novine.102.bale.,
Yugoslav Leader Urges Serbian President to Step Down (Belgrade)
By Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Serbian strongman Slobodan
Milosevic suffered a serious blow to his already waning power
and prestige Friday when Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic,
the ideological godfather of Serbs, called on him to resign
for the good of the nation.
Cosic's denunciation of the Serbian president
kicks away the last maj or pillar of political support under
the Milosevic regime, which stands accused of fomenting
ethnic bloodshed in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and of
exposing Serbs to international scorn and financial ruin.
The federal president's action also draws an
unmistakable battle line between the new Yugoslav leadership
and the bellicose nationalists still siding with Milosevic.
But in a disturbing sign that Milosevic will fight
the intensified ef forts to oust him, radical backers used a
publicly broadcast parliamentary debate to pounce on Cosic
and Prime Minister Milan Panic for allegedly selling out the
interests of Serbs now divided among several pieces of
fractured Yugoslavia.
Milosevic still controls a wide network of
warlords and secret police , especially in volatile Kosovo
Province where ethnic tensions are on the verge of explosion.
As the conflict at the highest levels of power sharpens, many
fear that the Serbian president may be willing to take his
nation down with him in a desperate attempt to cling to power.
In an interview with the main Belgrade daily
Politika, Cosic said tha t he and Milosevic ``differ
essentially in our understanding of democracy'' and how to
rescue Yugoslavia from the pain and humiliation of U.N.
sanctions.
``If people wrote and spoke at home and abroad
about my resignation a s they do about Slobodan Milosevic, I
would resign,'' Cosic told Politika, which until recently was
a mouthpiece for Milosevic and his Serbian Socialist Party.
Cosic, a revered nationalist writer, was the
inspiration for Milosevi c's powerful rallying cry that all
Serbs have the right to remain together in one nation,
despite the independence votes taken in other republics that
were once part of Yugoslavia.
After Croatia seceded in June 1991, Belgrade
funneled troops and arms into predominantly Serbian areas of
the republic to support insurrection. More than 10,000 were
killed on Croatian battlefields last year.
Serbian guerrillas also rushed to the side of
their fellow militants in Bosnia after Slavic Muslims and
Croats voted for independence in March. Fierce fighting in
the ravaged republic continues, with the official six-month
death toll at more than 14,000, another 50,000 people listed
as missing and presumed dead and nearly 2 million forced from
their homes by gunfire and ``ethnic cleansing.''
U.N. sanctions were imposed May 30 on what is left
of Yugoslavia, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, in
hopes of pressuring Belgrade to cease supply and
encouragement of the deadly sieges in Bosnia.
President Bush symbolically increased the pressure
Friday, signing a bill that deprives Yugoslavia of
most-favored-nation trade status. The trade status allows the
lowest U.S. tariffs for a country's exports to the United
States but with the U.N. embargo in place, the move is merely
an expression of U.S. displeasure.
The global oil and trade embargo have begun to
inconvenience many Ser bs, whose bankrolling of the recent
wars had already sapped their economy.
Hyperinflation, rampant unemployment and fuel
shortages have eroded s upport for Milosevic and prompted
former allies like Cosic to distance themselves from him in
hopes of surviving a looming popular revolt.
But the heavily armed secret police and
paramilitary forces ruling Ko sovo and some parts of
vanquished Bosnia remain loyal to Milosevic.
More Trouble for Gorbachev: Institute Accused of Tax Fraud (Moscow)
By John-Thor Dahlburg
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW _ Should anyone doubt how fleeting the
honors of this world ar e, consider the most recent twists of
fate in the life and reputation of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize
laureate, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.
The former Soviet president flew out of Moscow
Friday afternoon on a commercial flight to attend the funeral
in Berlin of yet another Nobel Peace winner, former West
German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Most probably, Gorbachev was glad to go, even if
it was to attend the burial of a friend.
For only a few hours before takeoff, yet more
anti-Gorbachev charges were filling the Russian media. The
think tank on Moscow's Leningradsky Prospekt that he heads
has now been accused of tax fraud and cooking the books on a
massive scale.
According to the weekly publication Arguments and
Facts, Yuri Danilev sky, head of financial inspection for the
Russian Finance Ministry, has charged after an audit that the
Gorbachev Foundation dodged payments to state of at least 7.2
million rubles, or about $22,500, in the first quarter of 1992.
Danilevsky said that although the supposed
non-profit foundation repo rted losses, it actually made the
equivalent of $70,000 in profits. Through bookkeeping
gymnastics, the government auditor said, the foundation did
not pay profit taxes or a valued-added tax of $119,000 on its
hotels and subleases.
The image of Gorbachev as an alleged tax deadbeat
was just the latest indignity suffered by the former Kremlin
leader, who has already had 75,000 of the 85,000 square feet
occupied by his foundation seized by the Russian government.
He also had his passport impounded, although an exception was
made to allow him to attend the rites for Brandt.
Earlier this week, the head of Constitutional
Court called Gorbachev a liar in everything but name. And his
old nemesis, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, delivered a
body blow to Gorbachev's good name by charging that he hid
important information about the 1983 shooting down of a
Korean passenger plane and the slaughter of more than 21,000
Polish officers by Stalin's secret police in 1940.
Valery D. Zorkin, chairman of the Constitutional
Court, has been tryi ng unsuccessfully to force Gorbachev to
testify before the tribunal.
Thursday, Gorbachev vehemently denied covering up
anything and said t hat the ``special file'' he supposedly
concealed was actually an entire roomful of 1,500 to 2,000
documents that he could not have possibly read.
Yeltsin's government countered Friday that a memo
from Valentin M. Fa lin, former chief of the Communist
Party's International Department, dated Feb. 22, 1990, and
signed by Gorbachev, showed that he was ``fully informed''
about the massacre of the Poles.
Whatever the truth, the way much of the world
looks at the statesman who made glasnost, or openness, his
clarion call has probably been altered.
It was only two years ago that the Norwegian Nobel
Committee praised Gorbachev thus: ``During the past few
years, dramatic changes have taken place in the relationship
between East and West. Confrontation has been replaced by
negotiations. Old European nations have regained their
freedom. ...'' No single person could have done all that, the
committee said, but no one was more responsible than Gorbachev.
World leaders overwhelmingly agreed, but at home
in the disintegratin g Soviet Union, many citizens lashed out
at Gorbachev as an ineffectual reformer, closet Communist
tyrant or run-of-the-mill Russian chauvinist.
Gorbachev denies he believes that he is ``God
Almighty,'' but wants n o part of what he calls a show trial.
novine.103.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 16, 1992
ZAGREB - The Croatian parlaiment continues to meet for the third day
today with the main topic of discussion being the proposal to revoke
parlaimentary immunity for three of their colleages from the Croatian
Party of Rights (HSP). If the revocation is passed and the members are
stripped of their immunity, they will then be brought up on charges of
crimes against the government and country while forming and arming a
military force within their party. The three members are Dobroslav
Paraga, Ante Dapic, and Ante Prkacin. A spokesman for the HSP said this
process should not be allowed due to an amnesty law that has been passed
by the Croatian government.
SARAJEVO, B-H - Heavy fighting continued into the night Thursday as
Muslim and Serbian forces battle for control of key areas of the city.
The suburb of Stup was under attack today as Serb forces try to gain
control of the main road towards the airport. If successful, the Serbs
would then be able to link their forces in Ilizda in the western part of
the city with forces stationed to the south, in Vogosca. Power service
was restored to most of the city last night. Radio Sarajevo reported
most institutions, including the hospital, were back on line while other
buildings are expected to be on the main circuits within two days.
Engineers in the city also indicated that water service could be
returned in about a week after all electricity is restored. Gas service
was also restored to parts of the city after Serbian forces reopened a
pipeline running into Sarajevo. While utility services are slowly being
restored to the city, the inhabitants remain skeptical of such services
continuing. In the past, Serbian forces have demonstrated a willingness
to use utility services as a weapon against the residents of the city by
restoring then cutting service. A senior UN official, Mr. Cedric Thorn-
berry, said yesterday he feared it was already too late to save tens of
thousands of lives of people who would perish this winter. In what has
been the strongest warning yet, Mr. Thornberry indicated that it was no
longer a question of preventing people from dying this winter but now a
matter of reducing the number of deaths as much as possible. At the
same time, the deployment of British troops has been stepped up and the
initial contingent of some 2,500 peacekeepers arrived in Split today.
TUZLA, B-H - Tuzla came under attack on Thursday when Serbian forces
opened artillery fire on the town. Apartment buildings ad the indus-
trial zone were the hardest hit with extensive damage reported.
Although there have been reports of people wounded, casualty figures are
not available.
GRADACAC, B-H - The northeastern Bosnian town remained under heavy
attack from Serbian artillery and tank units. The entire defense line
was targeted as well as the town itself and several outlying villages.
Infantry attacks received support from Serbian tanks but were repelled
by defense forces. The information center in Gradacac also advised that
Belgrade radio and television have been claiming the capture of Grada-
cac. The center added that some defense positions have been pulled back
but the town is not in Serbian hands.
BRCKO, B-H - The entire Brcko region was under sustained attack on
Thursday from Serbian artillery. The town, outlying villages, and
defense positions were targeted in the shelling, while infantry clashes
were also taking place.
JAJCE, B-H - Bosnian radio reports that a ceasefire took place yesterday
at 7:00am to allow ameeting to take place between the Jajce and Mrkonjic
Grad branches of the Red Cross to arrange for an exchange of prisoners
and the dead. Mrkonjic Grad officials turned over the bodies of 6
members of the Jajce defense force. Another ceasefire is scheduled for
Monday Oct. 19th to allow civilians who wish to leave Jajce, Sipovo, and
Mrkonjic Grad to do so. Attacks were renewed overnight with mortar fire
reported in Jajce while Serbian forces attempted an infantry advance on
the front lines.
BIHAC, B-H - The center of town was hit by some 20 mortar shells in
attacks Thursday evening. Attacks have taken place throughout the day
with heavy shelling reported along defense lines and surrounding vil-
lages. Material damage in these villages is heavy and several people
were wounded.
