bosnet-digest V5 #83 / Thursday, 29 February 1996

From: Nermin Zukic <[email protected]>

Bosnia-Herzegovina News Directory

CONTENTS

[01] BAC: Vogosca Stories; Aid In Danger...

"We could have lived together for a thousand years. There was never a problem. My neighbor across the hall was a Muslim, and both my neighbors upstairs were Muslim. We were like a family."

--Vlado Koprivica, a Serb who will stay in Vogosca after its return to Bosnian authority

"We shouldn't have had this war at all. It was a big mistake. It was forced on us. We didn't hate, but politicians made us hate."
--Esad Avdic, a Muslim returning to Vogosca after being "ethnically cleansed" by Serbs in 1992

"There is a God, and I think all politicians will be punished, myself included."
--Rajko Koprivica, mayor of Vogosca under Serb occupation
February 29, 1996

[02] THIS WEEK IN BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA

Most homes and apartments were stripped bare -- many even of windows, doors, electric wiring, and bathroom fixtures. Some of those who came back, however, didn't seem to care.

"It's destroyed, but it's fine," 18-year-old Edin Spanic told the N.Y. Times as he surveyed his wrecked apartment. "I'll fix everything. In a month, I'll be living here with my grandmother."

Returning residents were urged to use caution, as explosives were found in some basements and one apartment was booby-trapped with a grenade attached to its door.

Most of the Serbs who lived in the district during the war fled in panic, egged on by hard-line nationalist propaganda.

"Lurid broadcasts on Bosnian Serb radio and television convinced most of Vogosca's Serbs that long treks over snowy mountains toward refugee camps were preferable to life under non-Serbian rule," according to the N.Y. Times. Some walked for 12 or more hours in a bitter winter storm to ensure they would remain under Serb authority -- even as they were furious that their own leaders didn't help them leave.

Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the UN civilian police in Sarajevo, blasted the Serb nationalist politicians as "masters of manipulation of human suffering."

"Propaganda scares people," Vlado Koprivica, one of the few Serbs choosing to remain in Vogosca, told the Times. "A lot of people would have stayed, but they were told they were going to be killed."

POLICE GIVEN HIGH MARKS. "So far, the (Bosnian) Federation officers patrolling Vogosca have offered forgiveness and taught the necessity of inclusion. And they have done their job with a professionalism that has surprised not only the foreign journalists who watch their every move, but also the few Serbs who found themselves trapped in the town," the Times reports. The first Bosnian police sent to Vogosca included 14 Serbs, two Croats, and 16 Muslims, reflecting the city's pre-war ethnic makeup.

"I am not afraid of the Federation anymore," said Dragan Knezevic, 72, who had planned to flee but had no way to transport his belongings out of town. "Some of these officers came to my home yesterday and gave me bread. Then they asked that I stay and this freed my mind."

One of the Bosnian officers, a Serb who stayed in Sarajevo center throughout the war, told the Times it was difficult for him to cheerfully greet his former enemies each day, and then visit his gravely wounded father and daughter each night -- civilians injured in a Bosnian Serb mortar attack.

"We just have to keep in mind that these are people too," said Bojan Marjanovic, another Serb officer with the Bosnian police. "These are not the war criminals who tried to destroy us." The Bosnian police were supposed to be supervised by international civilian monitors but were often seen patrolling without escort, inflaming fears among already-panicked Serbs. But some Serbs leaving Vogosca admitted that the Bosnian officers had done nothing to attack or intimidate them. "They are all very polite," Serb refugee Jadranka Bosiljevic told AP. "But I am in a Muslim house, so I don't dare stay."

REASONS FOR FLIGHT. Aid workers say some Serbs are leaving simply because their leaders have already dismantled all community services such as utilities, schools, and medical institutions. And AP noted that, ironically, it was the Serbs' own brutal conduct of the war that made many of them feel they had to leave, because they feared reprisals from their victims.

