DATE=1/18/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=BOSNIAN SERB WARLORD "ARKAN" KILLED
NUMBER=6-11638
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: Arkan, One of the most feared militia leaders
in the Balkans has been killed. Over the weekend, two
men walked into the lobby of a Belgrade, Yugoslavia
hotel and fired automatic weapons at Arkan, wounding
him fatally.
Now, the U-S press is commenting on Arkan's life and
possible reasons for his death. We get a sampling
now from ___________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: His real name was Zeljko Raznatovic and before
the Balkans fell apart into various civil wars with
the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, he ran an ice
cream parlor.
But during the Croatian and Bosnian conflicts, Arkan
headed the "Tigers" militia, one of the most feared,
of the various private armies that stand accused of
the brutal deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of
non-combatants. /// OPT /// He was especially
remembered for the three-month siege of the Croatian
city of Vukovar in 1991, and later helped the Bosnian
Serb army overrun northern and eastern Bosnia. His
militiamen would often follow regular army troops into
villages, reportedly raping the women and looting and
killing the people in what has been described as an
orchestrated campaign of terror against both the
Croatian and Muslim populations. /// END OPT ///
Many people had a grudge against Arkan, but some U-S
newspapers are speculating that the person with the
greatest motive for his death is Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic. According to this theory, Arkan
had enough information about Mr. Milosevic's role in
the wars, that he could have been a very damaging
witness against the Yugoslav leader at the War Crimes
Tribunal in The Hague. Specifically, the speculation
was that Arkan would trade his testimony against Mr.
Milosevic in return for leniency in his own war crimes
case.
In Oklahoma, the Tulsa World wonders:
VOICE: Did Zeljko Raznatovic deserve to be killed?
Many Croats and non-Serbs who lost family members or
who were tortured at the hands of his Serb
paramilitary troops say yes. But his gangland style
killing Saturday has left many questions unanswered
and sparked new ones. ...No doubt if Arkan, 47, had
been brought to trial in The Hague international court
where he was indicted for war crimes, his testimony
could have been very damaging to [Mr.] Milosevic. ...
So ... it would have been nice if he had lived long
enough to take [President] Milosevic and some other
war criminals with him.
TEXT: Turning to the national daily, U-S-A Today,
published in a Washington, D-C suburb, there is a
lament that Arkan died before standing trial for his
war crimes charges, and testifying what he knew about
others.
VOICE: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright greeted
the news by saying she took no satisfaction in his
murder and would have preferred he stand trial in The
Hague, Netherlands for his crimes. [Ms.] Albright's
chilly epitaph for [Mr.] Raznatovic, known as "Arkan,"
hits the mark. The militia leader, suspected of mass
murder in Croatia and Bosnia dating back to 1991, was
indicted by the war crimes tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia in 1997. Yet, he slinked around Belgrade
freely, becoming a symbol of justice denied in the
Balkans - one of many. Fewer than half of the 92 men
publicly indicted for Balkans war crimes have been
brought into custody in The Hague. On the other side
of the world, in Indonesia, war criminals are faring
even better. Indonesia's foreign minister this week
will lobby United Nations diplomats to prevent a new
report on military-sponsored atrocities in East Timor
from triggering a tribunal. His chances are good
because the Timorese no longer make headlines. If a
permanent court were in place to prosecute such crimes
as ethnic slaughter and forced migration, justice
would come more swiftly. Such a court, replacing
today's temporary tribunals and freed from
geopolitical pressure, might even deter criminals.
/// OPT /// Adolf Hitler offers a horrid reminder of
denied justice's grievous price. He mused to his
commanders, as he plotted his genocide, that he'd get
away with it because no one remembered, by 1939, the
genocide of Armenians by Turkey in 1915. The time for
not remembering is well behind us. /// END OPT ///
TEXT: The nation's chief financial daily, The Wall
Street Journal, goes further, and warns not to
celebrate Arkan's death, no matter how tempting it
might be.
VOICE: ... whatever the mysteries that surround his
death, one thing is certain: Arkan was not killed
because of the crimes he . committed. ... he was
killed, in all likelihood, as part of what now appears
to be an increasingly systematic effort by Slobodan
Milosevic to silence those who might implicate him
directly ... the real architect of the Yugoslav
catastrophe ...
TEXT: Those suspicions of the Wall Street Journal are
echoed by Boston's Christian Science Monitor, in a
repot from its Balkan correspondent Michael Jordan:
VOICE: [Mr.] Raznatovic was the most notorious Serb
[paramilitary] leader during the wars in Croatia and
Bosnia from 1991-95. His Serbian National Guard,
known as the Tigers, was notorious for its "ethnic
cleansing" campaigns in both countries, but especially
for one in Vukovar, Croatia, in which 250 Croats were
removed from a hospital and murdered. If he had stood
trial, observers say he may have pointed the finger at
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as the
mastermind behind the Serb "ethnic cleansing' that
left some 200-thousand dead and two million [people]
displaced. "We certainly regret there will not be the
opportunity for Arkan to stand trial," says Paul
Risley, a spokesman for the court. "But certainly,
there were others who worked for him, and whose orders
he carried out. So the investigation into his
activities will continue. As for Mr. Milosevic, who
some analysts suspect of having Arkan killed, the
Yugoslav leader is far from off the hook [Editors: far
from "being absolved of all guilt."
TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of U-S
press comment on the weekend murder of Serbian militia
leader Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as "Arkan."
NEB/AG/JP
18-Jan-2000 13:58 PM EDT (18-Jan-2000 1858 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