MOSTAR, B-H - The northern part of the city came under artillery fire
Thursday afternoon. The medical hospital reported no injuries. The
Croatian Defense Council (HVO) positions around Mostar, Capljina, and
Stolac were also targeted in attacks yesterday but details regarding
casualties are not available.
NEW YORK - The foreign minister of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Mr. Haris
Silajdzic, asked United Nations Secretary General Butros- Ghali and UN
negotiator Cyrus Vance yesterday to use their influence to lift the arms
embarge against his republic. Mr. Silajdzic said that there are so many
who are dead yet so many excuses. He said they have never asked for
ground troops, or for anyone else to die for them, but only to lift the
embargo, and he added that the world did not have to give them weapons,
they would buy them. The foreign minister said that Bosnia-Hercegovina
was being denied the right to defend itself against the Belgrade regime.
Mr. Silajdzic said he had evidence that Serbian forces were being with-
drawn from Croatia into Bosnia, especially the trops leaving the Prev-
laka peninsula under a UN arranged agreement. Mr Vance indicated that
he was unwilling to assist in lifting the arms embargo because it would
only fuel the conflict. Mr. Silajdzic went on to say that a disaster of
gigantic and historic proportions was and still is taking place in
Bosnia, with more than 600,000 thousand people killed or forced from
their homes as a result of the Serbian policy known as ethnic cleansing.
Other officials with Mr. Silajdzic said that by their calculations
613,000 civilians who had in no way participated in the fighting are
either dead or forced from homes. One anthropology professor said that
he has evidence that in August 5,000 people were forced into crematori-
ums and burned alive at three concentration camps in Tomashica. The
Sarajevo government has established an institute for investigating war
crimes and will prepare a report for the War Crimes Commission being
established by the Security Council. Later in the day, the Security
Council issued a statement expressing great emosion at the tragic
incident which cost the life of a Ukranian "blue helmet" on October 10
and left three others seriously wounded. The members of the council
also expressed their concern about the continuation of hostile actions
committed against members of UNPROFOR.
novine.104.bale.,
Contribution by: Sejo_od_Bosne
Tamo daleko
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tamo daleko,daleko na Balkanu
moja "BOSNA" je u ratnome stanju,
uzdise jeci i u nesvjest pada
i sve to zbog mrskog srbina gada.
Taj isti zlotvor sto rusi i pali
htio bih s njome da se dici i hvali,
kao bajagi ona mu trba
zbog,radi srbskih Velikih zelja.
Raseliti narod, sve sto srbsko nije
unistiti Crkve i Dzamije,
drumove nase i mostove mnoge
Srbski je moto Civilizacije - Slobode.
O, zlotvore kleti, bez ljudske vrline
nestat ce i tvoje krvolocne sile,
a onda se pazte prokleti bili
oprosta vam nema u "BOSNIJI"
SEJO
novine.105.bale.,
New YorkTimes: Editorials Friday October 16
HOW TO SLOW THE SLAUGHTER
While Americans focus increasingly on who will win on Nov. 3,
embattled Bosnians worry about a simpler question: Will they
live that long?
Serbia's planes continue to pound Bosnia's towns. Brutal ethnic
cleansing accelerates in northern Bosnia after Croatia's forces
nominally allied to Bosnia, faithlessly abandoned the area to
Serb control. Short of fuel as winter apporache, panicky resi-
dents of Sarajevo chop down the city's trees. Cyrus Vance, the
United nations mediator, warns of a catastrophe of "untold dimen-
sions" unless the world acts soon.
Steadily, a question inscibes itself ever deeper into American
and Wetsren consciences: Is the world doing all it can at least
to slow the slaughter of the people of Bosnia?
There are five ways for the wolrd to help:
ESTABLISH A PROMPT U.N. PRESENCE. British, French and Canadian
troops have been slow to move in as promised. They can monitor
the border and keep Serbian troops from attacking northern
Bosnia. They can secure corridors for urgently needed food and
medicine. Their very presence can reassure residents who
might otherwise enlarge the refugee tide. When will the troops
finally get there?
ENFORCE THE NO-FLY ZONE. U.S. planes observe continuing Serbian
sorties against unprotected Bosnian towns. They need U.N. autho-
rity to shoot down helicopters as well as fixed-wing planes.
REPEAL THE ARMS EMBARGO. The Serbs and others have all the arms
they need, and can circumvent the embargo to get more. The present
embargo disarms only Bosnia. The U.S. can persuade the Security
Council to drop the embargo, then help arm the Bosnians with big
guns to resist aggression.
SPEED UP RELIEF SUPPLIES. People in Sarajevo and other Bosnian
towns will die by the hundreds of thousands this winter unless
they get food, water and heat. Yet Serbs have only now opened
natural gas pipelines and they still permit only a trickle of
water to flow. And the U.N. relief effort is behind schedule
and underequipped, providing what one western diplomat derides
as merely "the illusion of action". For instance, only 87 of the
requisitioned 200 trucks have arrived.
TAKE IN REFUGEES. Neighboring Croatia has been hospitable but is
owerwhelmed by refugees fleeing the fighting in Bosnia. Other
countries need to help, especially the U.S. and Britain, which
have so far slammed their doors.
The world shrinks from waging a war of conscience against the
slaughter. How will Americans and others answer, after the
election, after the winter, after thousand more have perished?
novine.106.bale.,
Iz propovedi Patrijarha Pavla,
u crkvi Svetog Save, San Gabriel, Kalifornija
17. oktobra 1992, sa pocetkom u 17 casova
[ "...ako treba da stradamo, neka bude na putu pravde,
bez mrznje prema ikome..." (iz sluzbe)]
Patrijarh Pavle:
Braco i sestre, po veri i po krvi... Mi ponekad kazemo, da zivimo
u neko drugo, bolje vreme, pokazali bi vise i bolje od ovoga sto jesmo.
Ali to je samo izgovor. Jer ne zivimo mi slucajno u vremenu u kome zivimo,
takva je volja bozja... Nase je da ucinimo onoliko koliko mozemo. O svemu
drugome Bog vodi racuna.
...U nasem starome kraju se strada, proliva se krv i Srba, i Hrvata,
i Muslimana... Nase je, ne da se ne branimo, vec da to cinimo kao ljudi,
kao narod bozji, kao ne-ljudi, nikada! Samo tako mozemo da sacuvamo nas
obraz, nase grobove i nasu zemlju.
...Neprijatelji nasi su nam cesto govorili da ja to pozivam narod
srpski na osvetu, da ubijaju Hrvate, da progone i istrebljuju Muslimane...
Nikada! Osveta ne pripada nama, osveta je Bozja...
...Nasa vera, vera nasih otaca, nasa muka i stradanja, oni nama
govore da po cenu jedne nove Jadovne, jednog novog Jasenovca, Velika Srbija
ne moze i ne treba da se stvori. I ne samo Velika nego ni Mala...
...Budimo ljudi...A ne da se onome kome je puska izbijena iz ruku
vade oci, pore grudi, da se zivi i mrtvi bacaju u jame... Mi znamo sta su
jame! ...Samo ako smo ljudi, ako smo narod bozji, mozemo se opravdati i
pred svetom, i pred precima, i pred Bogom.
...Kao sto je rekla Jevrosima majka: "...bolje ti je sine izgubiti
glavu, nego danas izgubiti dusu!" Dusu mozete izgubiti i vi ovde, u dalekoj
zemlji, kao i narod u nevolji u starome kraju.
...Mislite da vas odozgo sa neba gledaju oci nasih napacenih predaka,
iznad njih nebo sa ocima andjela, a iznad njih, jedno, svevidece oko bozje...
pred njegov sud mozemo da izadjemo samo sa pravdom, istinom i covecnoscu...
...Ovo je moja poruka vama, ovde u dalekoj zemlji, i nasem narodu u
otadzbini...
novine.107.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 200, October 16, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
GORBACHEV DENIES KNOWLEDGE OF KATYN DOCUMENTS. At a news
conference in Moscow on 15 October, Mikhail Gorbachev denied prior
knowledge of the decision of Stalin's Politburo to have 20,000
Polish officers massacred in 1940, the "Novosti" TV newscast
reported. The previous day, Yeltsin's representatives persuaded
the Constitution Court to accept documents alleged to prove the
personal responsibility of Gorbachev in a cover-up of the Stalin
leadership. Gorbachev said he obtained access to the files at the
same time Yeltsin did, in late 1991. In April 1990, Gorbachev gave
a number of previously top secret documents showing Soviet
responsibility for the massacre to then Polish President Wojciech
Jaruzelski. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV TO BE PROSECUTED FOR REFUSAL TO TESTIFY? Gorbachev also
told the press conference that the chairman of the Constitutional
Court, Valerii Zorkin, had threatened him with a criminal charge
for his refusal to testify at the hearing on the Communist Party.
Apparently Zorkin intends to punish Gorbachev twice for the same
thing: he has already tried to fine the former Soviet president
100 rubles for refusal to testify. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV VOICES HARSH CRITICISM OF YELTSIN. Mikhail Gorbachev was
quoted in two French publications on 15 October as saying that
Boris Yeltsin was dangerous, destructive and incompetent.
L'Evenement du Jeudi quoted Gorbachev as saying the Yeltsin
administration was "heading toward dictatorship." He said Yeltsin
was "a destroyer, not a builder" and "he knows neither how to use
his power nor how to delegate it." In an interview with Paris
Match, Gorbachev said many of the democrats who surround Yeltsin
"are thieves and looters--and they are not even good at their
jobs." Western and Russian agencies reported the same day that the
Russian ambassador to Italy was told by the Italian government
that Italy was very surprised and concerned that Gorbachev was
forbidden to travel to Italy by the Russian leadership. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
ABKHAZ PEACE TALKS DEADLOCKED. Talks in Moscow on 15 October
between Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and his Georgian
counterpart Aleksandre Chikvaidze failed to produce a mutually
acceptable formula for resolving the conflict in Abkhazia,
ITAR-TASS reported. Kozyrev said he had the impression that both
the Georgian and the Abkhaz side were still relying on the use of
force. Georgia is insisting that Abkhaz forces withdraw from Gagra,
while the Abkhaz demand that all Georgian forces should be
withdrawn from Abkhazia as a precondition for a settlement. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN ORDERS INVESTIGATION OF PAMYAT ATTACK ON NEWSPAPER.