Many Serbs, though, were leaving because of their hatred of anyone in Bosnia who is not a Serb. "If we wanted to live with Muslims and Croats, we wouldn't have fought this bloody war in the first place," Nedjo Antic told AP.

"This is as if God wanted to punish us," Momcilo Krajisnik, speaker of the Serb nationalist "parliament," reportedly said of the Serb exodus, according to AP.

NATO AIDS EVACUATION. After seeing hundreds of Serbs desperate to leave Sarajevo before the city is reunited, NATO Commander Admiral Leighton Smith agreed to allow Bosnian Serb Army trucks to help civilians flee. The drivers were required to wear civilian clothes, be unarmed, and remove their vehicles' military license plates. "By doing this we will reduce tensions, we will show some compassion," Smith said.

UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski was angered by the decision, and said the UN would not assist the Serbs' flight. "We want them to stay," he told AP. "The whole Sarajevo is at stake here, and the issue of multi- ethnicity of the country."

Janowski lashed out at Serb nationalist leaders, including parliament speaker Krajisnik, for deliberately sowing panic among their own people in order to maintain power.

One NATO official told the Hearst news service that Serb hardliners appeared intent on keeping ethnic hatred alive -- along with the possibility of resuming the war after NATO troops leave.

UN aid workers charged that the Serb Army trucks were helping Serbs loot public property as they fled -- with NATO escorts, instituted after reports of rock-throwing by Sarajevo youths at some departing Serbs. "Day by day, things like the telephone exchanges, electricity cables, crucial parts of the water system are disappearing. They are being removed by the Serb authorities and gangs of thieves," Janowski said.

On Friday, Serbs looted a UN aid warehouse and set the building ablaze. Janowski said Serb police looked on and did nothing as furniture was stolen from the Ilijas municipal office building and movie theater.

SOME SERBS HARRASSED. As Muslim and Croat civilians returned to Vogosca, some reportedly were harassing and threatening remaining Serbs even as others urged the Serbs to stay. In one case, Miroslav Spiric -- a Serb who risked his life to save Muslims during the war -- was threatened by men who came to his home and told him he and his wife had no right to stay.

"If it weren't for them I would be dead. They saved my life, they sheltered and fed me," Emka Bajramovic, a Muslim whose husband was killed while being forced to dig trenches for the Serb army, told Reuters. Neighbors urged Spiric to stay, but he said no one could protect him from a grenade thrown in anger through his window.

Bosnia's Deputy President Ejup Ganic told Sarajevo's police chief, Enes Bezdrob, to visit Spiric and his wife. Bezdrob said the matter would be taken care of, and urged Spiric and his wife to stay.

ILIJAS NEXT. Bosnian police patrols are slated to begin today (Thursday) in Ilijas, where thousands of Serbs are also trying to flee before the return to Bosnian government rule.

"Shivering in the bitter cold, Serb residents of Ilijas said they had waited since dawn for civilian and military trucks promised by Serb authorities," Reuters reports. Many denounced their leaders for failing to help them; on Tuesday, just 72 trucks came while thousands sought help in leaving.

Thousands of others who already fled had nowhere to go but makeshift overcrowded, under-supplied refugee centers in towns where Muslims and Croats had been murdered and expelled during ethnic cleansing.

MAKESHIFT MARKET. Fleeing Serbs and returning Bosnians have been meeting in a makeshift outdoor market on a main road north of Sarajevo -- a front line where only a few months ago, Serb and Bosnian forces were at war. "This shows that we can still live together," an optimistic Selim Begic told AP. "It shows that trade will bring us back to normal."

The Serbs are attempting to sell possessions they can't take with them when they leave. But some were there not to buy or sell, but to meet friends they hadn't seen in years. "`I feel strange,' said Mirjana Radic, a Serb from nearby Ilijas, who cried as she hugged a Muslim friend from Visoko," AP reports.

One Muslim refugee saw his own furniture being sold by a Serb from occupied Sarajevo who had taken over his home. However, Amo Rudic, 79, made no attempt to claim his property. "What can I do?" he asked an AP reporter. "There was war, and what I see here is peace."

