Serb Anger at Karadzic's Dominance

SARAJEVO -- In some Bosnian Serbs, the bushy-haired psychiatrist who claims to be their political leader evokes emotions of resentment, anger and disgust. While the outside world sees Radovan Karadzic as the defender of Serbian interests in this savaged republic, many of those he claims to speak for condemn his nationalist course and accuse him of destroying their country. "To me, he is not a president but a war criminal," says housewife Gordana Kitic, as she prepares to feed her 3-month-old daughter. "He represents only a minority of Serbs in Bosnia," says biology professor Ljubomir Berberovic, who contends that a greater number of his fellow Serbs have fled the country or remained loyal to the Sarajevo government. "Who elected him? No one. So why does the world accept him as our leader?" asks publisher Gavrilo Grahovac. Grahovac and other Serbs who reject the aggressive, segregationist course charted by Karadzic concede that they know why the world deals with the rebel leader accused of committing atrocities in pursuit of ethnically "pure" territory for Greater Serbia. Regardless of whether they are legitimate representatives or renegades, Karadzic and his nationalist patrons are backed by the awesome arsenal of the Yugoslav army. In the might-makes-right reality of the Balkans in this third year of war, the voices of moderation are routinely drowned out by those whose words are punctuated with gunfire. Yet despite their lack of military clout, Bosnian Serbs who have refused to side with their bellicose brethren have banded together and insist on at least a peripheral role in international efforts to resolve Bosnia's crisis. Grahovac and other members of a newly constituted Bosnian Serb Assembly have traveled to Moscow and to West European capitals to explain their objections to ethnic partitioning. "We've proposed to all the negotiators that they at least stop dealing with Karadzic as the sole representative of the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina," says Mirko Pejanovic, a vice president of Bosnia and president of the Bosnian Serb Assembly. "I think there is a growing acceptance that he does not speak for all of us." Berberovic, who was the last rector of Sarajevo University before education was disrupted by the Serbian rebellion against independence in April 1992, has compiled an analysis of the fate of Bosnia's Serbs. He has concluded that Karadzic is supported by only a subjugated minority. Considering the number of refugees, fatalities and loyalists, Karadzic rules over only about 500,000 Bosnian Serbs of a pre-war total of 1.4 million, Berberovic argues. At least 350,000 took refuge in Serbia, he says, with at least 400,000 more scattered beyond the former Yugoslav federation. Berberovic also says that 100,000 Bosnian Serbs have been killed in rebel-held territory over the course of the war and that at least 150,000 Serbs remain in those areas of Bosnia still under government rule.