President Yeltsin ordered an investigation into an attack on
Moskovsky komsomolets by the right-wing nationalist group
"Pamyat." On 13 October, several members of "Pamyat" broke into
the newspaper's office and demanded the names and addresses of
authors whose articles were newspaper critical of the Russian
nationalists. On 15 October, ITAR-TASS quoted Yeltsin's press
secretary as saying that the president "will not tolerate threats
to the free press and will take the necessary measures to prevent
the recurrence of such provocations." Kostikov said that Yeltsin
had ordered the interior and security ministers to investigate the
incident and punish those responsible. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOVIETS WITHHELD DATA ON KOREAN AIRLINER. The long-secret files
connected with the 1983 downing of a Korean Airlines 747 show that
Soviet officials had refused to admit they had the airplane's
inflight recorder since information in the so-called "black box"
did not support their claim that the airliner was on a spying
mission over Soviet territory. Parts of these files were published
in Izvestiya on 16 October. UPI reports that they show that Soviet
ships mounted a phony hunt in the Sea of Japan for the recorder to
make the Americans and Japanese think they had not found it. The
black box recorded the Korean crew's conversations and radio
transmissions--which gave no hint of any intelligence mission.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS WARN ANOTHER GREENPEACE SHIP. Four days after seizing a
Greenpeace ship in the Kara Sea, Russian border guards on 16
October warned Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior that it was violating
Russian waters en route to Nakhodka on the Pacific Coast. Western
agencies report that a Greenpeace spokesman in Moscow said that
the ship was gathering data on pollution near Vladivostok and its
route had been approved in advance by Russian authorities. He said
that the Russian Navy had tried to stop the ship from entering the
submarine base at Chashma, near Vladivostok, despite a Greenpeace
permit for the visit. The crew was allowed to measure ITAR-TASS
reported that the ship seized on 12 October, the (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN CALLS FOR MORE POWERS FOR RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. The leaders
of the republics of the Russian Federation agreed unanimously on
15 October to set up a council of the heads of the republics under
the chairmanship of Russian president Boris Yeltsin, ITAR-TASS and
Interfax reported. The decision was announced after a meeting with
Yeltsin that ended a two-day meeting attended by representatives
of all the republics apart from Chechnya and Ingushetia. Yeltsin
called for an expansion of the powers of the republics beyond
those outlined in the Federal Treaty, while the republican leaders
in their turn expressed their support for the territorial
integrity of the Russian Federation. The new council, which comes
under the aegis of the Security Council, will participate in
working out all important decisions, but the final decision will
rest with the president. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
UNION OF INDUSTRIALISTS AND ENTREPRENEURS FAVORS "HARSH" FORM OF
FEDERATION. While Yeltsin was proposing concessions to the
republics to preserve Russia's territorial integrity, Arkadii
Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs, presented a report by the Union's experts which
said that a "harsh" form of federation, providing for substantial
dependence of the regions on the center, was necessary to preserve
the unity of the state, ITAR-TASS reported. Volsky stressed that
reforms in Russia were impossible without strong power. The report
said it was necessary to work out a new, more precise concept of
federalism capable of realizing the transition to the market. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
NUCLEAR ARMS REDUCTION TALKS STALL. Western news agencies reported
on 15 October that new Russian positions are delaying efforts to
codify the June 1992 US-Russian agreement on nuclear weapons
reduction in a treaty. The agreement called for Russian forces to
be reduced to approximately 3000 warheads and for the elimination
of land-based multiple warhead missiles. Russian negotiators have
requested that the US allow it to convert silos for the large
SS-18 missile into silos for the much smaller SS-25 missile. They
have also suggested removing five warheads from the six-warhead
SS-19 in order to convert it to a single-warhead missile. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOUTH KOREA CONSIDERING ORDERING RUSSIAN ARMS FOR TESTING.
According to an AFP report of 15 October, the South Korean
government is considering ordering samples of Russian arms for
testing and "opposing forces" exercises. Most of North Korea's
arsenal consists of Russian-made weaponry, and the South Korean
Defense Ministry would like to obtain copies in order to determine
their strengths and weaknesses. Since most of South Korea's
weaponry is of Western origin, the arms purchase would be small
and would not be used for combat units. Some of the arms being
considered include MiG-29 fighters, surface-to-air missiles, mines
and torpedoes. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA REPORTS DRAFT RESULTS, PLANS FOR CONTRACT SERVICE. The
Russian Defense Ministry reports that 7 percent of conscripts
(18,000 persons) failed to report for duty during the spring 1992
draft, more than twice the number of the previous year according
to Interfax on 15 October. Only 38 have been prosecuted for
draft-dodging. In Moscow the sign-up rate was only 9 percent, and
low turnouts were also recorded in the North Caucasus and
Volga-Urals regions. On October 20 the Defense Ministry will
submit to the government a plan for a large contract-service (for
volunteers) experiment to prevent further personnel shortfalls.
The current Russian military reform plan calls for a gradual
transition to a mixed professional and conscript force. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER ON DEFENSE BUDGET, CONVERSION.
According to an Interfax report of 13 October, Russian Deputy
Prime Minister Georgii Khizha criticized conversion efforts and
said that Russian defense production was down "by 67 percent over
an extremely short time period." He said that this drop was
unreasonable and urged that the aerospace industry be given top
priority in conversion because of its scientific and technological
strength. Khizha also suggested that Western governments and firms
make room for Russian exports in order to facilitate the
conversion process. A week earlier, on 8 October, Interfax
reported that Khizha was calling for a 70 billion ruble increase
over current budget plans for defense procurement in 1993. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROGRESS ON RESOLVING RUSSIAN INTERENTERPRISE DEBT. The Russian
Central Bank seems to be making headway on resolving the
inter-enterprise debt crisis that peaked in mid-summer. The bank
began a process of mutual debt cancellation in late July and early
August that, according to Kommersant No. 36, reduced the volume of
enterprise non-payments from 3.2 trillion in June to just above
500 billion in mid-September. The next stage, according to
Interfax on 15 October, is settling claims on Russian enterprises
from the state budget, banks and enterprises in other CIS states.
The fate of enterprises unable to meet debt payments after all
these transactions is still unclear. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE's VALUE SLIPS SLIGHTLY. The dollar to ruble exchange rate
dipped to 1:339 from 1:334 on Thursday's trading at the Moscow
Interbank Currency Exchange, Interfax reported on 15 October.
Volume traded was 37.86 million dollars. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIA SIGNS AGREEMENT ON REFUGEES. On 6 October the Russian
government signed an agreement with the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees which provides for the opening of an
office of the UN body in Moscow, ITAR-TASS reported. Vyacheslav
Bakhmin, the Russian Foreign Ministry official who signed the
agreement, said Russia was keen to cooperate with all
international organizations dealing with refugees, since refugees
were a new problem for Russia and it lacked experience and
qualified specialists in this area. In his speech to the Russian
parliament on 6 October, Yeltsin said there were currently more
than 460,000 refugees and a further 700,000 who were involuntarily
resettled on Russian territory. He said that any further delay in
adopting the laws on refugees and those involuntarily resettled
would be amoral. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN "WHITE BOOKS" ON HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT RELEASED. During
his speech to the parliament on 6 October, Yeltsin mentioned the
completion of two "white books" on health and environmental
problems in Russia. The two books were officially released at a
Moscow news conference on 7 October, ITAR-TASS and Western
agencies reported. The government advisers who briefed the news
conference were quoted as using adjectives such as "appalling,"
"shocking," and "deplorable" to describe the findings. Not only
have the country's health and environment been sadly neglected
over the past 70 years, but their condition continues to worsen
"daily." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN INDUSTRIALISTS JOIN FORCES. Heads of Ukrainian
industrial enterprises in the eastern and southern regions of the
country met in Donetsk to form an interregional association,
Ostankino TV's "Novosti" reported on 15 October. The group said
that its disagreement with many political decisions taken in Kiev
was motivated by the serious fall in production, which, they
maintained, could result in the collapse of the economy. The
industrialists characterized the CIS summit in Bishkek as having
yielded little, and criticized Ukraine's decision to leave the
ruble zone. The group announced that it intends to exercise more
influence on politics. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
CEASEFIRE IN TAJIKISTAN BROKEN. A ceasefire between the opposing
sides in the Tajik civil war was broken after only a few hours,
ITAR-TASS reported on 15 October. Supporters of deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev from Kulyab Oblast took control of a bridge over
the Vakhsh River, apparently as part of their attempt to break the
blockade of Kulyab Oblast by pro-government forces that has
reduced the region to near-starvation. An article in Sobesednik
No. 41 presents a sympathetic picture of the Kulyab fighters, who
are usually dismissed as procommunist; this publication portrays
them as a bulwark against Muslim fundamentalism. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MAZOWIECKI CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTS TO FORMER
YUGOSLAVIA. UN human rights envoy and former Polish Premier
Tadeusz Mazowiecki ended his visit to BosniaHerzegovina on 15
October, Reuters reported. He said that Croatian Herzegovinian
leader Mate Boban had promised to release all prisoners in his
forces' custody by the end of the following week. Mazowiecki
blamed the Serbian and Croatian media for inciting ethnic hatred,
and called for international independent broadcasting, especially
to Belgrade and Zagreb. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN FOREIGN MINISTER WARNS OF "TOTAL DISASTER." An RFE/RL
correspondent on 15 October quoted Haris Silajdzic as again
telling both the UN and the US that Bosnia wanted the arms embargo
lifted so that it might defend itself. He called Sarajevo a
"gigantic death camp." The RFE/RL report also cited
Serbia-Montenegro's Prime Minister Milan Panic as appealing to the
UN partially to lift sanctions to permit vital imports of oil
products for winter fuel. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CROATIAN SERBS NOT STICKING TO AGREEMENT. The 16 October issue of
the Los Angeles Times quoted Cedric Thornberry, who heads the UN
civilian affairs office in the former Yugoslavia, as saying there
was not "the slightest sign of demobilization" among Serbian
irregulars and militias in parts of Croatia that are theoretically
under UN control. Under the terms of an agreement negotiated by
Cyrus Vance at the beginning of the year, the Serbs had agreed to
disarm, but Thornberry said that many of the uniformed Serbs were
"small-time gangsters and terrorists" out of control. Croatia
expects to regain the areas eventually, but the Serbian civilians
are firmly opposed to what they regard as Croatian nationalist
rule. The Croatian parliament recently passed an unpopular measure
effectively assuring most Croatian Serbs that they would not be
tried for war crimes, in keeping with Zagreb's pledges to Vance.
