SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bowing to extraordinary U.S. pressure, Radovan Karadzic on Friday "relinquished the office" of president of Republika Srpska and of his hard-line political party, but he again dodged efforts to deliver him to justice.
American special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke--brought out of retirement especially to accomplish the task of sidelining Karadzic--and other international officials congratulated themselves on the deal and declared that Bosnia's crucial elections can now go ahead.
Clearing the way for elections will in turn permit NATO troops to leave Bosnia on schedule. And the Clinton administration, in a show of its commitment to salvaging the Dayton, Ohio, peace accord, can point to a diplomatic victory that seems to reduce Karadzic's public defiance.
But is Karadzic, once and for all, out of the picture?
An indicted war crimes suspect, Karadzic has persistently ignored demands that he step aside, making him an embarrassing symbol of the West's impotence in enforcing the accord it brokered last year to end Bosnia's devastating war. While Friday's agreement appeared to give all parties a way to save face, his influence is expected to continue.
"The jury's still out on what happens next," Holbrooke said in Belgrade, Serbia's capital, after a 10-hour negotiating session with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
Even the normally confident Holbrooke cautioned that Friday's agreement was "just a piece of paper" signed by a crafty political survivor who has repeatedly reneged on promises. And Holbrooke conceded that he failed to force Karadzic to leave Bosnia-Herzegovina, where his presence is widely blamed for thwarting the peace pact. There has, however, been speculation that Karadzic will be allowed to fade away to a third country where he could avoid prosecution.
"This is a long process that does not stop here," said Michael Steiner, one of the chief diplomats in charge of overseeing the peace accord. "This is an important step on the road that needs to lead to The Hague."
The international war crimes tribunal based at The Hague, where Karadzic stands accused of genocide and other crimes, issued arrest warrants earlier this month for Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. But no government--the Americans included--has shown great willingness to carry out an arrest, despite the presence in Bosnia of 60,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops.