SERB CIVIL-RIGHTS GROUP FORMED. More than a hundred residents of Ilidza have formed the Democratic Initiative for Sarajevo Serbs, aimed at protecting human rights of those Serbs choosing to remain in the region -- as well as those who left. It was an encouraging sign that some Serbs living in Serb-controlled suburbs will try to resume multi-ethnic living under Bosnian federation rule.

"I will test some details of the Dayton agreement with my own skin," said Maksim Stanisic, deputy mayor under Serb occupation. He plans to try to work in Bosnia's Serb republic but live in Bosnian-government- controlled territory.

"I want to stay, because maybe I still believe in some bit of humanity. I want to try," said Milojka Ivanovic, a Serb in Ilidza who maintained contact with Muslim and Croat friends in Serb-besieged Sarajevo center during the war. Those friends have urged her to remain, she said.

There is no similar human-rights movement Serb-held Bosnia. "An organization for non-Serbs like the Democratic Initiative would be impossible in Bosnian Serb territory, where authorities killed or expelled virtually all Muslims and Croats during the war to create a separate, `ethnically pure' state," AP notes.

BOSNIAN PRESIDENT HOSPITALIZED. Alija Izetbegovic has been hospitalized for heart trouble. The 70-year-old leader was reported in stable condition; details of his illness were not released.

Ejup Ganic, a member of Bosnia's collective presidency, was named to stand in for Izetbegovic until he recovers. Some diplomats believe that Izetbegovic has had heart problems for a year and suffered an unpublicized heart attack during the war.

SANCTIONS SUSPENDED. The United Nations has suspended economic sanctions against "Republika Srpska," the Serb republic within Bosnia created by a four-year campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The suspension was promised earlier this month in Rome, if NATO's military commander determined Serbs had withdrawn behind the "zones of separation" laid out in the Dayton accords. The move also came after Serb nationalists resumed military and political contacts with international representatives. Serb nationalist official Nikola Koljevic called the UN vote "important for the strengthening of peace." The most immediate impact will likely come from a freer flow of fuel and raw materials from Serbia, without need to resort to smuggling, according to the BBC.

KARADZIC ELUDES ARREST. British troops saw self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb "President" Radovan Karadzic, indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, several times Tuesday but declined to arrest him for fear of sparking a major firefight, NATO officials acknowledged Wednesday.

"At each sighting he was surrounded by numerous armed guards and, at times, crowds of civilians," NATO spokeswoman Maj. Carol Haig told AP; the soldiers felt unable to confront Karadzic's more-numerous bodyguards. "Had they tried to do so, civilian and military casualties would have been inevitable."

NATO officials say they will not conduct manhunts for war criminals but will arrest those they encounter. Actually, though, NATO commanders are reluctant to be drawn into the war-crimes issue, preferring that war criminals go unpunished to risking an angry Serb backlash.

A week earlier, Italian IFOR troops escorting three Serb leaders back from Sarajevo were confronted by dozens of Karadzic's personal bodyguards cocking machine guns outside a building, the London Daily Telegraph reports. The troops turned around and left; soon after, Karadzic emerged from the building.

WATER AGREEMENT FOR GORAZDE. At a meeting in Banja Luka, Serb nationalists agreed to restore running water to the long-besieged enclave of Gorazde, where utilities and almost all aid shipments were cut off during the past four years.

"For Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic of the Bosnian central government and Izudin Kapetanovic, of the Muslim-Croat federation, both Muslims, to travel to Banja Luka, even with NATO security, would have been unthinkable two months ago," Reuters notes. Banja Luka was the scene of some of Bosnia's worst ethnic cleaning; virtually all its non-Serb residents were killed or expelled, and all the region's mosques destroyed.

KOSCHNICK TO QUIT. Hans Koschnick, the EU's administrator in Mostar, says he will leave his post this July and give someone else a shot at reunifying the divided city. "A new phase has to start now by building up common administration," he told a German newspaper, Reuters reports. "For this we need fresh new faces." Croats still oppose reuniting the city.