But Croatian President Franjo Tudjman is impatient with the UN for
not handing over Serb-held territory to Croatia, and has
threatened not to extend the UN mandate beyond February 1993.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC MEETS KOSOVO SERBS AND RUGOVA. On 15 October Milan Panic,
Prime Minister of the rump Yugoslavia, paid a one day visit to
Pristina, capital of the Serbian province of Kosovo, whose
population is 92% Albanian. According to Radio Serbia, he met with
the commander of the Pristina Corps of the federal Yugoslav Army,
chaired a meeting with Kosovo Serb officials and representatives
of local Serb political parties, and held a closed door meeting
with Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the main Albanian party, the
Democratic League (LDK) and self-styled President of the Republic
of Kosovo. Panic later told reporters that Albanians had been
"locked out" of Serbian political life and stressed the need to
remedy this situation. Problems could only be solved
"step-by-step." Negotiations with Albanians would continue as
"long as they do not involve the question of independence." Panic
reiterated his promise to reopen Albanianlanguage schools. He also
stated that Rugova did not "demand anything against Serbian
interests." (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WEU SAYS ROMANIA RESPECTS EMBARGO ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. A mission
of the West European Union (WEU), which paid a four-day visit to
Romania, said that it had concluded that Romania was respecting
the embargo against former Yugoslavia. The chairman of the
commission, Dudley Smith, said the commission was "very impressed"
by the way in which the embargo was observed. Rompres quoted Smith
on 15 October to say that Romania was implementing the embargo
despite heavy economic losses. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
UN FACT-FINDING MISSION TO LATVIA. At the request of Latvian
Supreme Council Chairman Anatolijs Gorbunovs, UN Secretary General
Boutros Boutros Ghali is sending UN representatives to look into
alleged discriminatory practices against minorities in Latvia. The
UN group is to be headed by Ibrahima Fall, director of the UN
Human Rights Center in Geneva, an RFE/RL correspondent from New
York reported on 15 October. Boutros-Ghali is also considering
Latvia's request for UN participation in future talks with Russia
on troop withdrawals. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
KATYN CONTROVERSY CONTINUES. Controversy over the role of former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev continued to overshadow the
significance for Poland of President Boris Yeltsin's decision to
reveal documents proving that the Soviet Politburo authorized the
execution of over 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in March 1940. In
a letter praising Yeltsin's courage on 15 October, President Lech
Walesa said the decision to acknowledge the full truth "opened a
new chapter in the relations between our nations." Gorbachev
meanwhile sent a letter to Walesa saying that he had learned of
the documents' existence only in December 1991 when he transferred
secret archives to Yeltsin. Gorbachev claimed he was "shocked" at
the documents. The documents turned over to Poland on 14 October
suggest, however, that Gorbachev, like Soviet leaders before him,
was always fully aware of Soviet responsibility for the deaths and
merely strove to limit the political damage of admitting the
truth. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA DEFENDS ECONOMIC POLICY. In an address to the Senate on
15 October, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka attempted to correct the
perception that her government is proposing five more years of
belt-tightening. Growth in consumption is possible, but will have
to be modest, and investment will take priority over higher wages.
The point of the government's economic program, Suchocka said, is
that better living standards cannot be achieved unless
productivity rises and products are competitive. Given the state
of the budget, only minimum social security payments could be
raised to compensate fully for inflation. The Senate voted 58 to 8
to approve the policy guidelines. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
KISZCZAK HINTS KGB BEHIND POPIELUSZKO MURDER. Testifying on 14
October in the trial of the two secret police generals accused of
inspiring the murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984, former
Internal Affairs Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak argued that the crime
was a "provocation" directed against himself and General Wojciech
Jaruzelski. Painting himself as an ally of the Church, Kiszczak
suggested that the four secret policemen convicted of the murder
had had protectors among communist party hard-liners advocating a
bloodier offensive against Solidarity, though he admitted that
phone taps on CC Secretaries Miroslaw Milewski and Stefan
Olszowski, as well as Stanislaw Kociolek had been in vain. He also
hinted at KGB involvement in the murder, contending that the uncle
of one of the murderers was a "classic agent of foreign
intelligence." (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN COURT REFUSES TO RELEASE OMON LEADER ON BAIL. BNS reported
on 13 October that the court has refused to release OMON leader
Sergei Parfenov on bail. He is standing trial in Riga for abuse of
power while serving in Latvia. Parfenov was extradited from Russia
and he, as well as Russian officials, have expressed the desire
that his case be transferred to Russia. The trial in Riga has
proceeded slowly, especially since several witnesses are not
testifying before the court to everything that they told the
prosecutor during the investigation; the possibility that
witnesses have been intimidated cannot be excluded. Nonetheless,
one former OMON official Herman Glazov upheld his earlier
statements and testified in detail about the brutal measures OMON
used to repress civilians in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
STOLOJAN PRESENTS RECORD OF HIS GOVERNMENT. At a press conference
in Bucharest outgoing prime minister Theodor Stolojan presented
his government's achievements during its year in office. As
reported by Radio Bucharest on 15 October, he said that the
government had fulfilled its main political task which was the
holding of free and democratic elections. Stolojan said
authoritarianism could not work in Romania and called on the next
government to pursue both democracy and market reforms. He added
that the economic policies pursued by his administration had been
sound, if unavoidably harsh, and that the liberalization of prices
had to precede privatization in the conditions of transition. The
country's foreign currency reserves had improved and the balance
of trade showed a surplus of 22 million US dollars; inflation had
been pushed down from 19.5% in January to 3.4% in September.
Stolojan said that postponing the next stage of the reforms (as
suggested by president Iliescu) would be wrong. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM APPROVES RADIO AND TV LAW. During a session on 15 October the
Polish Sejm finally approved legislation officially ending the
state monopoly on radio and television. The law which was in
preparation for three years sets up a nine-person national
broadcasting council to oversee the licensing of private
television and radio stations. Three members (including the
chairman) are selected by the president, four by the Sejm, and two
by the Senate. A motion to require that public television and
radio programs respect the "Christian value system" was rejected
by a one-vote margin, but the final version of the law mandates
"respect for viewers' religious feelings" in both public and
commercial broadcasting. Licenses can be withdrawn if programs
threaten Polish culture, national security, or "social norms." The
several pirate stations now operating will be given the
opportunity to legalize their status before penalties for
unauthorized broadcasting take effect. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN TV CHIEF REMOVES PROGOVERNMENT NEWSMAN. Elemer Hankiss,
embattled chief of Hungarian state television, has dismissed the
pro-government director of a foreign policy program, Alajos
Chrudinak, MTI reported on 15 October. The move came after Hankiss
fired the pro-government director of the evening news program and
amid hot political debate on a new media law. Chrudinak rejected
the decision. The Prime Minister's office expressed shock at
Chrudinak's dismissal and called for his reinstatement. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIA TO RAISE ELECTRICITY PRICES. From 1 November Bulgarian
domestic consumers will be charged 30% more for electricity, the
government decided on 15 October. Chairman of the Committee on
Energy, Lyulin Radulov, told BTA that some institutions, such as
schools and hospitals, would be exempt from the increase, while
commercial users would have to pay 10% more. Explaining the
measure, Radulov said domestic users were currently paying only
50% of actual power costs. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
PREPARATIONS FOR THE DIVISION OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK ARMY. Speaking
at a press conference in Prague on 15 October, Czechoslovak
Defense Minister Imrich Andrejcak said that "all technical and
organizational measures needed to split the Czechoslovak army on 1
January 1993 have been prepared." He said that his ministry had
been making preparations for the establishment of Slovakia's
airforce and would soon complete selection of pilots who had
expressed interest in serving in Slovakia's airforce after the
split. Also on 15 October, Peter Svec, a member of the Slovak
parliament's security committee, told journalists in Bratislava
that Slovakia "is already capable of demonstrating some military
strength, even without the Czech Republic's assistance, and thus
deter potential aggressors." Svec argued that some "profederal
officers who have been hurting Slovakia's interests will have to
be eliminated" in the process of creating a Slovak army. One of
them is the current Czechoslovak Defense Minister Imrich
Andrejcak. In Svec's view, Andrejcak, who is Slovak, has done
"nothing for a future Slovak army" since he was named the minister
of defense in June 1992. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARREST WARRANT FOR COMMANDER OF RUSSIAN AVIATION UNIT. On 6
October the Siauliai prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant
against Lt. Col. Pavel Ievlev, the commander of the Russian
aviation unit based in Siauliai, for illegally trying to sell
concrete sections of the runway at the military air field in
Zokniai to private entrepreneurs, BNS and Baltfax reported on 15
October. Lithuanian law states that all buildings, equipment, and
inventory used by foreign military forces in Lithuania belong to
the state. Siauliai Prosecutor General Anatolijus Mirnas said that
Ievlev had not left the base since the warrant was issued,
although he had talked to investigators visiting the base. The
Lithuanian police have not attempted to arrest him in order to
avoid a political conflict. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARY ASKS THE DANUBE COMMISSION TO DISCUSS SLOVAK DANUBE
DIVERSION. Danube Commission's Director Helmut Strasser said that
Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky asked the eight-nation
Commission to discuss Slovakia's plans to divert the Danube river
later this month, Reuters reported on 15 October. In a related
development, the Hungarian State Shippping Company made public a
Slovak announcement saying that Danube shipping would be stopped
on 20 October 1992 for 10-15 days in order to allow for the
river's diversion to the new channels and the Gabcikovo
hydroelectic dam, according to a MTI report on 16 October. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER IN BUDAPEST. Klaus Kinkel paid a one-day
official visit to Hungary, MTI reported on 15 October. Kinkel said
that Germany supported Hungary's ultimate EC membership. He
praised Hungary's achievements in restoring democracy and a market
economy. Kinkel did not take a stand on the Danube diversion
dispute between Hungary and Slovakia and rejected a Hungarian
request to mediate. No progress was made on Hungary's request for
arm from the GDR arsenal. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.108.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians plea for weapons from the U.S.
