Ashdown Launches Assault on Republika Srpska

Ashdown, as Predicted, Launches First Stage of Move to Destroy Republica Srpska State
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily - July 05, 2004

Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS.

The international High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, took steps on June 30, 2004, and July 1, 2004, to "punish" the Bosnian Serb community, as exclusively predicted by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily. His move represents the first stage of an anticipated attempt to totally overturn the internationally-agreed 1995 Dayton Accords by destroying the Bosnian Serb state, Republica Srpska, placing power in the hands of the Bosnian Muslim leadership which has, since the early 1990s worked closely with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, June 28, 2004: Ashdown Expected to Escalate Attacks on Bosnian Serbs.

Using the powers of summary judgment allowed him under the 1995 Dayton Accords, Ashdown dismissed 60 officials of the Republica Srpska Government - the Bosnian Serb republic within Bosnia-Herzegovina - for allegedly helping fugitive war crimes suspects including Radovan Karadzic evade capture. Using wildly inflammatory language, but offering no supporting evidence to validate his dismissals, Ashdown noted:

"In all I am removing some 60 people today ... to root out those people who have hideous responsibility for creating the climate of secrecy, intimidation and criminal impunity that allows indicted war criminals to evade justice ... We have to get rid of the cancer of obstructionism and corruption in the (Bosnian Serb) structures and nothing less than major surgery will do."

Included in the dismissals were officials which GIS knows had no current links to Karadzic nor knowledge of his whereabouts, including Republica Srpska Interior Minister Zoran Djeric and the Speaker of the Republica Srpska Parliament, medical doctor Dragan Kalinic. Dr Kalinic, who served in an humanitarian capacity during the Bosnian civil war, was also removed from his post as the President of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), the ruling coalition leader in the Republika Srpska (RS) which was founded by Karadzic.

Sources in the Office of the High Representative (OHR) said that the plans were made when it became clear in late June 2004 that Bosnia-Herzegovina would not be invited during the NATO Summit in Turkey to join the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, ostensibly because it had failed to arrest war crimes fugitives. And while this failure was a factor, it was by far the least significant factor in the NATO decision, although Ashdown did not want to face the real reason: the Bosnian Muslim component of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Armed Forces are known by NATO officials to be riddled with supporters of the radical Islamist terrorist movements, and include actual members of various mujahedin factions.

But, as OHR sources told GIS on June 25, 2004, Ashdown wanted to use the NATO rejection as the excuse for yet another attacks on Republica Srpska, and as a means to divert attention from the radical Islamist elements which he has consistently favored in Bosnia. But he set the stage on June 30, 2004, by blaming Republica Srpksa for the exclusion of Bosnia-Herzegovina in PfP. Ashdown said that Dr Kalinic had failed to ensure adequate financial controls in the SDS to prevent money leaking to Karadzic. However, Ashdown - as is now typical - refused to show any evidence to validate his claim. Dr Kalinic responded by informing the Parliament of his removal and accused Ashdown of violating his human rights, noting: "Many are helpless because Karadzic is most likely protected by God and his angels ...This is the most brutal purge of the RS political scene so far."

Interior Minister Djeric, the vice-president of the Party of Democratic Progress (PDS) in the Bosnian Serb ruling coalition, meanwhile, was in charge of the domestic security agencies which were supposed to be hunting Karadzic. Significantly, however, none of the Bosnian Muslim leaders who had been known to have been involved in major war crimes during the Bosnian civil war, and subsequently engaged in terrorist support in aid of al-Qaida and other groups, has been indicted for war crimes. Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic in an address on July 1, 20004, described Ashdown's measures as "draconian, unprecedented and unheard of in today's democratic world". He added: "All this dismissals have directly jeopardized RS institutions and caused the hardest institutional crisis so far."

Pres. Cavic also accused Ashdown of helping those Muslim and Croat politicians who were calling for the abolition of the Serb-run Republic, despite the fact that the Dayton Accords were supposed to protect the remaining territory occupied by the Bosnian Serbs. In so doing, Ashdown is, in fact, in major breach of the Dayton Accords himself. Deputies of both parties walked out of parliament after the sackings were announced.

Ashdown said the failure of Bosnian Serb institutions to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal was the "chief obstacle to this country becoming a stable, peaceful and prosperous European democracy". In this, he is lying, and deliberately so. GIS has knowledge that Ashdown has been informed by Western intelligence agencies as to the terrorist support activities of the Bosnian Islamists he is protecting, and yet he denies the presence of these organizations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the fact that they are supplying weapons and combatants through Syria to Iraq, to fight Coalition forces there.

Meanwhile, as a move to make the activities of political parties difficult in Republica Srpska, Ashdown froze all of the SDS's bank accounts and ordered them to be consolidated into one transparent account. He also redirected the party's budgetary support, worth more than half a million dollars annually, to central government (ie: Bosnia-Herzegovina) institutions which are soon to be tasked with hunting and prosecuting war crimes suspects. Significantly, those "institutions" are already penetrated by radical Islamists loyal to the SDA party of former al-Qaida supporter and friend of Osama bin Laden, Alija Izetbegovic.

Many Republica Srpska sources have told GIS in recent years that a number of the so-called "war crimes suspects" would have already turned themselves in to face trial if the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) - part of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which the US Government has opposed - had also ordered the indictment of such Bosnian Muslim war criminals as Alija Izetbegovic. Indeed, one Bosnian Serb source said that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic would himself consider surrendering to US authorities - not directly to forces controlled by Ashdown - if there had been any semblance of an objective approach to addressing all of the war crimes which occurred in the country.

It is known, meanwhile, that Dr Kalinic had been warned several times over the previous year that Ashdown would attempt to remove him.

It is now expected that Ashdown - widely known for his arrogance even before his failure as leader of the British Liberal Party caused him to be shunted to the OHR post to remove him from the UK political scene - will now move to unseat Pres. Cavic, who has been internationally recognized for his good governance in Republica Srpska, and for the fact that his Government had worked strenuously to comply with EU and NATO standards, assisted substantially in international counter-terrorism operations, and had brought the Republica Srpska Army to a position where it would qualify for PfP membership. Significantly, the Croat-Muslim Federation within Bosnia-Herzegovina has demonstrated exceptionally poor governance, has actively aided terrorist groups, and its Army is totally unprepared for PfP membership.

Equally significantly, rather than address these issues, Ashdown and his deputy, US Ambassador Donald Hayes (Deputy High Representative, and a Clinton Administration loyalist), have launched enquiries into their critics, including this analyst, attempting to assess the source of the leaks from the OHR to GIS, and to determine which US Government agencies (in particular) derive information from GIS.