Serb Leader Says He has the Goods on Milosevic

BELGRADE: In one of the first clear statements implicating Serb President Slobodan Milosevic in war crimes, Vojislav Seselj, president of the ultranationalist "Serb Radical Party," told the Associated Press that he has "incontestable proof" that the Bosnian war operations were not commanded by Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, but by their boss, Slobodan Milosevic. Both Karadzic and Mladic are under indictment by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Milosevic, assumed to have been an instigator and promoter of the war, has become one of the key architects of Bosnian peace. As late as Monday, he promised Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights John Shattuck that he would cooperate in war crimes investigations. "The Seselj statement may be more jockeying on the part of a war crimes suspect than meaningful to the peace process," says TIME's Edward Barnes. "Seselj is one of the worst warlords of the war, and his operations, based in Belgrade, included massive theft as well as slaughter. So his word is certainly suspect. Besides, if I was Seselj and heard Milosevic vowing to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal, I'd feel very nervous."