Subject: Yugoslav peace talks underway
Subject: Bosnians say they had no choice on blockade
Subject: Last Yugoslav army troops withdrawing from Croatia
Subject: ``Tired'' players draw 22nd game of re-match
Subject: TV claims violations of embargo against Serbia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians plea for weapons from the U.S.
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:50:24 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The foreign minister of Bosnia-Hercegovina said
Friday that he will ask National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and
other U.S. officials to lift the arms embargo on his besieged republic.
Haris Silajdzic told reporters that if the administration refuses to
arm Bosnians in their grossly one-sided battle against Belgrade's modern
army then Washington will be party to a ``monstrous crime.''
Silajdzic and a delegation of four Bosnian legislators -- made up of
Muslims, Croatians and Serbians -- also delivered their impassioned plea
in a letter to President Bush.
``Mr. President, to treat the Bosnian tragedy as another humanitrian
problem is not right,'' the letter said. ``To focus simply on providing
aid is to ignore the real problem.
``The real issue is the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians
and the inability of the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina to defend its
citizens.''
Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, speaking to reporters
following a meeting with Japanese officials, said the United States
currently had no plans for lifting the arms embargo.
``At this stage there is in this administration no intention to lift
the arms embargo, period,'' Eagleburger said.
But he left out the possibility that there may come a time when the
administration would be willing to reconsider its position.
``I can't predict what circumstances might develop,'' he said.
``Maybe we would change our minds.''
Silajdzic, who met with the secretary of state on two previous trips,
was scheduled to visit Friday with Undersecretary of State Arnold
Kanter.
Prior to his arrival at the State Department, nearly 150 protestors
gathered outside to urge the administration to show greater support for
the Bosnian's plight and to lift the arms embargo.
The demonstrators, chanting ``Eagleburger where are you'' and
carrying signs that said ``Stop the Holocaust in Bosnia,'' were
predominantly composed of people who appeared to be Muslims. More than
50 percent of Bosnia's population is Muslim.
The forcible expulsion from Bosnia-Hercegovina of all Muslims and
Croats has been one of Belgrade's main goals in its attempt to annex the
nascent republic and create a zone of ``Serbian purity.''
Silajdzic said that effort has left hundreds of thousands of Bosnians
homeless. He predicted that ``untold thousands'' of those displaced
persons will die during the upcoming winter unless the international
community gives his countrymen the means to defend themselves.
``We don't need any foreign soldiers, including the Islamic
Mujaheedin, including the American troops, British, French, Japanese or
any else,'' he said. ``We have enough of our people willing to fight now
for their lives.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav peace talks underway
Date: 17 Oct 92 15:03:44 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Federal Yugoslav Premier Milan Panic met with U.N. and
European Community mediators Saturday on the second day of a
concentrated ``mini-summit'' aimed at finding a solution to the war in
the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The meeting with former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Lord
David Owen took place at Panic's hotel rather than at U.N. European
headquarters, where both Vance and Owen have offices.
Derek Boothy, a spokesman for the mediators, said they would have no
commentafterward ``because they want to keep the meeting low-key and
make it clear that Mr. Panic is not their main interlocutor in ex-
Yugoslavia, although of course his views are valued.''
Panic is prime minister of the truncated remains of Yugoslavia,
comprised of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Federal Yugoslav
President Dobrica Cosic arrives Sunday and will meet with Owen and Vance
Monday along with Alija Izetbegovic, president of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The two presidents were to arrive within an hour of each other at
Geneva airport Sunday night. An official in Panic's delegation said it
was possible they and Panic could have a preliminary meeting Sunday
night before the official exchange Monday. All planned to stay in the
same hotel.
Boothby said Vance and Owen were cautioning against too much optimism
simply because of the simultaneous presence of most of the major players
in Geneva.
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman arrives Monday for his second
meeting within a month with Izetbegovic. And Friday, Vance and Owen met
with Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov. Sources in the Vance-Owen
office noted that only Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was missing
from the talks.
Radovan Karadzic, chief of the Bosnian Serbs, left early Saturday for
Bosnia-Hercegovina after a meeting late Friday night with Panic,
reportedly to try to persuade the commander of the Bosnian Serb air
force to comply with U.N. instructions to move his planes to the
Yugoslav federation.
Reports reaching Geneva from Banja Luka, headquarters of the Bosnian
Serb air force, quoted air force commander Maj. Gen. Zivomir Ninkovic as
saying he would not comply with the deal that Karadzic struck with Owen
on Oct. 13.
A spokesman for Panic said Saturday the Yugoslav premier met with
Karadzic late Friday and reinforced the necessity of persuading Ninkovic
to fall into line. Karadzic was expected back in Geneva Monday in time
for the Cosic-Izetbegovic meeting, although he would not attend, his
office said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians say they had no choice on blockade
Date: 17 Oct 92 22:01:53 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Bosnian leaders say they realize
they cut off U.N. aid to their own trapped citizens by blockading
Sarajevo's airport access road, but say they felt they had little
choice.
``It was a classic military solution,'' Bosnian Vice President Ejub
Ganic said Saturday of the large cargo container his government's troops
placed Thursday across the wide open highway leading from the airport to
the city.
``By your logic, we have no chance militarily,'' he told Western
reporters, ``But as you can see, we are still alive.''
The U.N. Protection Force, or UNPROFOR, said it could not understand
how the Bosnians could choke off the aid pipeline and offered to erect
its own barricade if the Bosnians feel it necessary.
Later Saturday, the Bosnians accepted the proposal and agreed to
remove the cargo container in return for a retractable U.N. barricade
and increased U.N. vigilance at the airport for violations of the
agreement banning heavy weapons around the facility.
A U.N.-sponsored airlift has been ferrying aid to Sarajevo, which has
been beisieged by Serbian forces since last spring. The Serbians are
trying to carve territory out of the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Ganic said the Bosnian side set up the roadblock after at least two
dozen Serbian tanks in the surrounding area began pressing closer and
closer to territory held by the Bosnians.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson told reporters Friday the Bosnian
army's tale of some 24 Soviet-made T-84 tanks near the airport was
simply an ``extraordinary claim.''
Hours later, with U.N. inspectors still unable to find any such tanks
but amid mounting reports that Serbian tanks and armored vehicles has
for weeks been violating the supposedly neutral space around the
airport, he explained he only meant that specific talk of T-84s was
``extraordinary.''
Saturday morning, the UNPROFOR spokesman said U.N. inspectors still
had found no evidence of Serbian tanks remaining around the airport.
But he said since UNPROFOR-escorted humanitarian aid convoys travel
only during the day, the suggestion that Serbian tanks traveled the
airport road at night out of sight of U.N. personnel was ``very
legitimate, quite probable.''
However, he again called the Bosnian blockade a ``serious
infringement'' of the agreement under which Serbian forces willingly
surrendered control of the airport, and called on Bosnians to accept a
compromise plan in which UNPROFOR would establish a retractable barrier
and increase its monitoring of the road.
Ganic declined to actually tell reporters he could not trust
UNPROFOR's plan, but accused its leaders of being interested primarily
in winning personal promotions and its multi-national troops of being
unable to even communicate properly with each other.
He recalled a recent indoor soccer game against UNPROFOR soldiers in
which the Sarajevo team took a lopsided 17-3 victory. The top UNPROFOR
commander in the city, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek,
complained afterward that his players were at a disadvantage because
they couldn't understand what they were saying to each other.
``That,'' Ganic said, ``is exactly what UNPROFOR is doing here.''
UNPROFOR Saturday acknowledged three Muslim drivers seized last month
from a U.N.-protected convoy bringing foreign students out of Sarajevo
were likely killed by their Serbian abductors.
Also Saturday, both utility and most telephone service were again out
in Sarajevo. A week ago, UNPROFOR said it had won Serbian cooperation in
restoring the city's utilities. Service was restored Friday, only to be
interrupted again after more artillery attacks and confrontations
between both Serbian and Bosnian troops with UNPROFOR-escorted utility
repair crews.
Magnusson contends that at the airport, however, UNPROFOR has
succeeded in keeping the area demilitarized despite some possible minor
violations by Serbian tanks.
He admitted if Serbian forces did decide to simply run tanks down the
airport road through a U.N. barrier and into the city, UNPROFOR could do
little more than lodge a protest.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Last Yugoslav army troops withdrawing from Croatia
Date: 18 Oct 92 18:31:43 GMT
DUBROVNIK, Croatia (UPI) -- One year after the highly criticized
Serbian bombardment of the 12th century city of Dubrovnik during the war
in the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia, the Serbian-dominated
Yugoslav army is withdrawing the last of its troops from Croatian soil.
But Croatian military sources say the army, occupying territory a few
miles south of Dubrovnik, is leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery
for the Serbian forces fighting in the neighboring war-torn republic of
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
U.N. officials would not confirm or deny the allegations that the
weaponry was being left behind for Bosnian Serbs stationed in the hills
above the historic Adriatic port known as the Pearl of Croatia.
The withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Croatia is scheduled to be
completed by Oct. 20, but the joint U.N. and European Community brokered
agreement did not stipulate what should be done with the weapons or
where the army should withdraw to.
``They are not bound to tell us where they are supposed to go,''
Rashid Khan, U.N. Commander in the region said. ``This is not the end of
the story, it is just the beginning. We still need areas of operations
earmarked and to find a more mutual agreement regarding equipment.''