MOSTAR'S LIBRARY FOR CROATS ONLY. "The National Library of Mostar, now called the National Library of the `Croatian Republic of Herzeg- Bosna,' is presently only accessible to users from [Croat-controlled] Mostar West and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna," according to a UNESCO report issued earlier this month. "Herzeg-Bosna," the ethnically- pure mini-state carved out of Bosnian land by Croatian nationalists, was supposed to be dissolved and Bosnia reunified.

The war-damaged library has been repaired with European Union funds.

PLANS FOR BOSNIA'S ARMY. It will take at least $800 million to give the outgunned Bosnian Army parity with Serb nationalist forces, a U.S. official told reporters, according to Reuters.

And while the U.S. government has threatened to hold up military assistance to Bosnia until all foreign Islamic fighters have left the country, America is still putting together plans to arm and train Bosnian soldiers.

Top Bosnian military leaders were in the U.S. this week, meeting with political and defense officials and touring several military bases. The American government is working to organize donors to help pay for military aid to Bosnia; a conference may be held in Turkey next month.

SERBS EVICT FAMED NAZI-HUNTER. Serge Klarsfeld, a French lawyer who helped bring Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to trial, was expelled from Serb-held Bosnia after urging Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to turn themselves in to the international tribunal in the Hague.

"I don't know how much time it will take for the Serbs of Bosnia to be embarrassed by them, but it will happen," Klarsfeld predicted.

JOURNALIST STILL IMPRISONED. European diplomats say they were able to visit Bosnian photographer Hidajet Delic, who was arrested by Serb authorities in Grbavica. Western officials believe he is being held in retaliation for the arrest of two high-level Bosnian Serb officers now being held in the Hague.

No formal charges have been filed against Delic, who held credentials from a Bosnian press agency and often worked for Associated Press as well.

CIVILIANS INJURED. A woman was injured Thursday when she stepped on a mine while trying to cross from Grbavica into Sarajevo center. Doctors believe she will lose a foot.

Also Thursday, a woman was wounded when a sniper fired three shots at a bus near the Stup bridge.

AID PLANS IN DANGER. A World Bank official warned that the Bosnian peace process will suffer a serious blow if the U.S. doesn't OK another $200 million in aid for the war-ravaged nation soon. The bank estimates that $1.2 billion is needed this year to repair the country's shattered infrastructure and create an economy so people can put down their guns and earn a living. An April donors' conference may be in jeopardy if U.S. representatives can't contribute, since other countries might also then pull out.

E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION REQUESTS to [email protected] or find "This Week in Bosnia-Hercegovina" on the World Wide Web at http://world.std.com/~slm

--The Bosnia Action Coalition (Mass./NH)

[03] NEWS - Feb. 29, 96 (Silajdzic About SDA; Rump-YU-NATO?; Weapons To SLO)

SILAJDZIC CRITICISES SDA

HIDAJET DELIC STILL IN SERB CAPTIVITY

FR YUGOSLAVIA - NATO

``It [Brcko] was a Bosnian (Moslem) majority town before the war, with Croats and Serbs. Now it's exclusively Serb and a very great strategic interest, the lifeline of communications between (Serb-held) western Bosnia and Serbia/eastern Bosnia,'' the former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt said during his visit to Brcko. Arbitration on the future control of the town is pending, under agreement reached in Dayton.

``The Bosnian government obviously has to do more, everything it can and somewhat more, to convince Serbs they have a future in Sarajevo. That's very important for the multi-ethnic future of Sarajevo and of course it has implications for the rest of the country... We now have tens and tens and tens of thousands of Serb refugees from Sarajevo moving into other areas where Bosnians (Moslems) are supposed to return... That's going to complicate the political issue all over large parts of northern and eastern Bosnia,'' Bildt commented.

