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Williams: The rugged peaks of western Serbia do not easily surrender their secrets. Thick forests and mountains honeycombed with caves are shielding men wanted for some of the worst crimes against humanity in fifty years.
Two of Europes most wanted men, both senior Serbian indicted war criminals, are believed to be hiding in these mountains with deep local support. A fruitless international hunt is simply making them national heroes and while the world focuses on bringing top leaders to justice hundreds possibly thousands of Serbians and others are literally getting away with murder.
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Williams: Troops from the worlds most powerful armed alliance - NATO - scour valleys that slice through the frontiers of Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro - and they find nothing.
And the UN admits serious mistakes in the search for war criminals as many fear justice denied here is sowing the seeds of future conflict.
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Williams: Kadar Hotic is looking for her son.She hasnt seen him since they were separated nine years ago on the outskirts of Srebrenica
Kadar: There was confusion and I didnt get a chance to say goodbye to him. So after he walked ten metres I called to him, Samir! He turned, and I said Good luck, son.
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Williams: Srebrenica had been a UN protected zone for thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing Serb attacks.On July 11th 1995, besieged Dutch UN troops started withdrawing more than seven thousand Muslim men and boys were then slaughtered by Serb paramilitaries.
Kadar has found and reburied her husband.Now shes looking for the one thing that could help identify the body of her son.
Kadar: I would recognize him by his trousers. I made them for him
and I changed the buttons. Im searching in hope that I will recognize my Samir.
Williams: Its not easy the earth hugs these victims. This is one of many secondary graves where hundreds of bodies have been deliberately broken up and reburied in a desperate bid by the killers to hide the evidence.
Man: Right Ankle.
Sharna: Okay.
Williams: UN workers like Sharna Daley painstakingly seek identity.Sharna: Most of the bodies are in body parts, disarticulated bones mixed together, so we are trying to sort out which elements go with which body and try to take out as many complete bodies as possible.
Williams: It prolongs Kadars pain, yet each new grave offers her grim hope of finding her son.
Kadar: This is not my first mass grave. Im looking for Samir in every single one. I will keep looking until I find him. I hope that I will find him.
Williams: Kadars not alone in this heart-wrenching search. Shes joined by Munira Subacic, another Bosnian Muslim mother looking for the body of her own son.
Kadar: I have a feeling Im going to find him here.
Munira: Do you think so?
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Williams: Several Serb leaders have been arrested for the Srebrenica slaughter, but many more killers have escaped.Nine years after one of Europes most notorious modern massacres, justice eludes its victims.
Munira: I feel defeated every time I visit a grave
because the criminals who have done these crimes and organised these crimes, are still free and very proud of the crimes they have committed.
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Williams: Munira and Kadar were born in Srebrenica -- their homes are now occupied by Serbs some of whom they say took part in the killing.
Kadar: People who took part in the crimes are walking freely through this town -- my town. Those who didnt commit the crimes supported the ones who did so theyre also to blame. They know where we should dig but theyre protecting the criminals. For me, theyre all criminals.
Williams: The man who led the military action against the Srebrenica Muslims - Serbian General Ratko Mladic - is wanted in The Hague for war crimes -- but hes on the run, hiding in Serbia.Carla: The information we receive and we are receiving now is that he is almost protected by former army personalities and even from some of the police structure.
Williams: One of those The Hague does have in custody is former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic.
Milosevic: Go on then -- get on with it!
Williams: But prosecutors are increasingly uncertain they can prove his responsibility for the most serious charge genocide.And of the 35 Serbs, Croats and Bosnians already convicted here for war crimes many are at large in the Balkans, protected by their supporters.
Carla: We have now 22 accused at large, and 15 of them are most probably in Serbia, so
we are still trying to obtain co-operation with Belgrade, but the government is not really acting in that direction.
Williams: The Hague Tribunal was set up to punish only top political and paramilitary leaders, and Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte admits that their list was cut back.
Carla: We have a lot of people who are suspects, who are perpetrators, who are the executors of crimes that we cannot touch, we cannot consider.
Williams: And Ms Del Pontes dealing with a new problem.Under US pressure the Tribunal is winding down there will be no new investigations after the end of this year.
The pursuit of an estimated 20,000 war criminals will now rely on the slow justice of weak local courts in each Balkans country.