When the Yugoslav army, one of the largest and well-equipped in
eastern Europe, withdrew from other areas in Croatia early this year,
they left weaponry behind for local Serb forces.
Ethnic Serbs -- backed by the army -- launched the war in Croatia to
oppose Croatian independence. The bombing of Dubrovnik, a famous tourist
attraction, was widely denounced. Now, although a U.N. cease-fire and
peace plan are in effect, some Serbs in Croatia have been unwilling to
disarm.
Cedric Thornberry, head of U.N. civil affairs, has said the Serb's
unwillingness to comply is having ``catastrophic'' repercussions on the
U.N. peace plan.
Croatian forces fear Serbians in Bosnia-Hercegovina will move to the
north towards Mostar, a city in west-central Bosnia-Hercegovina
liberated by Croatian forces in June, and launch a new assault on the
area.
The Yugoslav army is withdrawing from the southern tip of Croatia,
which includes the strategic Prevlaka Peninsula that controls access to
the neighboring Boka Kotorska bay in Serbia's allied republic
Montenegro.
Under the agreement, the peninsula will be put under U.N. and EC
control to ensure the Yugoslav army access to the bay, Serbia's only
port outlet to the west.
In addition, a ``yellow zone' will be created around the entrance to
the peninsula where only Croatian and Serbian police will be permitted
on each of their respective territories, according to local Croatian
military sources.
But the U.N. and the EC only has about 20 people patrolling the area.
``It's a problem,'' said a U.N. observer who asked not to be
identified. ``You never know what is going to happen.''
Although Khan said everything is going as scheduled and has had
assurances the troops will withdraw on schedule, he added there were no
guarantees. ``The first thing to be assassinated in a war is the truth.''
But he believes it is in the Serb's best interest to complete the
process.
``If they are not finished by the 20th, then the whole world can
point their fingers at them,'' he said.
Preliminary agreements are being made for Croatia and the former
Yugoslavia to jointly recognize each other and possibly open up
transportation routes between their respective capitals, Zagreb and
Belgrade.
But Dubrovnik leader Zeljko Sikic said left-over bitterness will
plague the normalization process. He said the old town district took
hundreds of direct hits and ``nothing can be repaired to its original
state.''
Sikic said the war caused approximately $4 billion in damage and
destroyed the multi-million dollar tourist industry.
``I think the Serbs would like to forget what they have done -- they
need our geographical position,'' he said. ``But I think the people of
Dubrovnik will not so easily forget.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ``Tired'' players draw 22nd game of re-match
Date: 18 Oct 92 20:28:30 GMT
BELGRADE (UPI) -- Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and his
opponent Boris Spassky agreed to a draw after only 26 moves of the 22nd
game of their controversial re-match Sunday, bringing the score to 8-4
in Fischer's favor.
Chess experts said the two players appeared tired after Saturday's
eight-hour game. ``They were obviously tired. They played just to pass
the time away,'' said Dimitrije Bjelica, a Yugoslav chess expert and
Fischer's former friend.
``I think that they really wanted to finish even sooner, but kept on
in order to avoid playing another game today,'' added Bjelica.
Fisher, playing with black pieces in the 22nd game of the match,
proposed the draw after 26 moves. The draw was the 10th of the re-match,
which began on Sept 2.
The rules of the match say that if a game is finished within one
hour, the next one has to be started the same afternoon. All games are
to be played without adjournment.
Fischer is now just two wins away from $3.35 million prize offered by
Jezdimir Vasiljevic, a Yugoslav bank owner who organized the match.
He deliberately breeched the U.S. Department of Treasury order not to
play in the truncated Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
The order endorsed the U.N. resolution banning all economic and
financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its involvement in the
war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
If convicted in court, Fischer may get a maximum of 10 years in jail,
and a fine up to $250,000.
He publicly spat on the Treasury's document at a news conference in
the eve of the match, Sept. 2.
Game 23 is scheduled for next Wednesday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TV claims violations of embargo against Serbia
Date: 18 Oct 92 20:42:12 GMT
BONN, Germany (UPI) -- German officials said Sunday they were
investigating claims that German firms were servicing ships from Serbia
and Montenegro in violation of a U.N. embargo.
ARD-German television claimed in its Monitor program that German
firms had serviced about 40 ships from Serbia and Montenegro, and also
alleged the ships were trading to obtain currency with which to buy
weapons from the Mafia.
The United Nations imposed the embargo in an attempt to stem the
bloodshed in war-torn former Yugoslav republics. Serbian forces
currently are battling in the republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina against
Muslim Slav and Croat defense forces.
A German justice spokesman said the port authorities in Bremen,
Hamburg and Brake had kept a close eye on the ships, but said that all
of them were flying the Maltese flag.
The spokesman said if the alleged Maltese owners of the vessels were
indeed front-companies for firms from the truncated Yugoslav federation,
as the TV station claimed, it was up to the authorities in Malta to
launch investigations.
He said that the German authorities were investigatigating the matter
and confirmed that it is a punishable offense under German export
legislation for German firms to deliver supplies and services to ships
from areas against which the United Nations has imposed an embargo.
The spokesman said that the ships were sailing from Italy, some of
them to South America and others to East Africa.
novine.109.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Artillery attacks resume in Sarajevo
Subject: Cosic meets again with U.N. and EC mediators
Subject: Sarajevo tallies barrage damage
Subject: Serbians seize federal police headquarters
Subject: Greece may allow Macedonia on name domestically, premier says
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Artillery attacks resume in Sarajevo
Date: 18 Oct 92 21:16:41 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces in the hills
surrounding Sarajevo broke several days of relative calm Sunday by
unleashing a city-wide artillery barrage, repeatedly hitting a hospital,
damaging the main bread bakery and killing and wounding numerous
civilians.
``It was terrible,'' said Dr. Ranko Covic of the city's state
hospital, his white hospital gown and white shoes splattered red with
fresh blood. ``The whole day we haven't stopped for a minute.''
Heavy artillery and infantry attacks also were reported during the
day in towns across central and northern parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
where Serbia-backed forces are waging an ongoing battle to carve out a
self-declared Serb state.
The victims of Sunday's assault on the capital included the state
hospital, which took several hits, and the main bread bakery just west
of downtown, which with U.N. supplies of flour was supplying much of the
city's food.
The heavy shelling began less than two hours after the Bosnian
military permitted the resumption of U.N. relief shipments into Sarajevo
by removing its blockade of the main access road connecting the city
with both the airport and outside roadways.
The removal followed three days of talks between Bosnian and U.N.
Protection Force representatives that culminated in a meeting Saturday
afternoon where UNPROFOR agreed to maintain its own barricade during
nights.
UNPROFOR also agreed to increase its monitoring of the airport area
to guard against violations of the Bosnian-Serb agreement that banned
tanks and other heavy weaponry around the facility, and to keep an
armored personnel carrier stationed at the site during the day ``ready
to block the road at any time.''
Bosnian soldiers, working under the watch of UNPROFOR troops who
arrived at the airport roadblock shortly after daybreak Sunday, used a
bulldozer to shove their large cargo container off to the side of the
road as scheduled shortly after 8 a.m.
``Obviously, were glad to be back in operation,'' Jeremy Brade, head
of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees' Sarajevo office, said as the
white and green UNHCR-flagged trucks began plying the roadway moments
later.
Seventeen UNHCR trucks and 14 planes reached the city during the day,
bringing in nearly 300 tons of aid, the most since the relief operation
was resumed Oct. 3 after a month-long suspension caused the downing of
an Italian relief flight.
But the airport road settlement came at the same time the UNHCR said
it was suspending temporarily the use of a road taken by trucks carrying
relief supplies to the Sarajevo area through the southern city of Mostar
because of two separate incidents Friday in which UNHCR trucks got
caught in artillery fire.
Shrapnel broke the window of one truck but caused no reported
injuries, and there were conflicting opinions on whether the incidents
were the result of incidental fire between the warring parties or a
deliberate attack.
The UNHCR said Sunday in a statement from Zagreb that the drivers
believed they were intentional targets, but Brade questioned the version
and called the wording ``unfortunate.''
The UNHCR statement said the agency was suspending use of the road
between Mostar and Sarajevo for at least 48 hours ``to obtain fresh
assurances of safe passage'' from the armies involved in the conflict.
Sarajevo's 500,000 trapped residents, after passing through what U.N.
forces called the quietest week of their 6-month siege, awoke Sunday to
sporadic shooting that exploded around 10 a.m. into heavy grenading
throughout the capital, including the city center, old town and the new
Sarajevo section.
The attacks killed and injured dozens of people, mostly civilians and
many of whom had been out walking the streets looking for sources of
water, Covic said.
Another artillery shell hit the city's UNPROFOR headquarters,
crashing through the roof of the main dining hall shortly before the
lunch hour.
``There was a kaboom and pieces of the roof started falling in,''
said a cafeteria worker who was alone in the room at the time.
UNPROFOR officials, in their daily survey, said a total of 70 rounds
of large artillery were observed falling onto Serbian-controlled areas
around the capital and 65 rounds were seen reaching Bosnian-controlled
territory during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Serbian forces also waged artillery, tank and infantry attacks
overnight and into the day Sunday on various central and northern towns,
including Gradacac, Tuzla, Maglaj, Brcko and Jajce, causing unknown
numbers of casualties, Sarajevo radio said.
Also Sunday, UNPROFOR troops in Sarajevo were again escorting utility
workers around the city in an effort to restore water and electricity
supplies that have been out through most of the capital for almost the
entire past month.
Electricity was briefly reconnected Thursday evening after days of
UNPROFOR negotiations with Serbian and Bosnian military leaders, but an
electricity transmission tower was hit only a few hours later, knocking
out both utilities.
UNPROFOR-escorted repair missions have reported being shot at since
then by soldiers on both sides of the war.
The agreement on the airport blockade was a temporary arrangement
until a more permanent solution can be found, UNPROFOR officials said.
