Problems Outweigh Progress of U.N. Tribunal

THE HAGUE — Prosecutors pursuing war criminals from the former Yugoslav federation celebrated a rare victory this past week--though not a guilty verdict or even a favorable ruling.

The simple appearance of an indicted suspect before the international court here was sufficient cause for cheer in a tortuous search for justice that has yielded few results.

Zlatko Aleksovski, a pudgy former warden at a prison camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina, stood grim-faced in a blue suit and polka-dotted tie at his arraignment on charges of murdering and enslaving Muslims. It was only the second time that a former Yugoslav republic--in this case, Croatia--turned over an accused war criminal since the tribunal began its work three years ago.

The lack of arrests is but one of the problems undermining the court, which is attempting to punish those responsible for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II and serve as model for a permanent war-crimes court.

In the tribunal’s first trial, a key witness was caught lying. A lead prosecutor has quit in frustration. Governments thumb their noses at subpoenas. Suspects continue to work in positions of power, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with forces in Bosnia, refuses to round them up.

Louise Arbour, a Canadian jurist who became the court’s chief prosecutor six months ago, acknowledged the difficulties and the frustrating lack of cooperation from all sides. But she argued that the work of the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as it is formally known, is at a turning point.

“The parties [of the former Yugoslav federation] are not only not doing enough, they are doing nothing,” Arbour, 50, said in an interview. “They are not cooperating to any level of satisfaction. And the international community, in its many manifestations, is way too tolerant of this kind of defiance.”

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Without arrests, new trials are unlikely; without trials, the work of the tribunal could be relegated to a historical filing cabinet. “I cannot see a long-term solid future [for the tribunal] without a functioning courtroom,” Arbour said. “The work should be seen. This is not a historical commission simply making an inquiry.”

When a U.S.-brokered accord signed in Dayton, Ohio, ended the war in Bosnia in 1995, all parties agreed to cooperate with the tribunal, which was given the task of seeking criminal prosecutions against those who committed crimes against humanity.

But instead of cooperation, the signatories--Serbs, Croats and Muslims--have for the most part ignored the court.

Of 74 people indicted, only eight are in The Hague’s custody. The most prominent of those indicted but not detained, such as Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, live openly, comfortably and lucratively. Several work for their local police departments. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander who has been indicted twice on genocide charges, was spotted last month at a soccer match in Belgrade, having crossed international borders to get there.

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Aleksovski, arraigned at The Hague on Tuesday, was turned over to the tribunal by Croatia only after enormous U.S. pressure and the threat of blocked international loans. Bosnia’s Muslim-led government last year surrendered two suspects who are on trial now with two other men extradited from Germany and Austria. They are charged with the murder and rape of Bosnian Serb captives.

Two Bosnian Croats turned themselves in: Drazen Erdemovic confessed to his role in massacres at the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while former military commander Tihofil Blaskic is expected to go on trial this summer.

The trial of Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb prison guard arrested by German authorities, ends with a verdict expected on Wednesday here in the Netherlands.

Yugoslavia detained three Serbs wanted in a 1991 massacre of more than 200 hospital patients in Croatia but refuses to extradite them.

Despite the small number of trials in progress, tribunal officials said they have continued to work steadily and fruitfully on investigations, building cases that are ripe for trial and compiling a record of the atrocities committed during 4 1/2 years of war in the Balkans. With new access to military and government documents, an increasingly sharp picture of the chain of command behind many atrocities is coming into focus, they said.

But Bosnians looking for justice are discouraged by the slow pace and have attacked the court for its failure to make progress. And there are concerns within the tribunal that the perceived inertia could cause U.N. leadership to slash the court’s budget at a time when Arbour and others are arguing that they need more people and money, not less.

“It would be crazy to close this place prematurely,” said Terree Bowers, a Los Angeles lawyer who is legal coordinator of the tribunal’s investigations section.

As court officials split their time between investigations and actual prosecutions, the workload mounts; critics and advocates alike worry about an even slower tempo with a potential bottleneck of cases. If additional suspects are detained, can the court keep up the momentum of ongoing investigations while taking on new trials?

“It would be like trying to do 20 Oklahoma bombing cases,” said an American attorney who watches the court closely. “They really are stretched thin.”

Meantime, there have been no new indictments for the former Yugoslav federation in months. Court watchers eagerly await formal accusations for several high-profile alleged war criminals, including the paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan, and Vojislav Seselj, now mayor of the Belgrade suburb Zemun.

Arkan and Seselj are blamed for emptying scores of Bosnian and Croatian villages of non-Serbs in some of the most brutal campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” early in the war. Yet their indictments are considered tricky because their testimony could lead to Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia whom the West has favored keeping in power.

Arbour would not discuss specific cases or potential suspects but said: “We have to target our investigations at the highest possible level.”

If the tribunal’s credibility rests on future apprehensions of suspects, then it is in trouble. Arbour said she is confident there will be more arrests. But it is not likely that help would come from Washington.

Advocates find hope in the appointment of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other State Department officials who have been outspoken on human rights and war crime issues. And a plan to create a special squad to arrest suspects, an idea floated last year and quickly squelched, is not altogether dead, officials in Washington say.

But early in its peacekeeping mission, the U.S. military allowed itself to be convincec--largely by the very Bosnian Serb officials who risked indictment--that pursuing suspects would result in American casualties.

Clinton administration officials, recalling the incident in Africa when 18 American servicemen were killed while pursuing wanted warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, “are still stuck on the original problem--they’ve pressured themselves into believing the Somalia lesson is real,” said Susan Woodward, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They believe that if they launch an operation that could mean Americans coming home in body bags, then they are risking the whole shebang.”

In reality, it is a premise that has never been tested and may not be true, Arbour pointed out. “If it’s not true, then we’ve been held [captive] to a bluff, and that’s shameful,” she said. “If it is true, then we should find out now that Dayton has no future. They signed a document saying they would cooperate with the tribunal. They made a deal, and they have to live with it. If enforcement is so [destructive] that it would unravel the whole package, then the package has no future.”

Arbour said the “legacy of Nuremberg,” site of the last international war-crimes prosecution, depends on robust support for and cooperation with The Hague court. “Taking this initiative and then admitting it is impotent is worse than never taking the initiative,” she said. “We will have reinforced the culture of impunity. The tribunal is a dangerous tool. It is not an exercise in rhetoric, not an empty threat. . . . Either we had better not touch it, or we should see it through.”

Tyler Marshall of the Times Washington Bureau contributed to this story.