Thursday, August 26, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 10
World
Top Serb military official arrested for ethnic cleansing
The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Austrian police arrested the head Bosnian Serb military commander yesterday on U.N. charges of persecuting Bosnian Croats and Muslims in a bloody 1992 ethnic purge, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal announced.
Talic would be the highest-ranking Serb military official tried by the tribunal, representative Jim Landale said. If convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Gen. Momir Talic, chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army, was charged in a sealed indictment with crimes against humanity, namely persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, tribunal chief prosecutor Louise Arbour told reporters in The Hague.
Richard Bachman / KANSAN
Austrian authorities made the arrest yesterday morning after being tipped off by the tribunal that Talic was attending a conference at the Austrian defense academy on
how to merge Bosnian Serb forces and forces from the Muslim-Croat federation into a national army.
The indictment, which also charges former Bosnian Serb deputy prime minister Radislav Brdjanin, accuses the two of ordering, implementing and assisting a plan designed to expel the Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb populations. Brdjanin was arrested July 6 and is in the tri-
bunal's custody.
The two men are charged with leading a campaign aimed at driving 100,000 non-Serbs from the Prijedor and Sanski Most regions of northwest Bosnia. Tribunal prosecutors allege that Serb forces under the command of Talic and Brdjanian terrorized Muslims and Croats into fleeing those areas, and that those who didn't leave were driven out by force. Hundreds were killed.
Talic was a leading military commander during the Bosnian conflict.
Talcic's indictment had been kept secret to give authorities a chance to arrest him, the tribunal said. It said it would unseal the indictment and made details public yesterday or today.
A representative for the Austrian National Defense Academy said that Talic had flown to Vienna on Tuesday aboard a plane belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and entered the country unhindered.
Talcic was expected to be extradited to The Hague later today.
Yeltsin, Chinese continue talks
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan President Boris Yeltsin met his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin yesterday, and the Russian leader renewed his call for the two giant nations to work together to build a "multi-polar world."
The Associated Press
Yeltsin and Jiang held one-on-one talks prior to the start of a fivemation summit in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. The talks are aimed at improving stability along China's lengthy border with Russia and three former Soviet republics.
After decades of tension between Moscow and Beijing during the Cold War, relations have warmed considerably in this decade, and the leaders of the two countries meet regularly.
"The meeting between Boris
Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin took place in a very warm and friendly atmosphere," said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. "Our relations are now at a peak and that meets the interests of both nations as well as the interests of regional and international stability."
"Russia, China and other nations stand for a multi-polar world, that is, a world in which the interests of all nations are heard," Ivanov said. "There have been attempts to enforce another world order — a unipolar or bipolar one. Russia is staunchly against that."
Whenever Yeltsin meets top Chinese officials, he calls for strengthening their ties as part of an effort to counterbalance U.S. clout in global affairs.
While China also has welcomed the
Meanwhile, the five-nation summit, which also involves Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan and Tajikistan, was the fourth such meeting since April 1996, when the leaders first met in Shanghai, China, and agreed on a series of confidence-building measures along the border.
improved relations with Russia, it has not gone so far as to proclaim it a partnership designed to limit U.S. influence.
"We have done a lot in the past," Yeltsin said. "I think this meeting will be effective and will bring good results."
Under agreements reached in Shanghai in 1996 and in Moscow in 1997, Russia, China and the three Central Asian republics have limited military activities along the frontier.
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