The Bosnian side, which holds a roughly oval-shaped hunk of land
extending west of the capital, connecting near the point where it placed
the barrier, said it installed the blockade after finding at least two
dozen Serbian tanks in the surrounding territory pressing closer and
closer.
The Bosnians will still maintain barricades at points on the airport
road a short distance beyond the disputed blockade, protecting
themselves against Serbian tanks seen positioned in Serbian-held areas
further north.
Trucks stranded by the blockade included two UNHCR tankers carrying
fuel oil that was to be delivered to city public services, including
hospitals, telephone company offices, water-distribution trucks and
firefighters.
But the fuel, used to power both electricity generators and vehicles,
was delayed Sunday by a problem with the tanker trucks and will be
delivered Monday, UNHCR officials said.
Others affected by the three-day airport road blockade included four
officials of the Bosnian presidency who were forced to sleep nights at
the airport, and three injured children who could not be put on their
scheduled evacuation flights. One of the children underwent an operation
during the night at an UNPROFOR field hospital and was due to be flown
from the city Sunday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Cosic meets again with U.N. and EC mediators
Date: 19 Oct 92 13:01:12 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- President Dobrica Cosic of rump Yugoslavia met Monday
for the second time in 24 hours with U.N. and European Community
mediators just prior to a face to face meeting with President Alija
Izetbegovic of war-torn Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The meeting between the two presidents and mediators Cyrus Vance of
the U.N. and Lord David Owen of the EC was scheduled for Monday
afternoon. Derek Boothby, a spokesman for Vance and Owen described the
meeting as ``quite significant'' because it was the first time the two
had ever met, at least officially.
Both flew into Geneva Sunday night and are staying in the same hotel
but aides insisted they had not met, although they admitted there had
been ``some contact'' between the two delegations.
Cosic, who met Vance and Owen in his hotel Sunday night, lunched with
them prior to Monday's meeting. Izetbegovic had met the co-chairmen of
the joint peace initiative in the hotel earlier Monday.
Sources in both delegations said that while the agenda for the talks
was fluid, both Izetbegovic and Cosic had the halting of fighting in
Sarajevo at the top of their minds, and this was confirmed by U.N.
spokesman Derek Boothby.
``The No. 1 priority is to stop the fighting,'' he said. ``Then we
can move on to the future of Bosnia-Hercegovina, where there are a lot
of ideas kicking around but none concrete enough to take precedence over
the cessation of hostilities.
Joining the talks later would be Cedric Thornberry, the senior U.N.
political officer in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Boothby said.
The Cosic-Izetbegovic talks were to be followed by a meeting between
Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman Tuesday, their second
in a month.
In a related development the International Red Cross said
representatives of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Croatia
had agreed at a meeting Sunday to exchange lists of prisoners they were
holding, to pave the way for their release.
The two sides also agreed, the Red Cross said, to exchange
information on missing people and work together to ease the return of
refugees to their homes.
The Red Cross, in a statement, called on all parties in the conflict
in ex-Yugoslavia to proclaim an amnesty for all offenses during the
conflict except war crimes. This would cover desertion and refusal to
bear arms.
Renewed fighting erupted Sunday around Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo.
But U.N. spokesman Boothby said the fresh shelling was unlikely to
affect the talks in Geneva.
Cosic met briefly with Yugoslav Prime Minister Panic, who has been in
the Swiss capital since Friday, but who left for Belgrade late Sunday
night. It was their second second meeting in two days.
Before leaving, Panic also met with Sadako Ogata, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, and Cornelio Sommaruga, president of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, to discuss relief operations
in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
At his meeting with Vance and Owen on Saturday, Panic pledged the use
of Belgrade airport for U.N. support operations for getting supplies to
Sarajevo as winter approaches. Sarajevo has been besieged by Serbian
forces since last spring, when Serbians launched an offensive to seize
territory in the newly independent republic.
The UNHCR airlift to Sarajevo has been hampered by bad weather and
the lack of anti-aircraft equipment to protect planes taking part in the
airlift.
Panic renewed these offers to Ogata and Sommaruga Sunday, sources in
his delegation said. He also offered the services of the federal
Yugoslav army to provide security for U.N. truck convoys passing through
areas controlled by Bosnian Serbs.
These assurances too were reiterated to the Red Cross and the UNHCR,
Panic's office said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo tallies barrage damage
Date: 19 Oct 92 15:48:33 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The Bosnian capital struggled
Monday to recover from another withering assault by serbian artillery
that caused scores of casualties and knocked out the city's main grain
refinery.
Serbian forces in the hills overlooking Sarajevo bombarded the city
for several hours Sunday, firing hundreds of rounds of heavy artillery
that damaged apartment buildings, the city's state hospital and its main
bread factory.
At least 10 people were killed and 118 injured, hospital officials
said.
Conditions also were reported deteriorating Monday for some 80,000
people taking refuge in and around the eastern Bosnian town of
Srebrenica, where they fled after being forced or frightened out of
nearby Serbian-controlled areas.
The refugees, who outnumber natives remaining in the Muslim Slav-
majority town by some six-to-one, include about 8,000 children and are
in dire need of food and medicine, Sarajevo radio and the Vecernje
Novine newspaper reported.
Most are living in wooded land around Srebrenica, where they have
been shelled repeatedly and are dying from wounds that go untreated, the
reports said. Doctors have been performing limb amputations with hot
wires, they said.
The strike on the Sarajevo bread factory destroyed the city's major
grain mill, meaning U.N. relief workers already well behind schedule in
stockpiling food and medicines for winter will have to begin delivering
more flour.
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which coordinates aid
deliveries, said it was asked to provide another 50 tons of flour a day
to replace that produced by the damaged mill.
``We'll do what we can,'' UNHCR spokesman Larry Hollingsworth said.
``The basic difference is that it'll mean 50 tons a day of something
else we can't bring in.''
The mill had stored about two to three months worth of grain that it
could have processed into flour, and officials estimated it would take
about six weeks even in peace time to repair the damage.
The capital at least had some water and electricity services restored
by Monday morning, although supplies remained sporadic as warring
parties continued to block repair crews and shoot at transmission
facilities.
Power and water were restored two days earlier after outages lasting
several weeks, but an electricity tower was hit by artillery fire within
hours and knocked out again.
The shelling of Sarajevo slowed once more Monday, although heavy
artillery and infantry attacks were reported to be continuing in several
cities of northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina, where Serbian-backed
forces are fighting to establish a self-declared Serbian state.
Serbian forces dropped rounds of artillery Monday on Travnik and
Bugojno in the central part of the republic and Gradacac, Brcko and
Maglaj in the north, Sarajevo radio said.
Maglaj, completing a full month under seige, was hit throughout the
night and into the morning by fire from tanks, howitzers and incendiary
ammunition, the radio said.
The warring parties were attempting Monday to negotiate an exchange
of 90 Serbs living in the beseiged central Bosnian town of Jajce for
some 1,000 Muslim Slavs and Croats evicted from other nearby towns, it
said.
In Geneva, the presidents of both Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Serbian-
dominated rump yugoslav union met Monday with U.N. and European
Community negotiators at the site of the ongoing Yugoslav peace talks.
The Serbian-run Yugoslav army was removing its last troops from
Croatian soil, one year after its highly criticized bombardment of the
12th Century coastal city of Dubrovnik.
But Croatian military sources complained the Yugoslav army, while
leaving Dubrovnik as scheduled by Tuesday, was just relocating a few
miles south and was leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery for
Serbian forces still fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The shelling of Sarajevo began sunday less than two hours after the
Bosnian military permitted the resumption of U.N. relief shipments into
Sarajevo by removing its blockade of the main access road connecting the
city with both the airport and outside roadways.
The attacks timing was attributed by Bosnian officials to their
refusal to accept Serbian demands for the release of bodies of Serbian
fighters, primarily those killed in a failed offensive two weeks earlier
in the southern part of the city.
The Bosnian officials said the shelling began as threatened, at 10 a.
m., after the Bosnians insisted on getting back bodies of their own
fighters.
A total of 291 rounds of large artillery fell onto Bosnian-controlled
areas around the capital, compared to only 18 rounds seen reaching
Serbian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Sunday, the U.N. Protection Force said in its daily survey.
Also Monday, a former Bosnian military leader was being held in
Bosnian custody in Konjic, south of Sarajevo, after he reportedly
returned from exile to the hills around the capital and allegedly tried
to take control from a local commander.
Jusuf Prazina, known popularly as ``Juka,'' returned to the Sarajevo
area on Friday and along with eight armed colleagues on Saturday briefly
seized control of a Bosnian army headquarters on Igman Mountain,
southwest of the capital, before being arrested following a shootout,
Bosnian media reported.
The UNHCR on Monday was bringing into the city two tanker trucks
carrying fuel oil that was to be delivered to city public services,
including hospitals, telephone company offices, water-distribution
trucks and firefighters.
The fuel, used to power both electricity generators and vehicles, was
caught at the airport during the road blockade and further delayed
Sunday by a problem with the tanker trucks, unhcr officials said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbians seize federal police headquarters
Date: 19 Oct 92 17:18:19 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Serbian police seized the headquarters
of the Yugoslav federal police Monday and refused to let the federal
interior minister enter the building, the Belgrade-based Tanjug news
agency said.
Serbian police said they were acting as a result of a Belgrade
municipal court decision that said that the headquarters was the
property of the republic of Serbia.
An official statement issued by the Serbian government said the
takeover ``was simply a matter of owner's rights...There are no reasons
for over-dramatizing the event.''
Tanjug said the Serbian police stopped Pavle Bulatovic, the federal
minister of interior, from entering the building Monday morning.
Federal police sources said that they received the court's decision
about the building 10 days ago, but ``thought that it was a mistake.''
The appearance of hundreds of heavily-armed Serbian police briefly
sparked rumors of a coup attempt by Serbia's hard-line President
Slobodan Milosevic against the leadership of the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro.
Milosevic and his ruling Socialist Party of Serbia have repetedly
accused federal President Dobrica Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic
of ``neglecting Serbian national interests'' in their negotiations with
neighboring Croatia.
