is driving SFOR intelligence people crazy."
He doubted Karadzic was injured or sick. "As far as I know, Dr Karadzic is not ill. This summer he had put on some weight, but he has now lost it and is very vital and healthy," he said.
Cavoski said his committee plans to publish 252 letters from Karadzic at the end of January, representing his war-related correspondence from 1992 to 1996.
"I would like Karadzic to come to the promotion ... but I know that he alone decides when and how he will appear in public." On the other hand, he surmised, Karadzic might issue an open letter to Serbs or write to NATO commanders
The four-day manhunt was triggered by a tip that Karadzic was hurt and needed medical treatment so badly he had to risk going back to one of his most closely-watched old haunts, the Bosnian Serb wartime headquarters at Pale, near Sarajevo.
But there has been no sighting of him whatever.
While hastening to say he did not know where the ex-leader was hiding, the head of the "International Committee for Truth on Radovan Karadzic," Kosta Cavoski, said Karadzic and his wartime commander General Ratko Mladic were well guarded.
Both men are wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague on two counts of alleged genocide for the slaughter of Bosnians in the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim males. "I don't know where he is," Cavoski told the weekly Nedeljni Telegraf in an interview published Wednesday.
"And it is not good for me to get interested in his whereabouts because many domestic and foreign agents are following me and tapping my conversations," he added.
Like hard-line supporters of the Radical Party, which scored high in the general election in Serbia last month, the Karadzic fan club reveres him as some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel hero and is given to occasional statements of bravado on his behalf.
"Our people are guarding both Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic well," Cavoski said. "That is why this action will not succeed and Dr Karadzic will continue to be in safety, in the myth and legend of the Serb people." To foil NATO wiretaps, "our people in Republika Srpska speak a lot about Karadzic and his hideouts ... boast that they're sitting and drinking coffee with Karadzic," he said.
"This is driving SFOR intelligence people crazy."
He doubted Karadzic was injured or sick. "As far as I know, Dr Karadzic is not ill. This summer he had put on some weight, but he has now lost it and is very vital and healthy," he said.
Cavoski said his committee plans to publish 252 letters from Karadzic at the end of January, representing his war-related correspondence from 1992 to 1996.
"I would like Karadzic to come to the promotion ... but I know that he alone decides when and how he will appear in public." On the other hand, he surmised, Karadzic might issue an open letter to Serbs or write to NATO commanders