THREE YEARS OF BOSNIAN CIVILIANS HIJACK IN MONTENEGRO

About 2O Bosnian civilians were driven out of the train in Strpci and lead into the unknown. The hijack is supposed to have ben committed by extreme Serb and Montenegrian supporters of Greater Serbia who at that time committed in genocide against Bosnians in neighbouring eastern Bosnia. /end/ A.S.

EUROPEAN UNION FOR ENFORCING THE ARMS EMBARGO

KARADZIC WALKED BY PRIME MINISTER AND BILDT

RUSSIAN TANKS - FOR BULGARIA

CROATIAN UN MISSION ON SERBS FLEEING FROM SARAJEVO

DRUNK SERB SOLDIERS WENT ON THE RAMPAGE IN THE SARAJEVO SUBURBS

SDP CRITICIZES ELECTION RULES AND REGULATIONS

The vice-president of the Social-Democratic Party (SDP), Gradimir Gojer, said the regulation according to which it is necessary to gather 10,000 votes for registering a party, eliminates the opposition. He said this can result in having only one or two parties participate in local elections in 50 to 60 percent of municipalities.

"It is obvious that the dictate of the international community can completely extinguish the democratic ambiance in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and even it (Bosnia) itself," he told a news conference.

The SDP criticized the OSCE Provisional Election Commission for taking the two entities, instead of the whole Bosnia, as a basis for elections. It said this brings the citizens into an equal position because, for instance, Serbs in the federation cannot vote for their representatives because this right is held solely by the Serb entity.

A member of the SDP presidency, Mustafa Beganovic, complained that social-democrats in Sarajevo were being "pushed out." He said the SDP in the Novo Sarajevo municipality is not allowed to appoint the president of the transitional municipal council although the party won the 1992 elections there. He said the largest Bosnian Democratic Action Party has "usurped power" in the municipality and appointed its own official to the post. The SDP said it will ask the Constitutional Court to protect its rights.

MURATOVIC SAID SUSPICIONS OF WAR CRIMES INVOLVEMENT AGAINST FORMER U.N. GENERAL WELL-FOUNDED

Muratovic said that Gen. Louis McKenzie "will be surely be indicted if sufficient documentation is collected."

"Some documentation on McKenzie has been collected but I do not know at what stage it is," Muratovic told a news conference.

He said the Bosnian government possesses testimonies on crimes, mainly rapes, committed by Bosnian Serbs against Bosniaks (Bosnian Moslems) in the Sarajevo suburb of Vogosca with the Canadian general involved. Federal police took over the suburb last week.

JOINT POLICE PATROLS INCREASED IN MOSTAR

Six joint patrols, comprising one Croat and one Bosniak policeman from Mostar, accompanied by a team of police "minders" from Zagreb, Sarajevo and European Union, will cross the town daily from Friday onwards, the official said.

Since Monday, two joint patrols have been circulating in Mostar, which was devastated by an 11 month Bosniak-Croat war. The city has been under shaky European administration since the war ended in May 1994.

Four other patrols have been confined to a narrow, and largely depopulated central district.

BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT SATISFIED WITH SARAJEVO SUBURBS TAKEOVER; MURATOVIC

"We are very satisfied with how it took place. There were some reprimands at our expense, but most were unjustified. The international community's high representative (Carl Bildt) has confirmed that we have a right to hoist our flag in these regions after D+45 and we will continue to do this," Muratovic told a news conference, referring to criticism against the Bosnian government for raising the Bosnian flag in front of municipal buildings in the suburbs.

According to the prime minister, the taking over of the Ilijas suburb on Thursday will open the road between Sarajevo and central Bosnia and improve access to the capital.

Commenting on the Serb departure from Sarajevo, Muratovic said the Bosnian government could not do anything to prevent it since the basis of the Bosnian Serb policy is apartheid and total separation of Serbs from other peoples.

"They were willing to stay in Sarajevo if there would be exclusively Serb municipalities and Serb authorities. We could not make any concessions in this regard."

Muratovic said his meeting with the prime minister of the Bosnian Serb entity, Rajko Kasagic, in Banja Luka on Tuesday, made a step forward in establishing joint payment operations and trade although some problems remain to be solved.