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Williams: In Serbias capital Belgrade peace now reigns, but theres little will to chase thousands of war criminals.The Government even refuses to hand over top generals wanted by The Hague.
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Williams: Serbs instead assert they are a unique people surrounded by hostile forces.
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Williams: For centuries these Orthodox Christians have seen themselves as Europes frontline defenders against Islam.
More recently many believe Yugoslavia was broken up by a western conspiracy and Serbs who fought are national heroes.
Natasha: We have a situation in which politicians are not ready to look at the past, because the majority of them, they agree with Milosevic.
Williams: Natasha Kovac is Serbias leading human rights lawyer. As the Hague winds down shes one of the few now expected to pursue war criminals who still hold power in the government, the police and the army.
Natasha: Many individuals who were very active
in times of war and who are mentioned by many indictments as members of some groups, commanders who were involved in crimes they are in power in institutions.
Williams: Still today?
Natasha: Still today.
Williams: A Serb chasing Serb war criminals runs risks -- protecting witnesses is almost as hard as protecting herself.
Natasha: I saw in my life many deaths, many people in very horrible situation and its a normal life for human rights defenders.
Williams: Today Natasha attends the trial of 17 Serbs accused of murdering 200 Croats. Its meant to be a showcase of Serbias ability to try its own.
Natasha: I believe this time justice will be reached.
Williams: But this is the exception, not the rule; for Natasha nothing short of a national catharsis will remove known criminals from power and land them in court.
Natasha: Without trying them, they will stay in the institutions and it means that with them, society, including Serbia, doesnt have any chance to open the issue for responsibility for what we did in the past.
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Williams: The failure of national justice is clearest in the fertile valleys of western Serbia especially here, in the town of Priboj.
Many Muslims were attacked here, and local leaders say those responsible are well known.
Muslim Leader: Yes, a considerable amount of the people who committed those crimes are still living among us. We meet them, we know them, but we cannot do anything to bring them to justice.
Williams: On the morning of October 22nd 1992, a bus taking men to work was stopped here by Serb paramilitaries.
Sabritha: The bus was stopped here, and everyones ID cards were checked -- and those people who had Muslim names on their ID cards were taken off the bus.
Williams: Seventeen Muslims were taken away. Sakebas brother-in-law was among them. She was pregnant at the time.
Sabritha: For the past twelve years Ive lived with a family where all you see is crying. A mother has lost her son. A husband has lost his brother. And the consequence of all this is that my daughter was born with a heart condition.
Williams: Most of the men came from here, Sjeverin, for four centuries a Muslim village.
Zineta Hodzics husband, Medo, was among those taken away. Proud of their work, the kidnappers took photos of what happened next.
Zineta: This is my husband. You can see the blood running from his mouth and throat.
Williams: Thats your husband?
Zineta: Yes. Yes. Thats my husband.
Williams: In the lobby of a hotel while some guests looked on, the 17 were brutally beaten, tortured, and one by one murdered. Their bodies are yet to be found.
Zineta: Its pointless being angry -- being angry wont help me. But Ive lost faith in human intelligence, in human beings. How can a human being do what not even an animal would do?
Williams: There was a trial in Belgrade for this crime -- one of the few -- but it was a whitewash; just two of the twelve kidnappers are in jail, most have never even been charged.
Zineta: Not even a minimum of justice has been satisfied with this trial.
There are so many guilty, and yet so few sentences have been given that this is no justice
. in my opinion.
Williams: Why do you think that these guys cant be found or arrested, whos protecting them?
Zineta: They are protected by their people, and its in their interest to save them so that all these court proceedings can pass by and they can return to power afterwards.
Williams: Most disturbing of all about this case is the fate of the ringleaders.Sentenced in absentia in a Belgrade court to twenty years jail, they live freely here, just across the border in the Serbian part of neighbouring Bosnia.
If they can live so openly here then little wonder this area is the favoured haunt of the most wanted.
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Williams: Radovan Karadzic was the Bosnian Serb political leader. Hes been indicted in The Hague for war crimes and is today on the run.
Many believe he is hiding in this mountainous border area between Bosnia and Serbia slipping across frontiers whenever the heat is on, but hes not alone.
Paddy: This guy is not some lone romantic hero wandering over the hills of Bosnia.
