Martin Bell seeks Karadzic

He's not the Scarlet Pimpernel - just a wanted war criminal. But as they seek him here and seek him there, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic continues to avoid arrest.

The trial of Yugoslavia's former president, Slobodan Milosevic, resumes at the Hague next week. But Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, who've been charged with 16 counts of war crimes including the mass slaughter of more than seven thousand Muslim men in Srebrenica in 1995, remain free.

Newsnight asked the BBC's former war correspondent Martin Bell to return to Bosnia to join in the hunt for Karadzic and assess the prospects for Republika Srpska, the contested mini-state within a state. Plus we wanted to know why the new Bosnian Serb leader has called on Karadzic to kill himself.

MARTIN BELL:
In one of the most notorious corners of Europe, only the sound of the fountain breaks the silence. When the Serbs overran the safe haven of Srebrenica on July 12, 1995, this is where they rounded up 7,500 Muslim men of military age, marched them away and executed them in cold blood in the days that followed. The worst war crime in Europe since 1945. There's a book where visitors can write their thoughts, a shared sense of grief and guilt and loss. One says, "Forgive us for waiting too long to act and seeing the war in 30 second sound bites on the evening news." Attempts here to express the inexpressible. A thousand victims of the massacre identified by DNA are buried in the cemetery, which was controversial when it opened last November. The Serbs said it was provocative. Now it's part of the landscape. That's not the big change. The big change is that the years of denial are over and the Bosnian Serbs at the highest level have accepted responsibility for what happened in that terrible time.

DRAGAN CAVIC:
(President, Republika Srpska)
TRANSLATION:
Here in Republika Srpska we set up a commission to investigate Srebrenica. When I got the report, I addressed the citizens to tell them that massacre did take place and a war crime was perpetrated there. Thousands of men were killed. All those who took part in this horrible crime should know they will not escape their punishment.

BELL:
The leaders of the Bosnian Serb mini state at the time, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are still at large. Why have the authorities failed? With so many advantages, the control of terrain, a network of spies, a $5 million reward on offer. Everything's been tried and nothing has worked. Karadzic may have been an indifferent politician but he's a most successful fugitive. The longer he remains at large the more he becomes a figure of mythology. The religious festival in the new church in Karadzic territory in south-eastern Bosnia. Friends say he intends to be buried here. It's a saint's day but in the margins of the event trinkets and souvenirs of Mladic and Karadzic are for sale. The Serbs live their history like no other people on earth, that includes the recent history. The Serbs have a new cemetery too where 2,125 of their front line fighters lie buried with more to follow. From start to finish of the war the Bosnian Serb army suffered a sacrificial 30% casualty rate. Our guide is the founder of the cemetery and arrested last year as an alleged key member of the conspiracy protecting Dr Karadzic.

MILOVAN BJELICA:
TRANSLATION:
Radovan Karadzic is a Serb hero. Among the Serbian people he has become a legend. Nobody can erase that. Radovan Karadzic was a great democrat. He tried to avoid the war in Bosnia.

BELL:
How are your wounds?

DRAZENKO DJUNANOVIC:
(Editor, Novo Oslobodjenje)
OK now.

BELL:
It was bad wasn't it?

DJUNANOVIC:
Yes but I almost forget everything about it.

BELL:
Drazenko Djunanovic is an old friend, a front line commander badly wounded in the war. He now edits the main Bosnian Serb newspaper. He and his paper reflect the new Serbian thinking about war crimes.

What do you think about what happened in Srebrenica?

DJUNANOVIC:
It was war crime, of course. It was war crime. It was horrible what people done. I'm not part of war crime in Srebrenica. I don't want to be part of, because some Serbs done something. Gentlemen find them, put them in the court. If they are guilty, put them in the prison. 100 years, 1,000 years if necessary.

BELL:
To join in the hunt for Karadzic, Mladic is thought to be elsewhere, is to show the frustrations of the NATO force. It will be hard to find anywhere in Europe bet provided with natural hiding places. For most of the six years since his disappearance it has been a blind search, almost mission impossible. No lack of trying in all weathers. Roads sealed, cars searched, people questioned. Karadzic's home repeatedly raided, nothing found, except an angry Mrs Karadzic. Who says she doesn't know where he is.

LJELJENA KARADZIC:
TRANSLATION:
I just don't know because it is better that way. You see how the situation is here, what pressures we are under.

BELL:
At the height of his power, Radovan Karadzic attended high days and holy days at the church. The priest beside him in this picture is still presiding. The congregations are tiny he says because the people are afraid. The priest's house was raided on the first of April. He has S-FOR plastic handcuffs as a souvenir. Another priest father Jeremiah was badly injured. He was falsely reported, as having said it was the duty of priests to protect Radovan Karadzic. So what is their duty?

PRIEST:
Our only duty is to pray to God.

