by Ganesh Sahathevan
The recently arrested Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic has told the UN tribunal in The Hague that the United States in 1996 had offered him immunity from war crimes charges. Karadzic claimed that he had struck a deal with U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to disappear from public life in exchange for a U.S. promise not to pursue the charges against him. State Department spokesman Sean McCormick has said Holbrooke never made an agreement to give Karadzic protection from arrest or prosecution. Holbrooke, who brokered the peace deal that ended the Bosnian conflict called Karadzic's charge untrue.
(http://voanews.com/english/2008-08-01-voa32.cfm)
I have previously written about the Clintons and the Malaysian-Bosnian joint-venture, Bosmal. I have also shown that Bosmal is linked to the TWRA. ( see www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2008/04/the-clintons-bo.html)
On the Bosmal website from which much of that information was obtained, there is also evidence of support for Bosmal from Holbrooke:
Richard Holbrooke, the creator of the Dayton peace agreement and presently vice-president of the New York-based bank “Perseus”, expressed his support to Bosmal in its efforts to secure financial means required for construction of the Corridor 5C highway through Bosnia and Herzegovina……. Richard Holbrooke promised to send a letter of support to Bosmal, in which he will emphasize the importance and significance of the project, and suggest to American financial institutions to seriously consider the possibilities for their financial participation in the project.
(http://www.bosmal.com/en/?lg=en&nav_ID=5&ID=139)
A copy of that letter can be sighted at http://www.bosmal.com/images/news/large/RichardHolbrooke.jpg.
When queried by this writer about his relationship with Bosmal,and Bosmal’s links to the TWRA, Holbrooke said:
I know nothing of their "link" to other groups. I, of course, strongly support the U.S.
Government's stand against terrorism. As you may recall, we wrote
strong authority into the Dayton Peace Agreement to take action
against any foreign elements or terrorists as we saw fit, and in fact
raided and apprehended terrorist cells.
There are not connections between Perseus and Bosmal --neither
financial nor any sort of affiliation.
My letter was part of my long-standing support for better road
networks in the Balkans. I have long believed, and often stated that
such road and rail links (as well as air links) would contribute to
economic development, which in turn would lead to greater inter-ethnic
cooperation.
Holbrooke’s letter to Bosmal was written in 2004.
By 2003 a story titled “Sabanovic Brothers and Bosmal” from the Slobodna Bosna magazine or newspaper was translated and reproduced on the NATO website http://www.nato.int/sfor/media/2003/ms030725t.htm. The story detailed the business dealings of the Sabanovic brothers, Erin and Nijaz, and their involvement with the TWRA.Given that the TWRA's activities had been a matter of public record since 1996, one can assume that the 2003 story was simply publication of material that would have been already available to those involved in the Dayton Peace Accord negotiations.
These connections may have been ignored for this reason:
A senior Western diplomat in the region said the Clinton administration knew about the Third World Relief Agency and its activities beginning in 1993. Still, the United States took no action to stop its fund-raising or arms purchases, in large part because of the administration's sympathy for the Muslim government and ambivalence about maintaining the arms embargo
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/bosvote/front.htm)
Holbrooke and the Clinton Administration may not have promised Karadzic immunity or anything else for that matter, but Holbrooke, the Clintons, and US general Wesley Clark "former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and a key architect of the Dayton Peace Accords." ( http://www.bosmal.com/en/?lg=en&nav_ID=5&ID=172 ) appear all to have had dealings with Karadzic’s opponents in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict.
These dealings raise the suspicion that Karadzic may well be telling the truth about a deal for immunity. Put in another way, these dealings with the TWRA’s Bosmal causes one to consider if these are , or were meant to be, coincident to the offer of immunity that Karadzic alleges.
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