He is the head of a criminal network which raises money for his protection through trafficking women, trafficking drugs. So we are hitting the network now, and thats arguably something, we should have done before. We are determined to do the job.
Williams: Paddy Ashdown is the UNs High Representative in Bosnia. A former head of the Liberal-Democrats in Britain, hes been committed to helping this region find peace. But, as an ex Special Forces soldier, he knows the difficulty of finding one man.
Paddy: Youve been there, you know what its like. One of the wildest mountain vastnesses in the whole of eastern Europe. In this country, Tito hid 7000 partisans from six German divisions and they couldnt catch him, so catching a single individual in wild county like this, who is amongst people who regrettably still regard him as a hero, is a very tough military task.
Williams: But in The Hague, key officials also blame NATO.
Carla: One of the problems is sharing information in time and sometimes the structures are so bureaucratic that its not working or its always too late when they put in place an operation to locate Karadzic, or to arrest Karadzic.
Williams: In this part of the Bosnian border with Serbia Karadzic is not just a hero, but the latest in a line of Serb nationalist fighters, even emblazoned on their t-shirts.If they know where Karadzic is they certainly arent about to tell me or anyone else.
Williams: Youd kill yourself. Youd rather kill yourself than tell me.
Williams: This barbeque is to raise funds for a new statue to a World War Two Serbian nationalist killed by Titos communists.
Serb Nationalist: These are the people who defended our Christianity. We are Christians Serbs, Orthodox Serbs.
Williams: Are they of the same status? Serb Nationalist: Yes
yes.
Williams: As the brandy fuels spontaneous song, the names of past heroes are replaced by a new one Radovan.
Williams: Bosnian Serbs can be expected to support Karadzic, but the network is far wider, stretching back across the border to the Serbian capital, Belgrade.The US and Europe are threatening Serbia with economic sanctions unless the military and security services stop protecting war criminals.
Paddy: Up until very recently, the last four or five months, these guys have remained free because there was direct collusion to protect them and to prevent them being caught from the authorities in the intelligence services, in the army and in the government in the Republica Serbska on the Bosnian-Herzegovina side of the border and in Belgrade. Theres no doubt about that. They could not have remained free this long without that being the case.
Williams: Lord Ashdown says he sees signs of change in Belgrade and elements of the Serbian military may at some point be willing to hand over the wanted if as promised that clears the way to join NATO.But Serbian leaders risk a voter backlash if they hand over wanted war criminals.
Paddy: If youre saying to me thats all words, then
youre right. Unless this is translated into action, and concrete action is these guys in The Hague, it aint going to matter.
Williams: While there is no action and with The Hague tribunal under pressure to wind up, the two main fugitives Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic are hoping to hold out and even get away with it.
Paddy: Well youre absolutely right --the famous Karadzic phrase is drzati, drzati drzati -- hang on, hang on, hang on -- and thats the message hes giving to the Serbs. I dont think it will be possible for The Hague tribunal to close down unless theyre caught. The fact there is a deadline for The Hague tribunal means there is a deadline for catching these guys.
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Williams: Promises of future justice mean little here in Srebrenica.Revisiting the UN base where they lost their loved ones, Munira and Kadar want to confront the killers in court in their own country The Hague Tribunal has not been enough.
Munira: Its not enough, given the amount of crime and genocide committed. Its not enough. Its just a drop in the ocean.
We the mothers of Glava, Srebrenica and Dzepa have not yet got the truth and justice weve been fighting for the past nine years.
Natasha: After the Second World War we covered up everything whats happened and the people in this region think that everything will repeat, that crimes will be covered
and once in fifty years again the war will start again.
Williams: Just three months ago, Munira found and reburied the remains of her husband, but her work is not done.
Munira: He has a gravestone, but I dont have the name of the criminals responsible. My life ended when he died thats when I was killed -- thats when I died. I only continue to live to find out the truth for my loved ones.
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Williams: Just 1500 of the thousands they believe were killed in Srebrenica have been reburied at this new cemetery. One day its where Munira and Kadar hope to lay their own sons.
Munira: They took him away when he was nineteen. Every night I lie down with pain and wake up with sadness. I am looking for him and I will continue to look. I hope Ill find him.
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Williams: The world denied these people protection when they lived -- in death will their relatives be denied proper justice.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Camera: Richard Malone
Editor: Mark Douglas
Research: Anna Bracks