PROF. INGRAO: THERE IS EVIDENCE OF HOLBROOKE’S DEAL

- August 8, 2008

- an interview with Prof. Charles W. Ingrao of the Purdue University’s Department of History, the head of the Scholar’s Initiative: Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies.

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Sebastian Aulich: One of the defenses Karadzic has already made is that the Bosnian Serbs were being persecuted and murdered by the Bosniaks during the war in Bosnia and that the siege of Sarajevo and other military actions were in self-defense. Bosnian Serb Prime Minister said that the Sarajevo Serbs suffered more than Srebrenica Muslims. How would you comment on that?

Charles W. Ingrao: It’s rubbish. It’s not even worth spending time on. The majority of what Karadzic says is either delusional or false. Certainly, the idea that in the case of Srebrenica it was a self-defense is false and stupid. People of Srebrenica were refugees, who fled there. I really don’t see any reason to talk about a self-defense.

SA: What was Karadzic’s involvement in the Srebrenica massacre? We know that the massacre itself was conducted by Gen. Mladic. Can Karadzic say later on during the trial that he actually never ordered any executions and that the Srebrenica massacre was Mladic’s fault?

CI: Well, what we know about the Srebrenica massacre is that Karadzic knew what was going to happen and he approved it. It seems that the driving force behind the Srebrenica massacre was Mladic. Some of the news media portrait Karadzic as the mastermind behind the massacre, but that’s probably a great exaggeration. The evidence we have is that Mladic himself made the decision, perhaps during the evening of the fall of the Srebrenica, and Karadzic concurred with that and at one point even proposed the murder of the men who were captured. So it appears to us that Karadzic is not the primary mover at the Srebrenica, but he concurred in what Mladic was doing.

SA: In your research paper you write that there is evidence that Srebrenica’s capture has always been part of Mladic’s long-term strategy.

CI: Right, however not only Mladic’s but also Karadzic’s. The idea of acquiring all of the Drina Valley’s towns in Eastern Bosnia was certainly part of Bosnian Serb overall thinking.

SA: You also wrote that there were two reasons for capturing Srebrenica and Zepa. The first one was because Mladic’s military was overstretched and he wanted to regroup it and redeploy in different areas. Secondly, he wanted to assert a claim to those enclaves for the future peace settlement. Can I make a conclusion that Mladic wanted to establish new facts on the ground before the beginning of the peace talks?

CI: Absolutely.

SA: You said that there is evidence showing that he had such intentions prior to the assault on Srebrenica and Zepa.

CI: That is the attack on Gorazde just beforehand, in which they were unsuccessful in overrunning, but Srebrenica and Zepa were weaker in defense. So, after failing to take Gorazde, his strategy was still to take over all those three enclaves.

SA: The U.S. government claims that they never knew nor could they have anticipated that Srebrenica and Zepa would be overrun. What do you think about that? Was it possible to anticipate and foreseen attacks on those two enclaves?

CI: I think it was possible to foresee that Srebrenica and Zepa would fall. However the claim that it was inevitable would be a stretch. Just because it was possible that they would fall does not mean we had to assume the Serbs would attack them.

SA: You heard what Karadzic said about having a secret deal with Richard Holbrooke. What do you think about it?

CI: Holbrooke did indeed promise Karadzic that if he stepped down from Bosnia’s politics he would not be arrested.

SA: Why would Holbrooke make such an offer?

CI: Holbrooke wanted him to disappear from the politics because the feeling was that after he was indicted as a war criminal but was still running Bosnian Serb politics, there would be no chance to build post-war Bosnia that would be acceptable to the international community. Trying to get Karadzic out of the government was certainly understandable, but the pledge was made because Holbrooke knew that it was the best argument he could make to convince Karadzic to get out of the government. Even though he knew that the U.S. military had already won the battle with the State Department and was not going to go after Karadzic and other war criminals.

SA: So you are saying that despite the Dayton Peace Accords, which authorized NATO to capture Karadzic and Mladic, the U.S. army did not want to do it?

CI: The Dayton Peace Accords authorized anybody to go after them. Under the ICTY’s charter all countries signing it had an obligation to detain and render the indicted war criminals to the Hague. That is not an issue. The issue was whether the U.S.-French-British military would actively go out to seize war criminals like Karadzic. The U.S. military was refusing to take those steps and the U.S. State Department, including Holbrooke, but most importantly Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, were actively trying to get the U.S. military to go after those war criminals.

SA: Why would the U.S. military refuse to go after Karadzic and Mladic?

CI: They didn’t want to take the casualties and because the U.S. military did not see it as its primary mission. The primary mission was to deploy in Bosnia, separate the three sides and to prevent the continuation of the conflict which took place, to return people to their homes and things like that. They did not see going after the war criminals as an essential part of their mission because doing so could result in hostilities that would lead to deaths of the U.S. soldiers.

SA: But we had Holbrooke writing in his op-ed for the Washington Post and also Richard Clarke testifying before the 9/11 Commission that the U.S. military went after Al-Qaeda in Bosnia. So they went after the terrorist and were not afraid of sustaining any casualties?

CI: The U.S. did not need any additional authorization to actively hunt down the war criminals. The fact is that the U.S. military and other Western European militaries had the right to do that and did so in going after Al-Qaeda. That was in America’s national interest. Therefore the U.S. military with the authorization of the U.S. President did that. However, President Clinton purposefully refrained from obliging the U.S. military to hunt down the war criminals because he did not want to sustain any casualties. Clinton realized that the arrest and rendition of the war criminals, was not essential for the United States’ national interest. Therefore he could not justify the deaths of the American soldiers to the American public.

