OHR’s Statement at the International Agencies’ Joint Press Conference in Banja Luka

Transfer Of PIFWCs Must Grow Exponentially

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown will tomorrow meet with the ICTY’s Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.

The High Representative and the Chief Prosecutor will discuss BiH’s, but particularly the RS’s, current level of co-operation with the court inthe Hague. The High Representative will note that the RS’s progress on extraditing individuals indicted of war crimes, despite turning a corner at the start of this year, has stalled. The last PIFWIC to have handed himself in with the support of the RS authorities was Ljubomir Borovcanin on April 1^st this year.

The requirement for full and unconditional co-operation with the ICTY will not change. If RS politicians are so keep to uphold the DPA, they should note that ICTY cooperation is a basic tenet of that document.

As long as the two most notorious indictees, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic remain at large it will be impossible to say that the RS has met its obligations under international and domestic law and the Dayton Peace Agreement.

By failing to arrest those unwilling to hand themselves in, the RS is in breach of the RSNA’s own conclusions issued on 20 July 2004.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the massacre that took place in Srebrenica, and ten years has passed since the ICTY’s indictment of Radovan Karadzic. There is no avoiding the conclusion that politicians are paying lip service to their moral and legal obligations.