THE Bosnian peace process is back on a smoother track following a clarification of the "rules of the road" governing the detention of suspected war criminals, its architect said yesterday.
Mr Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy who bullied the warring factions into signing the Dayton peace agreement, ended 48 hours of shuttle diplomacy in Bosnia and Serbia on an optimistic note, though he had still to visit Zagreb in an attempt to ease Croat Muslim tensions in the divided city of Mostar.
The latest crisis in relations with the Bosnian Serbs infuriated by the arrest of two senior officers in Sarajevo on suspicion of having committed war crimes should ease following a change of government policy on the detention of war criminals, Mr Holbrooke said. Sarajevo has agreed to submit a list of names to the international war crimes tribunal and arrest only those sought by the tribunal.
"We feel that a better understanding of what we call the rules of the road is now in effect. The tensions that have arisen in recent days should now begin to abate," Mr Holbrooke said. "We are gratified by this step."
The issue of war crimes has dogged not only the Bosnian Serb detainees who include Gen Djordje Djukic and Col Aleksa Krsmanovic but also Nato's peace implementation force, I-For. Its troops have the right to detain any of the 51 suspects indicted by the tribunal, including the Bosnian Serbs' military and civilian leaders, Gen Ratko Mladic and Dr Radovan Karadzic, but have shied away from the prospect for fear of disrupting their primary mission.
"I-For troops are not going to go out on a search and capture mission," Mr Holbrooke said yesterday. But his colleague, Mr John Shattuck, the senior US human rights official, added "The international prosecution of war crimes and freedom of movement are consistent and they, in fact, are both core and critical elements of [the Dayton] agreement. As regards I-For, if there is an encounter there will be an arrest."
The arrests of Serbs in government territory certainly discouraged some from travelling freely across the front lines, as guaranteed by the Dayton plan. A Bosnian minister, Mr Muhamed Sacirbey, said the new rules should ease fears. "There will be no limitation on freedom of movement," he said. "Persons indicted by the international tribunal will be subject to arrest any time, anywhere, and once detained they will be transferred immediately to the custody of the tribunal upon its request.
Mr Holbrooke left Sarajevo yesterday for Zagreb and a meeting with President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, who will be urged to control the extremists in west Mostar seeking to block the reunification of the city, divided since the Muslim Croat war in 1993.
Last week, Croat nationalists, unhappy with the EU administrator's plan to unite the city under the Dayton plan, attacked his car and headquarters. Nato's senior civilian and military officials.
Mr Javier Solana and Gen George Joulwan visited Mostar yesterday and said such attacks would not be tolerated.
But the key to resolving the crisis in Mostar lies in Mr Holbrooke's talks with Dr Tudjman, who is susceptible to pressure from Washington over money and other inducements. His Defence Minister, Mr Gojko Susak, a man with close ties to west Mostar, is in the US to lobby for Croatian membership of Partnership for Peace, a prelude to joining Nato.
The UN is to dig up graves from the Vukovar hospital massacre in eastern Croatia, where hundreds of patients were thought murdered by secessionist Serbs in 1991, the Austrian weekly Profil said yesterday.
The magazine said the results would be handed to the chief prosecutor of the Hague based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.