Yugoslav Daily Survey 96-03-21

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

From: [email protected] (D.D. Chukurov)

21 March 1996

CONTENTS

[A] THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] BULATOVIC, QIAN: DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATION IN MUTUAL INTEREST

[02] FOREIGN CAPITAL ALLOWED IN ALL AREAS IN YUGOSLAVIA EXCEPT MILITARY INDUSTRY

[03] U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: NO INDEPENDENCE FOR SERBIA'S KOSOVO-METOHIJA

[B] BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA

[04] R.S. PREMIER ASKS MUSLIM-CROAT FEDERATION FOR GUARANTEES FOR RETURN OF SARAJEVO SERBS

[05] ICRC WARNS ABOUT NEW HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN BOSNIA

[06] IALL PRISONERS IN BOSNIA MAY BE RELEASED BEFORE MARCH 23

[07] IDE CHARETTE CONCERNED OVER ETHNIC CLEANSING IN SARAJEVO

[C] R E F U G E E S

[08] IBOSNIAN SERB CITY OFFICIAL: 500,000 REFUGEES PASS THROUGH BANJA LUKA

[09] ICOMMISSION FOR REPATRIATION OF BOSNIA'S REFUGEES SET UP

[10] OPERATION IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA IS WORLD'S BIGGEST, SAYS UNHCR

[D] C O M M E N T A R Y

[11] SARAJEVO - CAPITAL CITY OF ALL EUROPEAN MUSLIMS by Zdravko Milanovic

[E] FROM FOREIGN PRESS

[12] EVACUATION OF SERBS IS TOO HIGH A PRICE FOR UNIFICATION OF SARAJEVO

[13] ITALIAN DAILY ON CRIMES AGAINST SERBS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

[14] WASHINGTON, LONDON DISAGREE OVER ARMING OF BOSNIAN MUSLIMS

[A] THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] BULATOVIC, QIAN: DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATION IN MUTUAL INTEREST

Standing Committee Chairman Qiao Shi informed Minister Pavle Bulatovic about the current tensions in the Taiwan strait.

Bulatovic informed Qian about the situation in the former Yugoslavia and the efforts invested by the Yugoslav Federation for an equitable political solution to be reached. The Yugoslav Defense Minister said that, as a result of the unjust international sanctions, Yugoslavia had suffered more than 150 billion dollars in losses, which he said would be an immense sum even for a far more highly developed country.

Bulatovic thanked China for its principled stand in the resolution of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia and the support lent to Yugoslavia in that quest.

Bulatovic discussed the bilateral cooperation with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Chan Guan Wednesday afternoon.

[02] FOREIGN CAPITAL ALLOWED IN ALL AREAS IN YUGOSLAVIA EXCEPT MILITARY INDUSTRY

Maksimovic said that Yugoslavia intended to take a new step toward creating a more favourable legal framework for foreign capital investments, necessary for economic recovery and reconstruction following three and a half years of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions of the international community.

The essential change will be a maximum expansion of areas in which foreign investors could set up their own enterprises or have a controlling interest in domestic firms. All areas except the production and trade of arms and military equipment will be available to foreign investors. They will also be denied access to areas proclaimed a forbidden zone under federal law, Maksimovic explained. He specified that foreigners could, after the Federal Government accepted the proposed amendments and the Federal Assembly adopted them, open their own enterprises and have a controlling interest in the field of the power industry, railway traffic, PTT services, forestry, and public information, as well as municipal services (water supply and heating).

Among the proposed changes is the possibility of duty-free imports of motor vehicles for foreigners if they are a founding deposit.

It has also been proposed that foreign investors and local partners no longer need to obtain papers from the competent ministry for registering contracts on foreign investments.

Foreign investors would be able also to invest dinars, so that the national currency would be treated on a par with foreign currency in these capital transactions as well. This is one of the conditions for a currency to be convertible under the statute of the International Monetary Fund.

