February 19, 1996
Web posted at: 8:45 p.m. EST
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Reuter) -- The commander of NATO ground forces in Bosnia will meet a senior Bosnian Serb general in Pale, east of Sarajevo, on Tuesday morning in the hope of restoring working contacts with the Serb military.
Major General Zdravko Tolimir, deputy commander of the Serb army, failed to attend a high level military meeting on board a U.S. aircraft carrier Monday.
Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Walker of NATO accepted Tolimir's invitation to come to Tuesday's meeting, a NATO release said.
Talks aboard the USS George Washington between NATO and Bosnia's factions -- intended to build on gains won at a weekend peace summit in Rome -- foundered Monday when the Bosnian Serbs failed to turn up.
The absence of Tolimir was a clear setback after the Rome talks appeared to draw the Serb military back into the peace process and save it from possible collapse.
"I can assure you his political masters wanted him here. It is unconscionable that he is not here. It is just not very smart," said Implementation Force (IFOR) commander U.S. Admiral Leighton Smith. (400K AIFF sound or 400K WAV sound)
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and senior Bosnian Serb official Momcilo Krajisnik had said he would attend, Smith told journalists.
"Why is it that one or two persons can stall this process? It is unconscionable and they should be held accountable."
Carl Bildt, the "High Representative," said the reason for the Serbs' non-attendance "might be technical, it might be political, it might be temporary, it might be permanent. We do know that we are heading for a few interesting days."
The meeting went ahead without Tolimir, who is recognized by NATO as the Serb army's senior officer because overall commander Gen. Ratko Mladic has been indicted for war crimes and should surrender his office under the terms of the Dayton peace accord.
It is believed that Mladic is blocking Tolimir from attending meetings until two Serb officers arrested on suspicion of war crimes are released. Monday's meeting was intended to repair the rift which opened up when the Bosnian Serbs severed ties with NATO over those arrests last month.
The NATO-led peacekeeping force said it was distributing a "wanted" poster to its soldiers to help them spot and capture the 51 suspected war criminals indicted and at large.
The poster carries 17 grainy photographs under the heading "War criminals indicted by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia."
Thirty-four people for whom matching photographs were not available were also named.
The two best known suspects are Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his army commander, Mladic.
Karadzic, whose wild, bushy hairstyle has made him instantly recognizable on television news reports around the world, is described as "brownish-gray hair, flamboyant" and Mladic as "short, stocky, red-faced."
IFOR has emphasized its mandate does not allow it to hunt for them but said soldiers may hold them if they run into them.
At the summit, the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia agreed to resume all-party talks, suspend U.N. sanctions on Bosnian Serbs, work to ease tensions in Sarajevo and the divided town of Mostar and adopt a policy on war crimes and prisoners.
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