BOSNIA: A Bosnian war general considered a hero by Bosnian Muslims for withstanding a three-year Serb siege in the 1990s could face war crimes charges after video footage emerged apparently showing him ordering Serb homes to be burned.
Retired general Atif Dudakovic, the officer who led the defence of the Bihac pocket in northwestern Bosnia and survived under a lengthy siege, is seen in new footage telling his men to burn Serbian homes during the 1995 offensive by Croatian and Bosnian forces that routed the Serbs and ended the 1991-95 wars in Croatia and Bosnia.
The footage from the August 1995 Storm offensive that climaxed with the exodus of some 200,000 Serbs from Croatia has reopened old wounds. The tape shows Croatian and Bosnian Muslim forces hounding lines of Serbian refugees and the shooting of a Serb raising his arms in surrender. The grainy film also claims to show Gen Dudakovic's forces laying waste to a Serbian village on the Croatian-Bosnian border.
The footage, released to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the offensive, drew outrage in Serbia. Belgrade called for Gen Dudakovic's arrest; Bosnia and Croatia said they had started investigating the case.
Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica branded the Storm offensive a great unpunished crime. But Croatian leaders reacted angrily to his statement and Croatian commentators say the release of the footage has been timed to suit a political agenda.
Gen Dudakovic denounced the footage as "fabricated and false". He confirmed to a local television station in Bihac that he had commanded the operation shown, but said the film had been doctored.