SA: But it leads to such a situation. Holbrooke wants the U.S. and NATO forces to go after Karadzic and Mladic, but they refuse to do so, additionally Bill Clinton does not want them to do it, so Holbrooke offers Karadzic a non-arrest for his disappearance. At the time he makes this offer, Karadzic is already indicted as a war criminal. Still, he urges him to disappear and pledges he won’t be arrested.

CI: The reason Holbrooke made that offer was because he knew that the U.S. military was not going to go after Karadzic. So, he was making an empty promise.

SA: But that’s illegal to pledge somebody a non-arrest after he was already indicted as a war criminal. It is obstruction of justice.

CI: Holbrooke was powerless to see Karadzic captured. He had already fought, together with Warren Christopher, to oblige the U.S. military to go after them and they refused. President Clinton failed to support the State Department in attempts to get Karadzic and other war criminals arrested. So when you know that the U.S. military is not going to go after them and there is nothing you can do to get them to do so, then telling Karadzic that the U.S. military would not go after him is something which is promising what is already a fait accompli.

SA: Holbrooke denies it. He says there never was any offer made to Karadzic.

CI: Well, he is not being totally honest.

SA: Do you have any confirmation that the offer was really made?

CI: Yes. Our project’s participants have interviewed a significant number of key State Department's officials as well as people in the U.S. military and for that matter our scholars have interviewed diplomatic, military and political leaders in other states in the former Yugoslavia as well. The overall picture that we have, which is backed by a number of high diplomats and political officials, is that the United States, that Holbrooke, did indicate to Karadzic that if he resigned from all political activities he would not be arrested. We have that from people, some of whom wish to remain anonymous, because they are still active in the government, but nonetheless they have told us that this pledge was made.

SA: Is there any written documents of Holbrooke’s offer to Karadzic?

CI: There is nothing in writing that we are aware of that Karadzic was made this offer. Anybody, who would put such a promise in writing would have to be profoundly stupid.

SA: And what about the transcripts of the interviews, which you conducted with the U.S. officials? Are those interviews documented in writing?

CI: Some of them are in writing, but most of them are oral. We are talking about a number of interviews and the interviewers in almost all cases wrote down the notes of what was said. Some of them were meetings between the government officials and the members of our project. Some of them consisted simply of conversations and comments, as well as what those officials told our colleagues and they later on communicated to other members of the research team.

SA: Can you give me some names of those officials, who have direct knowledge of the deal?

CI: The key individuals, who have the most damaging information, are the least likely to allow us to release their names or specific information with their names attached to it. If the individuals, who gave us information, were held accountable publicly, it would be damaging to them and they confided in us with the understanding that their identities will be anonymous.

SA: What if the ICTY serves you with a subpoena to testify as a witness in Karadzic’s case, would you then disclose the names of the U.S. officials, who confirmed to you the existence of the deal?

CI: Well, in most cases no. I could not do that because of the rule of confidentiality. These are not criminal offenses we are talking about. If a U.S. diplomat makes a deal with a head of another entity, recognized or not, there is nothing in these negotiations that has to do with the war crimes.

SA: Karadzic also said that as a part of the deal the U.S. promised to him to imply political pressure on ICTY to make the prosecutors drop Karadzic’s indictment.

CI: We have no knowledge of that being true. We have no evidence whatsoever that would support a claim that the United States ever exercised any pressure on the ICTY to drop any of the charges or not enforce them. We suspect that it is simply not true. The only thing Karadzic was promised is that he would not be apprehended by IFOR or other military forces.

SA: Do you believe that the same kind of a deal was offered to Mladic?

CI: What we know is that the U.S. military had the ability to apprehend Mladic but chose not to do so. It is quite possible but we have no evidence. The only thing we have as it refers to Mladic, is circumstantial evidence that the U.S. military was not going to arrest him and that Mladic knew that. But we have no evidence that it was personally communicated to him. However it is very likely that Mladic knew that the U.S. military was not going to arrest him.

SA: There is a theory that the U.S. government gave the Bosnian Serbs a green light to assault Srebrenica and Zepa.

CI: That appears to be ridiculous. We don’t have any evidence that would support such a claim and from our interviews with the people from the State Department it seems highly unlikely that the United States or any of its officials - diplomatic, military or political - would ever encourage the Bosnian Serbs to do anything to overtake a territory. That would be fundamentally against of what all the people in the U.S. think about our political leadership.

SA: Do you believe that Serbia was actively involved in the genocide in Bosnia?

CI: The evidence that we have strongly suggests that the government in Belgrade was actively involved in the prosecution of the war.

SA: There is a verdict by the International Court of Justice, which clears Serbia of any direct involvement.

CI: What that judgment did was on the basis of evidence that it had. However, as you know, Carla Del Ponte had access to additional documentation and she insists in her memoir that the Serbian regime was intimately associated with every part of the military operation in Bosnia. In addition to that we do have testimony from important Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Serb leaders which indicates that the government and the military of Serbia were intimately involved in the prosecution of the war.

SA: How was this offer conveyed to Karadzic technically?

CI: It appears to be, from other sources that we have, including the UN and State Department sources, that the communication between Karadzic and Holbrooke was done through intermediaries. Technically, by people close to Karadzic, who were acting as his agents.

SA: Karadzic also implicates Madeleine Albright. How credible is this claim?

CI: We have no evidence to support what Karadzic said about Albright. If she possibly said at some point that he should disappear, we have no evidence to support or undermine that.

Conducted on August 7, 2008