BOSNEWS digest 445 -- 26/10/95

From: Nermin Zukic <[email protected]>

Bosnia-Herzegovina News Directory

CONTENTS

[01] LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE DIPLOMATIC FRONT AND ON THE GROUND IN THE BALKANS

Representatives of Croatia and Serbian forces occupying eastern Slavonia today continued discussions over the region's future. The Bosnian government yesterday criticized a Croatian electoral provision calling on Bosnian Croats to participate in Croatia's parliamentary elections set for October 29. The government protested that it undermined its sovereignty. Opposition parties in Croatia itself also criticized the provision for unfairly helping the party of President Franjo Tudjman and undermining the Federation in Bosnia.

Russia and the U.S. announced today that peace talks between Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, originally scheduled to begin on October 31 in the U.S., will instead begin on November 1. In accordance with Russian demands, seconded by France, the three presidents will meet in Moscow on October 31 for a preliminary discussion. Secretary of Defense William Perry and Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev will meet Thursday in Washington to discuss integrating Russian troops into the NATO-led force intended to implement a Bosnia peace accord. Russia has refused to allow its troops to serve under NATO command.

[02] THIS WEEK IN BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA - MASS MURDER, RAPES, EXPULSIONS CONTINUE AFTER `CEASE-FIRE.'

Western officials have evidence that thousands of Bosnian men and boys may have been slaughtered in Serb-occupied northwest Bosnia -- some after a U.S.-brokered "cease-fire" took effect.

At least 3,000 unarmed Muslim men were separated from their families when Serbs drove out the few remaining non-Serbs from the Banja Luka area.

"If the killings are going on and the Americans are simply observing it, they will be as morally culpable as those officials in World War II who saw the photographs of the lines of Jews outside the gas chambers and did nothing," a senior UN official, who asked to remain unidentified, told the New York Times.

In fact, impending U.S.-sponsored "peace talks" may be pushing the Bosnian Serbs to hasten the pace of the killings, according to two senior Western diplomats. "They are liquidating men who were being used as slave laborers," one diplomat said.

John Shattuck, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, presented a list of 1,200 missing Muslim and Croat men to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, saying their fate was of "top interest" to the American government. Milosevic claimed he would try to find the missing men.

The murders were reportedly committed by paramilitary groups with close ties to Serbian leaders in Belgrade, the Times notes.

The UN's agency for refugees expressed "extreme alarm" about the fate of thousands of missing refugees expelled from Banja Luka, BBC reported yesterday (Wednesday). While expulsions continue, the flow of refugees out of Serb- occupied territory "abruptly stopped" about 10 days ago.

There is evidence that Serb extremists have reopened detention centers in northwest Bosnia -- including Keraterm, where Bosnian civilians were earlier starved, tortured, and beaten to death.

[03] BODIES IN SANSKI MOST.

Bosnian soldiers who recaptured the town of Sanski Most found the bodies of 86 Muslim and Croat civilians slaughtered by withdrawing Serb fighters. And, more bodies are being discovered every day, the New York Times reports.

Sead Hadjametovic, the lone known survivor among hundreds of men interned at a ceramics factory, said men were crammed together so tightly they could not lay down to sleep. Every day, men were taken away and never seen again, he said. Those who were left went without food for days.

"This valley became our torture cell," recalled Mujo Kuljanin. "Any Serb could do anything he wanted to one of us. Even our children's playmates would turn against us."

[04] REFUGEES' HORRORS.

Refugees driven from their Banja Luka homes "tell gruesome stories of drunken rampages by Serbian militiamen, of looting, of rape and of murder," the New York Times reports.

First, Serb paramilitary fighters led by a warlord known as Arkan beat, terrorized, and robbed the few remaining non-Serbs in the city. "Once the pillaging was over," the Times reports, "the Arkan fighters began to drink, rape women and execute people in the street, witnesses said."

Mehmet Batic said he was taken to a police station and beaten for hours until he collapsed. "I finally could not stand," he said. "I was black and blue all over. The Serbs began to urinate in my mouth. It was awful. I cannot stand to look at a man in an army uniform."

A 55-year-old woman, too frightened to give her name, told a Times reporter she witnessed a group of Serb soldiers attack Muslim men with sledgehammers. "Four men died," she said. "The others were badly hurt. They killed my neighbor, Ismet Besic, and they pulled his 15-year-old son over to see the body. The soldiers were laughing. They made the son begin to eat his father's cap. These men were crazed, mad. They thought this was fun."

[05] TESTIMONY IN THE HAGUE.

The international war crimes tribunal in the Hague has heard testimony from concentration-camp survivors in an effort to obtain an arrest warrant for Dragan Nikolic, commander of the Susica camp near Vlasenica in northeast Bosnia.

"A former prisoner testified this week that victims were lashed to an electricity pylon and beaten to death with baseball bats, batons, rifle butts and chains," Associated Press reports.

"One man was said to have been beaten so viciously his eye burst out of its socket. Guards threw his disfigured body back into an empty storage warehouse at the camp, where he died."