Asked about the presence of foreign investors on the Yugoslav market since the suspension of sanctions in November 1995, Maksimovic said a total of 103 contracts on mixed enterprises had been concluded so far this year. He said that, in the same period, foreigners had set up 38 firms in Yugoslavia and about ten contracts on foreign investments in Yugoslav firms had been concluded.

[03] U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: NO INDEPENDENCE FOR SERBIA'S KOSOVO-METOHIJA

Albright said she was concerned for human rights in the province, but cited no instances of their violation. She said that the U.S. demanded that human rights in Kosovo-Metohija be respected in line with international standards, as a precondition for a full reintegration of Yugoslavia in major international bodies.

[B] BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA

[04] R.S. PREMIER ASKS MUSLIM-CROAT FEDERATION FOR GUARANTEES FOR RETURN OF SARAJEVO SERBS

Kasagic said his Republic expected a greater engagement on the reconstruction of the devastated country in the second phase of the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords.

He pointed out that the international community was asking that two conditions be met before it approved funds for reconstruction - privatization and elections. 'Regarding the first (privatization), we shall very soon propose a series of system-related laws, and, regarding elections, there is no reason not to meet the set deadline (from June until September this year),' he said. The Muslim side would like to extend this deadline, but Republika Srpska would like elections to take place even before this deadline, so that a chance could be given to fresh forces and even fresher ideas, people who have not tired of all this, Kasagic said.

[05] ICRC WARNS ABOUT NEW HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN BOSNIA

Columns of Serb refugees have reached the Bosnian Serb towns of Brcko, Bratunac, Srebrenica, Vlasenica, Visegrad, Zvornik, Srbinje and Trebinje, but they do not have adequate accomodation there, the ICRC said.

The most dramatic situation is in the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac, whose current population of 25,000 already includes 15,000 dispaced persons, and in Srebrenica, which has more than 12,000 dispaced persons, because the ICRC is the only humanitarian organization active in the region.

while the transfer of power in the Sarajevo Serb municipalities of Vogosca and Ilijas passed relatively calmly, the situation in Hadzici, Ilidza and Grbavica has caused serious concern because those parts of Sarajevo are in a state of total lawlessness, the ICRC said. It said that gangs and individual robbers from both sides (Muslim and Serbs) were plundering and burning up houses and harassing the local population.

The ICRC said that international and national authorities should now secure that those who had left their homes with the intention of coming back do not find their homes occupied in the meantime. The organization said it had reacted at once by providing humanitarian aid to the remaning Serbs in Sarajevo.

[06] IALL PRISONERS IN BOSNIA MAY BE RELEASED BEFORE MARCH 23

Bulajic and President of the Assembly of the R.S. Momcilo Krajisnik conferred at Pale on Wednesday with the team of the international community's High Representative Carl Bildt about the release of the remaining prisoners of war still held by the Muslim and Croat sides although the Dayton Agreement deadline for their release expired on January 19.

Bulajic said that two of the Bildt team members promised that they would later today establish contacts with representatives of the Muslim-Croat Federation (MHF) and on Thursday reach accord on having all prisoners set free before March 23. The R.S., as Bulajic put it, did not accept a proposal by members of the Bildt team to partially solve the problems of releasing the prisoners of war, maintaining that this would be improper politically.

Bulajic stressed that the R.S. demanded that the Zagreb authorities should also be brought under obligaiton to set free soldiers of the Serb entity in the bih who were kept in jails of neighbouring Croatia.

The release of prisoners was the ic also at a talk held on Wednesday between Bildt's Deputy Michel Steiner on one hand and the representatives of the local authorities in Doboj, the town in the northeast of the R.S., and of the local associations which rally relatives and friends of the soldiers and civilians held prisoner.

Steiner promised that the international community would do its utmost for more than 2,000 Serb soldiers and around 800 civilians held prisoner to be released immediately, but he observed that one should have no illusions that this process would be brief. Steiner said that none of the three sides - Muslim, Serb, Croat - had respected the provisions in the Dayton Agreement and set free all the detained.

