SARAJEVO, July 5 (Hina) - German diplomat Michael Steiner who on Saturday left Sarajevo, ending his year-and-a-half mandate as deputy to the High Representative for the implementation of the peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
called on the international community to take more determined steps to the effect of apprehending war crimes suspects and thus enable the peace process to reach full swing.
SARAJEVO, July 5 (Hina) - German diplomat Michael Steiner who on
Saturday left Sarajevo, ending his year-and-a-half mandate as deputy to
the High Representative for the implementation of the peace agreement in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, called on the international community to take more
determined steps to the effect of apprehending war crimes suspects and
thus enable the peace process to reach full swing. #L#
The international community now has to reach a decision and
undertake action against those who did not want to hand themselves over
to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, if it wants a
complete implementation of the Dayton Agreement. This is a difficult
lesson which we have learnt in the past period, Steiner told reporters
at the Sarajevo airport.
Steiner said that the recent events in the Serb entity pointed out
the importance of the problem of war criminals.
A totalitarian, one-party corrupt regime reigned in the Serb
entity, which was in the cobweb of Radovan Karadzic, he said.
He stressed that the international community supported the
president of Republika Srpska, Biljana Plavsic, in this struggle, but
not because she could be an example of a democratically orientated
politician, but because she was legally elected and because she acted in
line with the Constitution.
The international community was not for Plavsic, but against
Radovan Karadzic, Steiner said before returning to Germany.
He warned that the Assembly which had met on Jahorina (near
Sarajevo) was not legitimate, but it was rather a private meeting of
members of a totalitarian party and their allies.
Summarising his experiences before leaving Bosnia, Steiner stressed
that he could say with confidence that the peoples in the country were
not responsible for the war, but rather their leaders.
He said the solution to Bosnian problems could not be in the
division of the country, but in its democratisation as a country with
two multi-ethnic entities in which nobody would be discriminated
against.
Democratic powers in this country ought to unite and abandon a
defeatist position, Steiner stressed.
According to him, the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina depended on the
stances of its neighbours. He called on the international community to
intensify the pressure on Belgrade and Zagreb so that the peace
agreement could be implemented fully.
I believe that we would not be able to implement the peace
agreement with Milosevic, who is everything but a democrat. We need
democrats allies, Steiner said, expressing his opinion that Tudjman was
of no help at the moment either, and that he was not in the line of his
previous pledges about the true establishment of the Bosnian Federation.
Recalling briefly the situation in the Federation, Steiner said
there was a chance for progress, if the agreement on the establishment
if a joint police force in the Herzegovina-Neretva canton was
implemented.
He added that only lower-ranking Croat canton officials offered
resistance to the implementation of the agreement.
(hina) lm
051544 MET jul 97