VITEZ. Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nov 10: Locating war crimes suspects in the Bosnian Croat town of Vltez is easy. Finding someone prepared to arrest them is tough, reports AP.

On a typical afternoon, Marinko Katava. who's wanted for murder, can be found behind his desk in the town hall. Pero SkopIJak. the town's former chief of police, runs a local printing store.

The Ruprestlc family — three of whose members are wanted for their role in the murderous wartime campaign against their Muslim nefghbours — are usually at the grocery store they run.

All have been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Netherlands, and listed on a widely-distributed poster.

The suspects aren't easy to see. A reporter who spoke by

telephone with the Kupeskics was met at the grocery by a group of men who asked the reporter to leave. Skopljak's wife made the same request at the printing shop, and fellow town nail workers said Katava did not want to meet the visitor.

But none of them take any precautions to guard against arrest.

Why should they?

Nobody is looking for them. The unarmed UN police force has no power of arrest and the NATO-led peace force has no mandate to hunt those Indicted for their alleged roles In Bosnia's war.

Of the 74 men indicted by the tribunal — four Muslims, 16 Croats and 54 Serbs — eight are in detention. Four Muslims, two Serbs and one Croat are In The Hague, and one Croat Is being held in Croatia, pending ex-

tradition.

Just the most famous war crimes suspects follow elaborate security measures to make sure they won't be nabbed and carried off to trial. They include Radovan Karadzic, who led the Bosnian Serbs during the war. and his former military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, who was fired Saturday by Karadzic's replacement. President Biljana Plavsic.

"Somehow the Issue of detaining war criminals has fallen into an institutional black hole." said Michael Steiner, a top international peace administrator in Bosnia.

The impotence of the international community was starkly illustrated in August when an indicted Serb walked into a UN police station near Sarajevo to file a complaint against Bosnian police who had

attempted to arrest him.

The UN police did not recon-glse him and later said they would have made no effort to detain him anyway, since it won't their job.

Stung by criticism, international peace administrators are now compiling a list of war crimes suspects and their whereabouts.

They’re hoping that with the US elections over — along with the chance that US casualties could mar US President Bill Clinton's reelection — Washington may be prepared to support a new mission to go after some of the wanted men.

But up to now. officials have displayed little zeal to embroil any of the 43.000 soldiers of the NATO-led peace force in the war crimes issue, wary of possible retaliation by Bosnia's former warring parties.

The peace force claims that during the past 11 months, not one of its men has spotted a war crimes suspect. Spokesmen now even deny their troops' sightings of Karadzic, which they once confirmed.

That leaves nabbing suspects up to Bosnian Muslim. Croat and Serb authorities — and "they will not do it? Steiner said. It would be political suicide for any leader to hand over suspects to The Hague.

While the Muslim-led government In Sarajevo has in the main cooperated in arresting and extraditing suspects. Bosnia's Serbs and Croats have not.

The two Serbs In custody were arrested abroad, and the Croat in The Hague handed himself in after certain conditions were agreed upon in advance. The Croat being held in Croatia was arrested by Cros-

tian officials, not Bosnian Croats.

Karadzic, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity for the siege of Sarajevo and the presumed massacre of thou sands of Muslims after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. still controls the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia from behind the scenes.

Ostensibly forced out of office in July under the terms of a US-brokered deal, he makes little effort to conceal his dally movements in his mountain stronghold of Pale, southeast of Sarajevo.

Confident of his security system and aware that nobody is going to try and grab him. he drives past the UN police station in Pale each day.

Mladic lives Just 8 miles (13 kilometers) from a big US base In eastern Bosnia