[07] IDE CHARETTE CONCERNED OVER ETHNIC CLEANSING IN SARAJEVO

'Those people have left because they were being pushed from all sides,' De Charette said.

He said that France was very dissatisfied with the developments in Bosnia. He said: 'All that we have done, including our 51 dead soldiers, was not done to have the war renewed one day but to achieve reconciliation of the three ethnic communities (in Bosnia).'

[C] R E F U G E E S

[08] IBOSNIAN SERB CITY OFFICIAL: 500,000 REFUGEES PASS THROUGH BANJA LUKA

Franchetti inquired about preparations for local elections that should be held in June and parliamentary elections in September, especially from the aspect of equal access to the media for all political parties contesting the elections.

Bajic said that there was good will to give all parties equal treatment, but that NATO air raids had destroyed radio and television lines which NATO was now expected to repair.

[09] ICOMMISSION FOR REPATRIATION OF BOSNIA'S REFUGEES SET UP

The Dayton Agreement gave the Commission the final authority to adjudicate claims of ownerships or tenancy and to help people reoccupy, sell, lease or exchange their property.

The Commission is made up of three international members, from Belgium and Switzerland, four representatives of the Muslim-Croat federation, and two representatives of the Republika Srpska.

[10] OPERATION IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA IS WORLD'S BIGGEST, SAYS UNHCR

Help in organising the repatriation of two million refugees and displaced persons from Bosnia is crucial to the operation, Ogata said, addressing the 52nd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The repatriation is due to begin in early April, she said and specified that, in compliance with the Dayton Peace Accord for Bosnia, the UNHCR was urging that every man be given the right to repatriation, life, freedom and security.

Securing freedom of movement will be one of the biggest tests of the peace process in Bosnia, Ogata said, but added that she was uneasy about the existence of numerous political barriers that were just as powerful as road barriers. Proof of this is the latest exodus of Serbs from Sarajevo, she said.

Ogata said that the UNHCR, as a third party in talks among states that had given and those that had received refugees, was insisting on the creation of the basic conditions for their return. These would include amnesty and other guarantees, as well as the monitoring of conditions in which the repatriates will live, so as to protect them from discrimination and violence, she added.

Ogata stressed the exceptional importance of Bosnian elections, which should be held between June and September, and the right of the refugees to vote and contest the elections.

Successful elections, in which the refugees who are not in Bosnia would be given the right to vote, would certainly be a major stimulus for their return, Ogata said.

[D] C O M M E N T A R Y

[11] SARAJEVO - CAPITAL CITY OF ALL EUROPEAN MUSLIMS by Zdravko Milanovic

At least 60,000 Serbs, who have left Sarajevo in the past few months, in some of the feature stories were even enthusiastically seen off by a cynical remark that what is concerned is the 'well-deserved punishment for the 3.5-year-long siege of the city.'

U.N. officials, too, speak about a 'unification of the city' in the first place, only then to explain that a high price paid for this unification is - the exodus of Serbs who did not believe in international guarantees that they will be secure in their homes.

Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic - in his recent addressing the Muslims in Mostar - referred to this column of unhappy people at the time they were still moving from Sarajevo to Pale, with the words: 'Do not grieve much about the triumph of some (Croat) individuals and groups from across the Neretva (the river dividing Mostar into its Muslim and Croat parts), because these (Serbs) from around Sarajevo had likewise behaved arrogantly and violently, but you may now see how they end up.'

Izetbegovic has already defined his attitude towards living together with the Serbs, and, in an interview to the Sarajevo political magazine fokus, says, using chess jargon: 'In Sarajevo, we play white, while the other side may play what it wants. It is our interest that part of the Serbs should remain in Sarajevo.'

