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OMRI Daily Digest II, No. 228, 22 November 1995
CONTENTS
[1] CLINTON ANNOUNCES "HISTORIC AND HEROIC" BOSNIAN PEACE AGREEMENT.
[2] QUESTIONS ABOUND OVER BOSNIAN PEACE AGREEMENT.
[3] ANGRY MEN OF PALE.
[4] PEACE IN OUR TIME?
[5] SERBIAN PRESIDENT SAYS DAYTON DEAL IS "JUST."
[6] "WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED HERE IS A REAL PEACE."
[7] WILL THE SDA SANDZAK PARTICIPATE IN A CENTER COALITION?
[8] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS NEW PENAL CODE.
[9] MOLDOVAN-DNIESTER MEETING CANCELED.
[10] BULGARIAN PRESIDENT CANNOT RUN AGAIN, SOCIALISTS SAY.
[11] THREE BULGARIANS INDICTED OVER DEATH OF TAMILS.
[12] ALBANIA DEMANDS EXTRADITION OF FORMER COMMUNIST-ERA OFFICIALS.
[13] ALBANIA OFFERS FACILITIES FOR NATO FORCES IN BOSNIA.
OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 228, Part II, 22 November 1995
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[1] CLINTON ANNOUNCES "HISTORIC AND HEROIC" BOSNIAN PEACE AGREEMENT.
The
presidents of Bosnia-Herzergovina, Croatia, and Serbia on 21 November
initialed a text in Dayton consisting of 10 articles, 11 annexes, and
102 maps. It will come into force after the formal signing, which is
expected to take place soon in Paris. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
wrote that it provides for "one state with one capital" and a central
government. The latter will include a presidency, parliament, and
constitutional court, with familiar Tito-era legal mechanisms, such as
rotating chairmanships and the assignment of posts according to
nationality. The Bosnian state will consist of the Croat-Muslim
Federation and the Serbian Republic and will remain internationally
recognized within its present borders. Free, democratic, and
internationally supervised elections will take place; refugees can go
home; human rights will be independently monitored; war criminals will
be banned from public life and there will be "full cooperation" with the
international war crimes tribunal; and some 60,000 NATO troops are
expected to separate the hostile forces. The status of Brcko along the
Serbian supply corridor will be decided by international arbitration. --
Patrick Moore
[2] QUESTIONS ABOUND OVER BOSNIAN PEACE AGREEMENT.
While the agreement has
been widely hailed in the "international community," there are ample
grounds for skepticism as well. The three sides signed the document only
after an exhausting three-week marathon under intense American pressure.
What everyone does when they go home may be another matter,
international media noted on 22 November. Croatia can be satisfied
because it has achieved most of its aims and could try to distance
itself from any future conflict, as Slovenia did after July 1991. Serbia
can expect to have most sanctions lifted and will then be free to go its
way and claim it has no control over the Bosnian Serbs. The Muslim-
dominated government can look forward to the lifting of the arms
embargo, albeit in stages. It might not be too far-fetched to imagine a
future Serbian-Muslim conflict breaking out once Belgrade has
successfully distanced itself from Pale and once Sarajevo has acquired
more heavy weapons. -- Patrick Moore
[3] ANGRY MEN OF PALE.
It remains to be seen whether the pact will come into
force, since controlling local warlords has been a problem for all
sides. Slobodna Dalmacija on 22 November, moreover, foresaw political
difficulties involving the Croats and their role in the unified state.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic told his domestic media that an
unjust peace was at least better than war. But the big hurdle seems to
be the Bosnian Serbs, whom U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke on CNN
called the "big losers." Their parliamentary speaker, Momcilo Krajisnik,
told international media that "the agreement that has been reached does
not satisfy even a minimum of our interests." The BBC reported that
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic frequently overruled Bosnian Serb
members of his delegation during the talks, and the Bosnian Serbs
claimed that Milosevic showed them the final maps only 10minutes before
the pact was initialed. Krajisnik called the maps "blackmail" and denied
that Milosevic could speak for the Bosnian Serbs. It may be that
Belgrade is ready to abandon Pale to its fate (as it did in the case of
Knin) or that, having just refurbished the Bosnian Serb military
infrastructure, it is simply performing a ruse to get the sanctions
lifted. -- Patrick Moore
[4] PEACE IN OUR TIME?
The agreement also contains a number of weak orunclear points. Not everyone agrees with the Americans that there has
been a "fair division of territory," in which the Federation took 51.4%.
It is doubtful that most "ethnically cleansed" refugees will go home,
particularly Muslims who lived in Serb-controlled eastern Bosnia. The
pact calls for a unitary state, but it still sounds very much like a
partition along ethnic lines. There is no guarantee that the complex
Tito-era constitutional mechanisms will work any better than they did
when the Serbs sabotaged them in 1992. It is not evident what the future
armed forces and police units will look like or whether the region will
be demilitarized. Germany has recognized this problem and called for a
Bosnian disarmament conference. Nor is it clear what "full cooperation"
with the Hague-based tribunal will mean. Implementation talks are to be
held soon in London, and moves are under way to put together a NATO
force as soon as possible. Vecernji List quoted a Russian general as
effectively saying that Russia would control the Brcko corridor. --
Patrick Moore
[5] SERBIAN PRESIDENT SAYS DAYTON DEAL IS "JUST."
Slobodan Milosevicdescribed the peace deal negotiated at Dayton as "a just solution."