Like other accused Serb nationalist war criminals, Nikolic is not in custody and remains safe from prosecution, because he is on Serb-occupied land.

[06] `THE WILD-EYED LOOK OF CAGED ANIMALS.'

For the first time in two years, a UN aid convoy reached the besieged enclave of Gorazde directly from Sarajevo. And, foreign journalists were permitted to enter the town.

"The destruction is nearly complete," an AP reporter who traveled on that convoy describes. "Burned out hulks of buildings line every street, and shops or markets are closed.

"The isolation is total; Gorazde's people have the wild-eyed look of caged animals. `I feel like a monkey, and I think I live in a zoo,' said Amer Terovic, 20." The town has no running water and almost no electricity, except for a small amount generated by makeshift paddlewheels on the Drina River which goes to priority buildings such as the hospital.

The convoy brought meals for 3,000 people, but 68,000 people are trapped there.

[07] PRISONERS RELEASED.

Serb nationalists freed two Turkish journalists they had seized two weeks ago as part of a prisoner exchange. The two were supposedly traveling under UN "protection" when they were kidnaped. "We were handed over to the Serbs in Ilidza by UNPROFOR," said Munira Acim of Turkey's Hurriyet daily. Acim said her Serb captors threatened to hang her "with a silk rope."

Also freed in the exchange: Sarajevo novelist and poet Vladimir Srebrov, an ethnic Serb who supports a unified, multi-ethnic Bosnia. Srebrov was imprisoned more than three years ago when he attempted to meet Serb nationalist leaders on a peace mission. "I went to stop the shelling and the killing of children in Sarajevo," he told the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobodenje.

Srebrov said he suffered three broken ribs and a broken jaw during his imprisonment.

[08] BOSNIAN SERB NATIONALISTS REPUDIATE CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD.

Just a few weeks after the world hailed a U.S.-brokered agreement that supposedly maintains Bosnia-Hercegovina as a unified nation composed of two parts, Serb nationalists have demanded the right to secede. In effect, the vote of their self-declared "parliament" repudiates accords hammered out in Geneva and New York, under which the "Republika Srpska" was to become one of two republics in a single Bosnian nation.

Serb nationalists are also demanding a portion of Sarajevo as an ethnically pure city.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who is negotiating on behalf of Bosnian Serb nationalists, has not commented on those latest demands.

Negotiations based on the Geneva/New York agreements are slated to begin next week in Ohio.

[09] SARAJEVO ROAD `OPENS,' BUT NOT FOR SARAJEVANS.

A UN convoy finally used a main road heading west out of Sarajevo toward Kiseljak, 15 miles away -- the first time the route has been traveled in more than 3 years. However, it is still surrounded by Serb nationalist forces and remains closed to Sarajevans -- who are unlikely to risk using it even if it were to formally "open."

"I would never use this road as long as the Serbs are there," Selma Kasumagic, a 27-year-old aid worker, told AP. "If the world thinks this is the end of the Sarajevo siege, it is very wrong. We are still in a cage."

An AP reporter traveling with the UN convoy said Serbs around the route were openly hostile. "A woman who passed by with her son snapped, `You all should be slaughtered,'" the reporter notes.

[10] MOST BATTLEFIELDS QUIET.

While unarmed civilians continue to be expelled and slaughtered in northwest Bosnia, UN officials say that battle lines were mostly quiet throughout the country.

[11] SITUATION IMPROVES IN SARAJEVO.

In Sarajevo, 300 people watched a soccer game in bomb-damaged Kosevo Stadium -- an Olympic site 11 years ago. It was the first outdoor sporting event in the city since March 1994. "I don't care that the game is not a great one," said Alen Muslic, 29. "I just enjoy sitting here and not being shot at."

There are now limited amounts of electricity and natural gas in the city, as well as some running water every other day. And, some goods are arriving into the markets. However, with the city in ruins and its economy shattered, few people have a chance to earn money to support themselves.

"There are people who can't afford food, even if the market is full," said Red Cross spokesman John Sparrow. "Whatever happens here, however much food there is in the city, there will be many people who will face an appalling winter." Few expect the city will have electricity and gas through the coming winter.

[12] WEST THREATENED BOSNIA WITH STARVATION, LEGAL ADVISER CHARGES.

European officials threatened to cut off all humanitarian aid to Bosnia -- in effect, dooming millions of Bosnians to starvation -- if the Bosnian government pressed its legal case in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, an American law professor charges.

Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois (Champagne-Urbana) who served as a legal adviser to Bosnian President Izetbegovic, said he was preparing to sue Great Britain for pushing a "peace plan" that violated the Genocide Convention, the Racial Discrimination Convention and the Apartheid Convention. Boyle said he had an "open-and-shut case." However, Bosnia's foreign minister was "called in, basically threatened," and told that humanitarian aid would be cut if the case was pursued.

"The great powers of Europe threatened to cut off humanitarian assistance to civilians -- and the Bosnian people can only survive because of food brought in by the world community," Boyle said. "When Bosnia goes to court to sort out its rights, which it has a perfect right to do, the so-called protecting powers threaten starvation for their people. The Bosnians had to go along with this as they always have."