The term 'part of the Serbs' was not accidentally used by Izetbegovic, the 'advocate' of the idea of a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sarajevo. It was for this reason that he felt it unnecessary to elaborate his assertion which, to an analyst, does not represent anything else but a multi-ethnic 'ikebana' necessarily arranged for the world public, for which he requires just 'part of the Serbs.'

Whereas Izetbegovic seeks 'part of the Serbs' to stay in Sarajevo and while world media speak about the 'unified city,' the Sarajevo Muslim weekly Ljiljan has these days carried the headline that apparently reflects the true situation: 'Sarajevo, capital city of Bosniacs (as Muslims in the BiH call themselves) and of all European Muslims.'

[E] FROM FOREIGN PRESS

[12] EVACUATION OF SERBS IS TOO HIGH A PRICE FOR UNIFICATION OF SARAJEVO

Belgian papers quoted NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana as saying that the way in which Sarajevo was united was a serious blow to plans for a multi-ethnic Bosnia.

The Spanish daily El Mundo said that the latest developments' have proved that Muslims have done nothing to prevent the flight of 70,000 Serbs from five Sarajevo municipalities' and that the U.N. and NATO were of this opinion as well. 'Unchecked Muslim gangs were threatening Serbs and looting their property, intimidating the few remaining, mostly old people who failed to leave their homes,' the paper said, wondering why the international forces 'has done nothing to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Serb residents.'

German commentators were almost unanimous that such unravelling of the situation, with tens of thousands of Serbs leaving their homes in Sarajevo, is not in concordance with the desired picture of a multi-ethnic city. However, they believe that even such form of unification is a sign of progress in calming the situation.

The Austrian Die Presse daily said that a new conflict in Sarajevo, this time between Muslims and Croats, was possible now that the city is almost empty of Serbs. Other Austrian media said that the 're-unification of Sarajevo' was in fact the final stage in the process of definitive division of Bosnia into the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The IFOR in Bosnia should now see that 'ethnic cleansing is completed in the least painful way possible,' a commentator of the Standard newspaper said.

The Swiss daily Le Nouveau Quotidien said that Sarajevo was now an 'ethnically pure city,' and sharply criticised the international community for doing nothing to prevent the events in Sarajevo's five Serb districts over the past few weeks.

All French dailies criticize the developments in Sarajevo. Liberation newspaper said that the unification of Sarajevo had been carried out in the worst possible conditions, and the daily La Croix of the Roman Catholic Church saw it as joyless.

[13] ITALIAN DAILY ON CRIMES AGAINST SERBS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Ivancevic presented in a systematic order more than 10,000 crimes committed by Croats or Muslims against Serb civilians in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Corriere Della Sera said: 'Serbs were blamed and accused in a cynical propaganda war which was followed by horrors of war. How can one explain the fact that reports on Serb crimes and Serb ethnic cleansing were given maximum publicity in the world, while the same reports by the Serb side on crimes by Muslims and Croats quickly disappeared,' the daily quoted Ivancevic as saying.

The Milan daily said that 'after so many colossal propaganda lies' Serbia itself was unable to resist them sufficiently by the end of the war.

[14] WASHINGTON, LONDON DISAGREE OVER ARMING OF BOSNIAN MUSLIMS

The paper said that the European allies were right in refusing to accept the U.S. explanation that the arming of the Muslim side was necessary to form a military balance in Bosnia. Arms cannot bring stability to Bosnia, they can only bring Bosnia on the verge of a final catashe, the paper said. It said that only understanding and reconstruction could bring about stability and create conditions for normal life in Bosnia.

The paper said that the climax of absurdity of the western policy in Bosnia was the fact that the U.S. still refused to participate in the civilian reconstruction of that former Yugoslav republic while at the same time expecting its allies to help it arm one of the confronted sides.

The daily disagreed with the U.S. explanation that the arming of the Bosnian Muslims and the Muslim-Croat Federation would create a military balance, and said that the biggest threat to peace in Bosnia at present was the tension between the Bosnian Muslims and Croats.