Global Policy Forum

By Charles Bremner

A former Bosnian Army commander is to surrender to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague today to face charges over atrocities that his forces allegedly committed against Bosnian Croat civilians in 1993.

General Sefer Halilovic, Bosnian Minister for Social Affairs until this week, is the highest-ranking Bosnian Muslim officer to be charged. The Bosnian Government, which is co-operating with the tribunal, said that it had received a sealed indictment from The Hague concerning General Halilovic's "command responsibility".

Faruk Balijagic, his lawyer, said: "Halilovic has been indicted for his apparent failure to prosecute those responsible for the Grabovica massacre."

The Bosnian Army killed 32 Croat civilians in September 1993 in the southern village of Grabovica during the "Neretva 93" offensive. The operation was allegedly supervised by a seven-man unit under General Halilovic's command. The general helped to found the Bosnian Muslim army at the outbreak of war in 1992 and served as its chief until December 1993.

He was given leave yesterday from his post as Minister of Social Affairs and Refugees in the moderate Government of the Muslim-Croat Federation, which came to power after elections last November.

The Government, which shares Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Bosnian Serb Republic, reiterated its support yesterday for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. General Halilovic's decision to go to The Hague voluntarily was "a sign of his trust and respect", it said.

Three senior Bosnian Muslim officers indicted by the tribunal surrendered last August. Fifteen other men from the Muslim-Croat Federation are still being sought by the tribunal, most of them former Muslim or Croat generals or lower-ranking officers accused of committing crimes against civilians.

The Government has decided that indicted Bosnians who do not surrender are to be arrested by local police with the support of Nato-led peacekeeping troops. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats fought each other after starting as allies at the beginning of the war, which ended in 1995. They joined forces again to form the US-sponsored federation, which occupies half of Bosnia's territory.

The Sarajevo Government renewed its call yesterday for the Bosnian Serb authorities and the international community to arrest the two most- wanted war crimes suspects: Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and Ratko Mladic, his army commander. Both are believed to be in hiding in the Bosnian Serb Republic.

The Bosnian Serb Republic wants the tribunal to indict Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian President, over crimes allegedly committed during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war. The Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry said last week that it had given the tribunal a 12,000-page dossier that listed 448 criminal charges against 2,954 people over war crimes against Bosnian Serbs.