Viewing cable 06BELGRADE1681, ICTY ACTION PLAN SCORECARD, OCTOBER 2006

Viewing cable 06BELGRADE1681, ICTY ACTION PLAN SCORECARD, OCTOBER 2006

 

Reference ID	Created	Released	Classification	Origin
06BELGRADE1681	2006-10-17 06:06	2010-12-10 21:09	CONFIDENTIAL	Embassy Belgrade

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DE RUEHBW #1681/01 2900620
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FM AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9541
INFO RUEHVJ/AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO IMMEDIATE 0263
RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE IMMEDIATE 0499
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1206
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS IMMEDIATE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO IMMEDIATE 0616
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0250
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE IMMEDIATE

Tuesday, 17 October 2006, 06:20
C O N F I D E N T I A L BELGRADE 001681 
SIPDIS 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR S/WCI 
DOJ FOR ALEXANDRE 
EO 12958 DECL: CLOSURE OF ICTY 
TAGS ICTY, PREL, PGOV, PHUM, KCRM, UNSC, SR 
SUBJECT: ICTY ACTION PLAN SCORECARD, OCTOBER 2006 
Classified By: DCM Roderick Moore, reasons 1.4 (b,d)

¶1. (c) SUMMARY: In July, the USG provided the GoS with eleven

recommendations designed to advance the hunt for Ratko Mladic.

Due primarily to the resistance of PM Kostunica himself, the GoS

has not carried out in full a single one of our recommendations

(two have been, arguably, partially initiated). In fact,

Kostunica has literally brushed aside our recommendations,

telling A/S Fried recently that Serbia “does not need two

action plans.” With a constitutional referendum and 

follow-on elections likely to dominate the political calendar

for the next several months, Action Plan coordinator Rasim

Ljajic has told us frankly that we should not expect any more

public activity on the issue, though he says below-the-radar

operational activities will continue.

¶2. (c) Moreover, Carla del Ponte has sharply criticized the

ineffectiveness of GoS implementation of the “Action Plan” 

Serbia negotiated this summer with ICTY and has told us that

the PM has demonstrated no political will to take the steps 

necessary to bring about Mladic’s arrest. By contrast, the PM

declared over the weekend that Serbia has done “absolutely 

everything” to cooperate with ICTY and criticized the EU’s 

“irrational” approach on Hague conditionality. Below is an 

assessment of the GOS’ response to our eleven recommendations.

END SUMMARY

Proposal 1: Kostunica publicly calls for Mladic’s immediate 

arrest and instructs all Serbian government officials to do their

utmost to accomplish this goal, stating that those that obstruct

this goal will be immediately removed from their position.

Kostunica asks for the public’s help in this effort and ensures

that the government’s hotline number is widely publicized.

Status: In the three months since the Action Plan was initiated,

Kostunica has said twice in prepared written statements 

(one delivered orally) that Mladic should be “brought in and

handed over” to ICTY (i.e., he shied away from using the word

“arrest,” despite explicitly assuring the Ambassador that he

would do so). Within those two statements, he tempered his calls

by also criticizing Bosnia’s “mockery of justice” in not 

apprehending former BiH General Dudakovic for crimes committed

against Serbs. Kostunica has made no appeal for public assistance

in the Mladic hunt, has not publicly called upon his security

services to find and arrest Mladic, nor publicly threatened to

sanction individuals assisting in Mladic’s flight from justice.

In our opinion, and that of Ljajic and Deputy PM Dulic-Markovic,

neither the PM nor the government has made a sustained effort to

address our first proposal. Ideally, we would want to see Kostunica

launch a sustained effort with a nationally-televised, Oval 

Office-type address to the nation to make the points mentioned 

in our recommendation.

Proposal 2. Kostunica, along with Interior Minister Jocic, issues

PUBLIC instructions to all security units throughout Serbia to

dedicate full resources to arresting Mladic.
Status: This has not been done and is not currently planned.

Proposal 3. Serbian security forces initiate an effective manhunt

along the lines of U.S. Marshal Service recommendations for such

efforts.
Status: This has not been done and is not currently planned.

The U.S. Marshals provided a detailed briefing to Minister

Jocic in 2005, including specific recommendations on the 

structure and hierarchy of an effective task force. It is our

assessment, and that of ICTY, that the gaps in cooperation 

among the security services (BIA, VBA, and MUP) and the lack 

of more results are at least in significant measure due to the

loose and ineffective operational structure the GOS has put 

in place. Operational efforts remain largely as they were prior

to the announcement of the Action Plan.