Speaking in an interview broadcast by rump Yugoslav state television,
Milosevic added "the war is now definitely over." He observed that the
Bosnian Serbs were the big winners, noting that they have been
apportioned "a far better" share of Bosnian territory than under
previous peace proposals. Land and strategic towns previously slated for
the Muslim-Croat confederation were now to come under Bosnian Serb
control, he added. Milosevic also observed that accompanying peace would
be a lifting of the international sanctions against the rump Yugoslavia.
The UN Security Council is "already moving to put an end to all
sanctions," he said. Meanwhile, the Serbian media hailed Milosevic as
the catalyst behind the achievement of peace. -- Stan Markotich
[6] "WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED HERE IS A REAL PEACE."
This is how CroatianPresident Franjo Tudjman described the outcome of the Dayton talks, Hina
reported on 22 November. He said that the results confirmed Croatia's
international position and that all media agreed that Croatia has
defended its national interests and emerged a winner at the conference.
Various opposition parties, however, issued critical statements,
charging Tudjman with giving away too much in the dispute over the
northern Bosnian Posavina region (the justice minister recently resigned
over the issue). Tudjman explained that Croatia had to give up
territories it recently took in western Bosnia in order to get what it
wanted in the Posavina. He denied there had been discussion in Dayton of
exchanging Croatia's Prevlaka peninsula for the Serb-controlled
Dubrovnik hinterland. -- Daria Sito Sucic
[7] WILL THE SDA SANDZAK PARTICIPATE IN A CENTER COALITION?
This questionwas posed by Nasa Borba on 21 November after a meeting of the Muslim
National Council of Sandzak. The meeting, attended by representatives of
19 Muslim political organizations, concluded that the Muslims of Sandzak
should seek a solution to the minority conflict in the region in
accordance with international law and with respect for the integrity of
international borders. The council thus demanded to be represented at
international conferences on former Yugoslavia. Rasim Ljajic, leader of
the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), said he is conducting talks with
Belgrade, adding that his party will in the future participate in the
political life of Serbia. The SDA did not run in the last parliamentary
elections but might form a coalition with the moderate Serbian
opposition or other minority parties. -- Fabian Schmidt
[8] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS NEW PENAL CODE.
Radio Bucharest announced on
21 November that the Chamber of Deputies has rejected the draft law on
the modification and completion of the Penal Code. Results of the vote
will be announced on 23 November, but "private parliamentary sources"
were quoted as saying that the Greater Romania Party (which recently
left the ruling coalition) and the Socialist Labor Party (a member of
the government alliance) voted against the draft, together with the
opposition National Peasant Party-Christian Democratic and the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania. -- Michael Shafir
[9] MOLDOVAN-DNIESTER MEETING CANCELED.
A meeting between experts from
Chisinau and Tiraspol scheduled for 21 November was canceled after the
Dniester delegation refused to attend, Infotag reported. The meeting was
intended to conclude preparations for a late November summit between
Moldovan President Mircea Snegur and the president of the self-styled
"Dniester republic," Igor Smirnov. According to Tiraspol officials, the
Dniester negotiators refused to attend because the "Moldovan leadership
has subjected Tiraspol to a squall of devastating criticism." Snegur
expressed doubts that the Chisinau-Tiraspol summit can be held given
this latest development. -- Matyas Szabo
[10] BULGARIAN PRESIDENT CANNOT RUN AGAIN, SOCIALISTS SAY.
Miroslav Popov,
member of the Executive Bureau of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was
quoted by 24 chasa on 22 November as saying Zhelyu Zhelev cannot run for
another term as president under the present constitution. Zhelev is
currently serving his second term and, according to the constitution,
cannot serve a third term, Popov said. The BSP is considering asking the
Constitutional Court to rule on the question. Zhelev was first elected
by the parliament in August 1990 and then by popular vote in January
1992, after the new constitution went into effect. Meanwhile, some
member parties of the Union of Democratic Forces said they will support
Zhelev if he runs again. -- Stefan Krause
[11] THREE BULGARIANS INDICTED OVER DEATH OF TAMILS.
Western media report
that three Bulgarians have been indicted for the death of 18 Tamil
refugees. The Tamils were found in an abandoned Bulgarian-registered
truck near the Hungarian town of Gyor on 15 July (see OMRI Daily Digest,
17 and 20 July 1995). Among the three indicted is the the driver of the
truck, who is accused of multiple homicide. If convicted, he faces up to
15 years in prison. The other two accused were indicted for illegally
moving people across international borders. They were released on bail.
-- Stefan Krause
[12] ALBANIA DEMANDS EXTRADITION OF FORMER COMMUNIST-ERA OFFICIALS.
Albania
is to apply for the extradition of several communist-era officials
living abroad, Koha Jone reported on 21 November. This announcement
follows a letter from the head of the Parliamentary Commission on
Defense, Public Order, and the Secret Service to Prime Minister
Aleksander Meksi. The officials worked mainly at the Defense and
Interior ministries or for the secret services; some were ambassadors or
consuls. Among other things, they are charged with corruption and
espionage. The accused include Sofokli Duka, the former head of the
secret police, and former Defense Minister Kico Mustaqi, who is charged
with planning a coup d'etat and bearing responsibility for a violent
crackdown on a pro-democracy demonstration in 1991. -- Fabian Schmidt
[13] ALBANIA OFFERS FACILITIES FOR NATO FORCES IN BOSNIA.
President Sali
Berisha, in an interview with Albanian TV, repeated earlier offers to
provide NATO troops with access to Albanian airports and harbors.
Berisha also expressed the hope that the Dayton agreement will offer
"real prospects for the solution of the Balkan crisis, including its
most delicate problem--the Kosovo question," Rilindja Demokratike
reported on 22 November. -- Fabian Schmidt
This material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media Research Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in Prague, Czech Republic.
For more information on OMRI publications please write to [email protected]
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