WASHINGTON -- Investigators at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, have concluded that the Croatian army carried out summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and "ethnic cleansing" during a 1995 assault that was a turning point in the Balkan wars, according to tribunal documents.

"In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs," the investigators say in their report.

The investigators have recommended that three Croatian generals be indicted, and a U.S. official said last week that the indictments could come within a few weeks.

The indictments would be the first of Croatian army officers for actions in the Balkan wars from 1991 to 1995, which first pitted an independence-seeking Croatia against rebel Serbs and Serbia proper, and then spread to Bosnia.

Any indictment of Croatian army generals could prove politically troublesome for the Clinton administration, which has a delicate relationship with Croatia, a U.S. ally with a poor human rights record in preserving the peace in Bosnia.

The August 1995 Croatian offensive, which drove some 100,000 Serbs from a large swath of Croatia over four days, was carried out with the tacit blessing of the United States by a Croatian army that had been schooled in part by a group of retired U.S. military officers. Questions remain about the extent of U.S. involvement.

In the course of the three-year investigation into the assault, the United States has failed to provide critical evidence requested by the tribunal, according to tribunal documents and officials, adding to suspicion among some there that Washington is uneasy about the investigation.

Two senior Canadian military officers who were in Croatia during the offensive testified that the assault, which saw some 3,000 shells rain down on the city of Knin over 48 hours, was indiscriminate and targeted civilians.

The Pentagon has argued through U.S. lawyers at the tribunal that the shelling was a legitimate military activity, according to tribunal documents and officials.

U.S. officials have repeatedly maintained that they have provided full cooperation with the tribunal.

A spokesman for the Croatian Ministry of Defense denied that any war crimes or other illegal acts were committed during the offensive, which the Croatians dubbed Operation Storm.

To date, the war crimes tribunal, set up by the United Nations in 1993, has indicted 83 people, most of them Serbs. Its chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour, will decide whether the indictments should be issued.

The investigators have also recently begun looking into whether the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, should be held responsible under international law for his role in the assault, tribunal and U.S. officials said.

At the same time, the investigators have stepped up an inquiry focusing on Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader, who is widely seen as the architect of the Balkan wars. U.S. officials and tribunal staff said that a special team to investigate Milosevic was set up at the tribunal in October.

Tribunal officials rejected reports that the tribunal had refrained from indicting Milosevic because of pressure from the United States, which sees the Yugoslav leader as a guarantor of the Dayton accords.

To assist the tribunal, the Clinton administration has set up a task force to cull reams of photos, telephone intercepts and other material held by various government agencies.

"There was never any political pressure" against indicting Milosevic, said William Stuebner, an American who served as an adviser to the tribunal's chief prosecutor from 1994 to 1997.

Pub Date: 3/21/99