Proposal 4. Kostunica privately calls on the Serbian Orthodox

Church to publicly support the arrest/transfer of Mladic. Status:

This has not been done and is not currently planned.

Proposal 5. Headed by the PM and President Tadic, Serbian

military intelligence (VBA) shares the classified briefing

given recently at the country’s Supreme Defense Council with

U.S. Ambassador and selected EU ambassadors. That briefing 

should include a comprehensive list of people known or suspected

to have supported Mladic, as well as his whereabouts up until

the present day and GoS efforts to apprehend him.
Status: This has not been done and is not currently planned.

Proposal 6. Justice Minister Stojkovic announces the opening 

of a formal investigation into Mladic supporters based in part

on the findings of the Republika Srpska Truth Commission repor

t on Srebrenica, which includes a detailed list of people involved

in or supporting the Srebrenica massacre, including Mladic and

his support network. The focus of this investigation should be

to identify current Mladic supporters.
Status: This has not been done and is not currently planned.

In fact, Stojkovic’s efforts on ICTY since July have been

largely counterproductive. For instance, he opposed the War

Crimes Prosecutor’s effort to introduce legislation that would

give him jurisdiction over aiders and abettors of ICTY fugitives.

Proposal 7. As part of the above investigation, those suspected 

of supporting Mladic or having information on Mladic’s support

network will immediately be brought in for questioning, and if

appropriate, detained. This would include senior figures such

as former head of military intelligence Aca Tomic, former Army 

Chief of Staff Krga, and Mladic son Darko Mladic. They should be

held for questioning on the same basis, as appropriate, as those

currently in detention (former lower level Mladic supporters

wrapped up in the past several months).
Status: This has not been done. Ljajic told us eight weeks ago

it was planned, but it never happened. Tomic is believed to 

have been close to Kostunica, including during the period that

Tomic was involved in protecting Mladic in Serbia.

Proposal 8. Kostunica proposes to parliament a new law that

imposes additional criminal penalties on anyone found to be

assisting PIFWCs in any way, including financially.
Status: This has not been done. In fact, Kostunica’s government

initially opposed this legislation when proposed by the

War Crimes Prosecutor. Only following high-level interventions

by USG and ICTY officials has Kostunica offered to introduce

such legislation - an offer del Ponte dismissed as insignificant

given that the Serbian parliament is not slated to meet

anytime soon.

Proposal 9. The Government of Serbia prepares and makes 

available to the general public a report on Mladic, containing

especially information about war crimes he is accused of committing.
Status: This has not been done. Kostunica’s government has

done basically nothing to place Mladic’s crimes in context.

Indeed, before the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica

massacre in 2005, Kostunica’s party blocked a special 

parliamentary resolution that would have condemned the

massacre; Kostunica argued that such a resolution would

be inappropriate if it omitted an equal condemnation of 

crimes against Serbs. Ljajic told us he planned to “leak”

information about Mladic’s alleged atrocities and his massive

financial gains from the Bosnia war to local press to start

“demythologizing” him, but this never happened and, according

to Ljajic, is no longer being planned.

Proposal 10. Kostunica forms an interagency task force within

Serbia headed by the Special Prosecutor for War Crimes, 

which will be responsible for the location and apprehension 

of Mladic and other high-priority fugitive indictees. All

personnel on the task force should be properly vetted to

ensure that no investigations or the mission of the task

force will be compromised.
Status: This recommendation has been only incompletely fulfilled.

The task force, put in place at the behest of ICTY in the

course of negotiations over the “Action Plan” (i.e., not

in response to the USG recommendation), lacks the sort of

centralized, well-resourced structure that the U.S. Marshals 

recommended. War Crimes Prosecutor Vukcevic is broadly 

coordinating operational activities, but ICTY has assessed

that this has not led to a substantial change in the form

or the intensity of the effort.

Proposal 11. Serbia helps establish and actively participates

in a regional task force to coordinate efforts among the 

various law enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout

the region to find and apprehend persons wanted for war crimes.
Status: An initiative in this direction has been launched,

and one meeting has been held. According to Ljajic, there

is some evidence that Bosnian security agencies and BIA are

cooperating on some surveillance activities.

¶3. (c) CONCLUSION: In all, at most one or two of our eleven

proposals have been partly addressed. The most critical element

of the proposals - a consistent, concerted effort by Kostunica

and the government to make the public aware that they are 

serious about tracking down and arresting Mladic - has not 

been initiated. Yet on October 14, Kostunica told local press 

that “Serbia has done absolutely everything to complete 

cooperation with the Hague tribunal.” Based on what we have

seen to date, we cannot concur with that rosy assessment.
POLT