[13] LIAISON OFFICES TO OPEN.

Bosnia and Yugoslavia have agreed to open liaison offices in each other's capital cities, U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke announced last Wednesday. The move falls short of full diplomatic relations, but is "a small step on a long and difficult road," Holbrooke said.

[14] HADASSAH AID DRIVE.

Hadassah, the international women's Zionist organization, has launched another humanitarian aid drive to collect pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, toiletries, and NEW clothing and household goods for Sarajevo. The aid will be distributed by La Benevolencija, the Jewish community's humanitarian organization, which helps Sarajevans of all ethnic groups. Last February, Hadassah brought 23 tons of aid into the city. All material must be in New York by November 23. If you can help or would like to participate -- or want more details -- contact Hadassah at (212) 303-8023.

[15] Envoy Urges Access To Bosnians

Thu, 26 Oct 95 ZAGREB, Croatia

US Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck is making another tour of Balkan capitals to press Washington's human rights concerns in advance of next week's Bosnian peace talks.

In Belgrade Wednesday, the US envoy said he gave Mr. Milosevic a partial list of missing Bosnians, and asked him to use his influence with Bosnian Serb leaders to ensure that humanitarian organizations, government representatives and journalists are allowed into the area.

Shattuck told reporters he suspected there were additional unmarked graves in northwestern and eastern Bosnia, where men were also separated after the fall of the Srebrenica government enclave this summer.

``(Given) the time that has passed since that event, it very strongly suggests that all have been killed,'' he said.

Mr. Shattuck is also continuing to press the Croatian Government on human rights issues; specifically the fate of the nearly two hundred thousand Croatian Serbs who fled the Krajina region last August. He has given Zagreb Government authorities lists of around four thousand Serbs who have signaled their desire to go back to Krajina, and he has urged the Croatian Foreign Ministry to dispatch additional consular officers to Belgrade to help process the applications.

In addition, he called on Zagreb to abolish legal impediments to the return of the Serbs, including a decree that stipulates that those who fled must reclaim their property in Krajina within ninety days.

US and West European officials have suggested that post-war reconstruction aid for the Balkans could be withheld from those who continue to violate basic human rights.

[16] US, NATO set stage for Bosnian peace talks

October 26, 1995 WASHINGTON, United States

Wednesday, NATO began sending small teams of soldiers to Bosnia to survey roads, bridges, and communications in advance of peacekeeping efforts, according to Defense Secretary William Perry. He said the small engineering units, which include some Americans, will gather information to help NATO in its plan to send some 60,000 troops to oversee the final peace agreement.

Perry also said that he will present some "new ideas" to resolve the dispute with Russia over the role that its troops will play in the peacekeeping effort. He is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart, Pavel Grachev, Thursday at the Pentagon.

With Bosnian peace talks set to open next week in Dayton, Ohio, NATO and the United States are busy paving the diplomatic way for the arrivals of the two principal players, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman will probably attend only the first few days of the talks, which have been pushed back to November 1. Zagreb asked that the talks be moved from the original date of October 25 because of elections in Croatia.

The United States has vowed to keep the Balkan factions at the Dayton talks until they reach an agreement on dividing Bosnia into two parts, 49 percent for the Serbs and 51 percent for the Muslims and the Croats.

[17] Russia -- Bosnia

Thu, 26 Oct 95 MOSCOW, Russia

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigory Karasin Wednesday said leaders of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia would meet President Boris Yeltsin at the Kremlin Tuesday.

A US official who requested anonymity said the Moscow meeting is designed to help the peace process move ahead. He emphasized peace negotiations will not begin until the three Balkan leaders arrive in the US the following day.

The indirect talks in US will be overseen by US mediator Richard Holbrooke, along with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and European Union negotiator Carl Bildt.

[18] "Grave Consequences For US"

Thu, 26 Oct 95 WASHINGTON, United States

US President Clinton is warning of grave consequences for the United States, if it does not take part in a NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"If we fail to secure this peace, how can we achieve an integrated peaceful and united Europe? If we fail to secure this peace, our success around the world, and much of our success at home, which has come from American leadership, would be weakened. If we fail to secure this peace, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia could spread to other nations, and involve our sons, and daughters in a conflict in Europe."

The President made his comments at a fundraising dinner in Washington.

[19] Croatia Arrested 14 Spies

Thu, 26 Oct 95 ZAGREB, Croatia

Croatia arrested 14 people on Tuesday on charges of spying for Serbian intelligence and the Yugoslav army since Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, state television said.

``A search of their premises conducted after the arrest provided evidence that all concerned were Serbian spies in 1991,'' said Deputy Interior Minister Smiljan Reljic.

Arrest warrants were issued for 15 people, but one was ``out of reach of police,'' the television said. It did not say where they were arrested or what their nationality was.

The equipment and other evidence found in a former Serb intelligence centre at Knin showed their brief was to collect military, political and economic data and undertake sabotage acts in Croatia, Reljic said. Reljic said the evidence that had been collec ted showed direct involvement by the Yugoslav army in ``events in Croatia.''