MAJOR GENERAL VIRGIL PACKETT:
(Commander, S-FOR)
S-FOR is very serious. Any time we get information, any time we get a lead, we're going to pursue that lead. If you associate yourself with that kind of network, with that kind of suspicion, you're probably going to be in harm's way.

PADDY ASHDOWN:
It's changed fantastically...

BELL:
Paddy Ashdown, the high representative, is the most powerful man in Bosnia. Catching Radovan Karadzic isn't his job. But the failure to catch him makes his job more difficult.

PADDY ASHDOWN:
(High Representative)
I would say we have followed what I call the poisoned fruit, the lucky break policy. We are stood below the tree waiting for the fruit to fall, waiting for the lucky break of the intercepted telephone call that never comes. I think you have to have a multifaceted policy. You have to shake the tree, cut off its roots and attack its branches. That's what we've done.

BELL:
Last month in towns across the Serbian towns of Bosnia he fired 59 officials. Zoran Zuza was one of them, accused of being an obstructionist element, of "failing to overcome a culture of denial, deceit, criminality and impunity". His view of Karadzic?

ZORAN ZUZA:
Maybe he's guilty for all those crimes that Serbs are made in this war but he's, according my opinion, as much guilty as other leaders of political parties and peoples here in Bosnia.

BELL:
Not more, not less?

ZUZA:
Not more, not less.

ASHDOWN:
I cannot allow the future of the citizens of this country to live in peace to be held to ransom by a few people who think that preserving a war criminal's freedom is more important than this country getting peace. It's as simple of that. Zuza was one of them.

BELL:
One of my Serbian friends calls you "Emperor Paddy". Are you comfortable with the amount of power you have?

ASHDOWN:
No and nobody would be. When I came here I described this job as having a title out of Gilbert & Sullivan and powers that would make a liberal blush. My job is to get rid of my job.

BELL:
Since he disappeared in 1998 Radovan Karadzic has been not only invisible but completely silent, not a single word has he said in public. We tried of course. We rented a mobile phone. We put out the nub in the right circles in the hope that he or his people might get in touch. We did a full page interview in the main newspaper hinting we would very much like to hear directly or indirectly from him. Of course, we didn't. He is in hiding not only from the international criminal tribunal in The Hague, but also from the media, as much his own Bosnian Serb media as the world press.

DRAZENKO DJUKANOVIC:
It will be, I think, masterpiece, professional masterpiece to make interview with somebody like this. Everybody on the world speak about Radovan Karadzic. For journalists he's top ten to speak with. People like him.

BELL:
Instead of being found, he's being lost or marginalised as the political landscape changes. This town was once a diplomatic cross-roads, former Presidents, generals and UN officials beat a path to Karadzic's door. Now there's nothing, the headquarters of a hydro-electric company and a near defunct hotel. It was on this terrace I sat with Karadzic's foreign policy advisor. I told him, "You're getting weaker and your enemies stronger. You're going to lose." He said, "We don't care. We really don't care." They did get weaker, first militarily and then politically. There is the sense here of an end game being played out. Banja Luka bustles. The presidency is here, the parliament is here.

When you said Radovan Karadzic would give himself up or take care of himself, did you mean kill himself?

DRAGAN CAVIC:
(President, Republika Srpska)
TRANSLATION:
Precisely. If I were in Radovan Karadzic's shoes I would result to one of two solutions. I would either surrender or kill myself. We can no longer live with the wrath of the entire world because of these two men. We Serbs have the strength to face the dark sides of our past for the benefit of a brighter future.

BELL:
Then there's a military option. In four months the NATO force hands over to a European force. The battle honour that it craves is the capture of Karadzic.

MAJOR GENERAL VIRGIL PACKETT:
(Commander, S-FOR)
I think we're going to get him. I mean we're going to get him whether he likes it or not. One thing that's been clear, in my guidance right from the top, has been to make sure that no matter what happens here, as we begin to look at S- FOR's mission evolution, that we make the transition with the European Union forces so there will be no break, there will be no seam in the energy and the effort and the transition of this mission to go after indicted war criminals.

BELL:
Rumour consistently locates Radovan Karadzic in the south-east of the country near the border of Montenegro. A border easily crossed on tracks both marked and unmarked. The area is under populated. Fewer pairs of eyes to watch and those few tend not to see. An impromptu meeting with the village elders. They haven't seen him since 1990 they say. But their sympathies are with him.

MIRKO VRANA:
TRANSLATION:
First of all the west wanted to drown the Serbs. It tries to do so today too. They will succeed if they continue. I wish him all the best.

BELL:
It's worse than the Turkish times they say. They're building a memorial to their dead in three wars in which the Serbs suffered terribly but the Serbs who live their history are losing power to those who are seeking to remake it. A country where a world war began and a regional war recently ended is at the point of decision of whether to be Balkan or European. Bosnia's future is in the hands of its Serbs as in a sense, it always has been.

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This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.