U.S. states Yugoslavian cooperation, prosecutors claim 18 more suspects

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- U.N. war crimes prosecutors insisted Wednesday that Yugoslav authorities arrest and extradite more Serb suspects despite claims from the United States that Yugoslavia was cooperating with the court.\nOpening the way for a resumption of U.S. economic assistance, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday Yugoslavia has met American criteria for cooperating with the court.\nBut a spokeswoman for top U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Yugoslavia needs to extradite 18 suspects still at large, open up state archives to war crimes investigators and allow access to witnesses.\nFlorence Hartmann, the spokeswoman, said the tribunal has been informed that Powell's decision -- which unfreezes about $40 million in aid and allows U.S. support to Yugoslavia in leading financial institutions -- was taken after the Belgrade authorities presented "a concrete program for full cooperation" with the tribunal.\n"They obviously committed themselves to ... their international obligations," Hartmann said. "We are grateful to the U.S. administration for their effort to get full cooperation" from Yugoslavia.\nIn recent weeks, six Serb war crimes suspects turned themselves in to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, after Belgrade last month urged all suspects to surrender rather than be forcibly transferred.\nEighteen other Serbs indicted by the U.N. court for alleged crimes during the Balkan wars in the 1990s ignored the government's request. Among them are the most-wanted two: former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime commander Gen. Ratko Mladic. Yugoslav authorities claim they are not in the country.\n"So far, we have seen voluntary surrender," Hartmann said. "But, we are still waiting for access to archives and witnesses (in Yugoslavia) and the arrest of the remaining fugitives."\n"We have been waiting for a long time, and we are asking for answers from the Yugoslav authorities," Hartmann said.\nHuman Rights Watch, based in New York, has criticized Yugoslav and Serbian officials for not providing the tribunal access to government archives. Richard Dicker, who follows Yugoslavia for Human Rights Watch, called Powell's decision premature.\nAll forms of U.S. support for Yugoslavia's development had been suspended since March 31 because of the country's failure to work with the court.\nThe most prominent Serb indicted by the tribunal is former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for alleged war crimes committed in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.\nDuring Milosevic's trial Wednesday, the former Yugoslav president cross-examined the tribunal's chief pathologist for Kosovo, Eric Baccard. Baccard said he examined hundreds of bodies exhumed from over a dozen mass graves and crime sites in the province in 2000.\nThe focus of Milosevic's cross-examination was an alleged massacre by Serb forces of 45 ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak on Jan. 15, 1999.\nIn a report on the exhumations, Baccard said a majority of the Racak victims -- mostly men -- were shot from close range, presumably in an execution. Milosevic argued that the victims were armed rebels killed in a battle with Serb troops.\nMilosevic's indictment blamed Serb forces for the Racak assault, and said the former Yugoslav president bore ultimate responsibility for their actions. Milosevic has been charged for an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Serbian province which left thousands dead and forced 800,000 Kosovo Albanians to flee their homes.\nThe Racak killings, which were observed from across the valley by witnesses, swayed world opinion against Milosevic and led to the 78-day NATO air campaign that drove out Serb forces.