"We are not ready to open trade between the federation and the Serb entity until the border between Bosnia and Serbia is controlled. We proposed that the current international controllers of sanctions turn into monitors on border crossings and that Bosnia dispatches its own controllers to border crossings between Bosnia and Serbia," he said.

The prime minister also said the Bosnian and Croatian governments agreed at a meeting on Monday to build a large border crossing in Doljani in southern Bosnia, moving the previous crossing to Bosnian territory because there is not enough space on the Croatian side for heavy traffic.

COMMENTARY KOSCHNICK AND MOSTAR BY GOJKO BERIC

Mostar's administrator sent signals to his headquarters several times that he would resign if the European Union did not energetically stand behind his Mostar mission. This happened in situations that were critical for peace in Mostar, where not only was there no progress in implementing the Washington agreement on establishing the Bosnian Federation, but there was also a danger that new armed conflicts would break out. When he announced his own plan on the town's administrative organization, Koschnick faced Croat extremists' rage. A meeting between the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, Alija Izetbegovic, Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic, followed in Rome, on which Koschnick's plan was reduced at the expense of the idea of Mostar's integrity. The new settlement was called a compromise. This has angered Mostar's Bosniaks (Bosnian Moslems), who deem Koschnick betrayed them.

However, Koschnick is only the executor of orders signed by an invisible hand of high politics. After the attack on the E.U. official in west, Croat-held Mostar, U.S. President Bill Clinton sent him a message of support, firmly standing behind his arbitration decision. Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel roared in German media not only against Croat extremists, but also against Tudjman personally. He arrived in Zagreb angry, hitting his fist on the table in front of journalists. However, this was only a show for the public. In an eye-to-eye conversation, Kinkel whispered something else in Tudjman's ear. This is called politics, which is only another name for the international community's hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy, of course, is not the only reason why Koschnick is in a hurry to leave Mostar, probably bearing a feeling of a personal defeat. Not even people of higher format than Koschnick have been successful in these regions. The former Bremen mayor admits he did not correctly assess in the beginning the consequences of the war: "I realized only gradually how things actually happened here: people here know who shot at whom, who took people to camps, who fired snipers, killed=E0 I underestimated the traces and perhaps the desire for revenge that all this leaves."

Koschnick had and still has the best intentions regarding the residents of Mostar. "If Mostar is going to be a new Berlin, we will pack up, take our money and leave," he repeated. He believed money would solve most of Mostar's problems. The European Union invested considerable financial resources in the town's reconstruction. However, it is exactly Mostar that proves that even money is helpless in a clash with chauvinist projects. Especially if such projects -- which are expressed here today as a forcible separation of peoples along ethnic lines -- are tacitly supported by the great powers.

MURATOVIC - KAPETANOVIC - KASAGIC

Sarajevo - "Neither the Government in Sarajevo nor Bosnian Serb leadership in Pale did all necessary to prevent exodus of the Serb population from Sarajevo" said the US Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of IFOR. Smith added that "Karadzic and Mladic will not for long keep their influence on Bosnian Serbs, because the elections will move them out of the public life". (end) A.S.

RASIM DELIC, ZIVKO BUDIMIR - ANTHONY LAKE

Four-year education of six Bosnian officers is expected to take place since the coming autumn within the two best military academies in the USA: West Point and Colorado Springs. Bosnia's and the US Government made a special contract about it. Bosnia's candidates were tested in the US Embassies in Sarajevo & Zagreb. Usually very expensive, the education at West Point and Colorado Springs is free of charge this time - a gift to B-H Government.

Ten Bosnia's officers have since last autumn been educated at the military academies in Turkey. (end) A.S.

IVANKO: "FEDERAL POLICE - VERY PROFESSIONAL"

FRANCE DECLINES EUROPE'S CRITICISM

BRITAIN WANTS TO BE PRIVILEGED IN SELLING ARMS TO SLOVENIA