Panic Sunday interrupted a visit to Geneva, where he and Cosic were
participating in peace talks on former Yugoslavia, to return to Belgrade
because of ``pressing business at home,'' his spokesman said.
The spokesman denied that there was any connection between Panic's
return and the takeover of the police headquarters. The federal
government issued no official statement.
``This is a show of force by Milosevic,'' said a Western diplomat in
Belgrade, who insisted on remaining anonymous. He said ``Milosevic is
demonstrating to Panic who is in charge.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Greece may allow Macedonia on name domestically, premier says
Date: 19 Oct 92 17:47:35 GMT
ATHENS, Greece (UPI) -- Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis
said Monday Athens had no quarrel with any name the former Yugoslav
republic of Macedonia wished to use for itself domestically.
He implied that Athens would not object if the republic used the name
``Macedonia'' domestically but would remain steadfast in not allowing it
to use the name externally.
The Greek premier's statement came two days before the European
Community was due to vote on whether to allow the former Yugoslav state
to use the name ``Macedonia'' externally for trade purposes.
Since Macedonia broke away from the Yugoslav federation earlier this
year, Athens has blocked EC recognition of the republic so long as it
insisted on using the name Macedonia, which is also the name of a Greek
province adjacent to the former federation.
Athens argued that use of the name implied territorial ambitions by
the former Yugoslav state.
Mitsotakis said Greece would continue to oppose use of the name
``Macedonia'' by the state in its external dealings, but had no quarrel
with ``a name which the republic wishes to call itself domestically.''
The new policy appeared to soften the Greek stance on the issue, but
opposition parties in Athens earlier said they were not ready to
compromise on the name.
Diplomats however pointed out that Greece called itself ``Ellada''
internally, though it was referred to as ``Greece'' or the ``Hellenic
Republic'' externally.
Mitsotakis also said Athens would be ready to accept a formula
whereby the breakaway Yugoslav state would be referred to externally as
``the Territory of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia'' in its
trade dealings with the EC.
Greek officials however said the new formula was a temporary
compromise, and would be used until Macedonia found another name for
itelf for external use.
``The flow of oil and other products from Greece will not be resumed
to this republic unless (it) accepts the stamp which the European
Community has agreed to, showing that it is the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia,'' Mitsotakis said.
The Greek media and officials refer to the former Yugoslav state as
the ``Republic of Skopje,'' after its capital city.
novine.110.bale.,
Serbian Seizure of Interior Building Sparks Coup Rumors (Belgrade)
By Laura Silber and Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Heavily armed police loyal
to Serbian Presiden t Slobodan Milosevic seized the Yugoslav
federal Interior Ministry building Monday in a move that may
foreshadow an attempt to depose federal Prime Minister Milan
Panic.
The action by Milosevic forces has been explained
publicly as a dispu te between the republic and federal
governments over ownership of the ministry building. But in
view of the increasingly tense power struggle between
Milosevic and Panic, the takeover sparked fears that the
Serbian strongman might be laying the groundwork for a coup
d'etat.
By invading the Interior Ministry building after
nightfall Sunday and disarming federal police officers on
duty, the Milosevic forces have flouted Panic's limited
authority over his own government institutions.
In a statement issued through the Tanjug news
agency, Panic's governm ent said it ``strongly condemns the
violent takeover'' and demands immediate restoration of
federal authority over the property.
``The federal Interior Ministry is now unable to
perform its legal an d constitutional functions, which
gravely threatens one of the vital state and security
functions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,'' the
statement said.
Panic's spokesman, David Calef, said the prime
minister had no immedi ate comment on the incident.
Asked if the Serbian takeover might signal an
attempt to wrest power from Panic, Calef replied: ``I
wouldn't engage that one way or the other.''
Panic, a naturalized American citizen who left his
California- based pharmaceuticals empire in July to lead the
government of his native Yugoslavia, made a mysterious detour
in his travel plans Sunday when he returned to Belgrade from
Geneva, where he had been expected to remain for Yugoslav
peace talks that will continue throughout the week.
Calef denied that Panic's early return had
anything to do with the In terior Ministry situation.
``The two are not related to one another,'' he
said. ``His business i n Geneva was concluded.''
Calef said Panic planned to leave again Wednesday
for an official vis it to Austria, then return to Geneva for
further negotiations with U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and
European Community mediator Lord Owen, joint chairmen of the
Yugoslav peace talks.
The struggle for control of the ministry follows a
critical blow to Milosevic's prestige delivered by Yugoslav
President Dobrica Cosic last week. Cosic, an esteemed writer
and prominent nationalist once closely allied with the
Serbian president, called on Milosevic to resign for the good
of the nation.
The Serbian Orthodox Church and prominent members
of the Serbian Acad emy of Sciences had earlier distanced
themselves from Milosevic, who is accused by Western leaders
of fomenting ethnic violence in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Cosic and Panic have joined forces in hopes of
ousting Milosevic and getting the United Nations to lift the
harsh sanctions imposed five months ago against Serbia and
Montenegro, the last two republics remaining in Yugoslavia.
While Belgrade was gripped by rumors of a possible
coup, Serbian and federal officials played down the seizure
as a dispute over property rights. The Serbian move followed
a ruling by a municipal court that the federal Interior
Ministry must abandon the building by Oct. 15.
The takeover fueled speculation that the Serbian
police were trying t o confiscate federal police archives.
Those files are believed to contain incriminating evidence
against top Serbian politicians that could be used in war
crimes trials being called for in international circles.
Eyewitnesses Report Torture, Many Deaths in Serb Camp (Omarska)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
OMARSKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ The vast mining
complex here, with its open pits and ore processing system,
looks like anything but a concentration camp.
The nondescript buildings in their barren frontier
landscape have bee n cleaned up, and there is no trace of the
blood reputedly spilled here. But during the last month
dozens of eyewitnesses have provided compelling evidence of
murder and torture on a wide scale at this complex, where the
Serbs who conquered much of Bosnia brought several thousand
Muslims and Croats. Inside the huge hangarlike building that
houses earth-moving equipment, armed guards ordered tortures
at gunpoint. The paved area outside was an open-air prison,
where 500 to 1,000 men had to lie on their bellies from dawn
to dusk.
Thousands more packed the offices, workshops and
storage rooms in the hangar and a glass-and-brick
administration building. All were on starvation diets.
The two most-feared locations were small
outbuildings some distance f rom the main facilities: the
``Red House,'' from which no prisoner returned alive; and
the ``White House,'' which contained a torture chamber where
guards beat prisoners for days until they succumbed.
Unlike Nazi concentration camps, Omarska kept no
real records, making it difficult to determine exactly how
many died.
Newsday first reported mass murders at Omarska and
other camps on Aug . 2. Five days later, as television
pictures of emaciated prisoners were aired worldwide, Serb
authorities closed the camp and dispersed the prisoners. But
not until hundreds of survivors aided by the International
Red Cross reached the West in the last few weeks was it
possible to draw up a detailed account.
A monthlong Newsday investigation that included
extensive interviews with officials who said they were
responsible for Omarska and with dozens of former detainees
in Croetia, Britain and Bosnia itself, produced these main
conclusions:
_Eyewitness accounts of detainees indicate that
well over 1,000 peopl e were killed at Omarska, and thousands
more might have died from beatings, executions, disease or
starvation had the camp not been closed.
_A large number of detainees, possibly as many as
1,000, seem to have disappeared when the camp was closed.
_All but a few detainees were civilians, mostly
draft-age Muslim or C roat men, but there were many men under
18 or over 60, and a small number of women.
Newsday's estimate of the death toll of more than
1,000 is based on t he eyewitness accounts of daily killings
by three former detainees who spoke in separate interviews.
It does not reflect other, possibly duplicating, first-person
reports of mass executions or disappearances; if it did, the
toll could easily be twice as high.
Three Bosnian journalists who were detained at
Omarska and are now be ing held in another camp estimated the
death toll of 1,200 or more. And International Red Cross
officials said at least 2,000 people who went to Omarska are
unaccounted for.
Nine hundred miles from here, outside London, Edin
Elkaz lies awake n ights, his head filled with the screams of
the men being tortured in the room next door at the White
House. During one month at the camp, the 21-year-old said, he
witnessed some of the killings and the removal of bodies the
next day. The guards, he said, slaughtered five to 10 men a
night, up to 30 on some nights.
E.L., a 26-year-old Muslim, spent two months here
and said he helped load between five and 10 corpses daily
from the White House into a small yellow pickup truck that
removed them to an unknown grave. Like many of those
interviewed, he asked that his full name not be used.
And N.J., a 23-year-old Muslim, said he kept a
count each night for t he final 20 nights of inmates marched
to the Red House. Some days there were as few as 17, on
others as many as 42. None ever returned.
Interviews with these three detainees, who are
among 68 taken to Brit ain to recover from beatings and
shootings, and from several hundred who recently arrived in
Karlovac, western Croatia, provide chilling amplification of
the original reports of atrocities at the camps in Bosnia.
After conducting its own interviews recently with
about 40 former det ainees in Karlovac for submission to a
special United Nations war crimes panel, the U.S. Embassy in
Zagreb has concluded there were massive atrocities at Omarska
and other camps and in the surrounding towns, said John
Zerolis, an embassy official.
``The Nazis had nothing on these guys. I've seen
reports of individua l acts of barbarity of a kind that
haven't come up in State Department cable traffic in 20
years,'' said another top official at the U.S. embassy, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Extensive Newsday interviews with prisoners
indicate that at least 2, 500 to 3,000 detainees were held in
Omarska at any one point in time. International Red Cross
officials have a working estimate that up to 5,000 prisoners
were taken to Omarska altogether.
Serbs from nearby Prijedor, in northwest Bosnia,
set up camps at Omar ska and Kereterm, a disused tile
factory, on May 25, not quite a month after they seized power
by force in the town of 30,000. Officials from Prijedor were
eager to present their version of events. ``You have your
facts. We have our facts. You have a complete right to choose
between the two versions,'' Police Chief Simo Drljaca said in
an interview last month.
Almost nothing in the official version stands up
to scrutiny.
During a tour of the administration building at
the camp, Zeljko Meha jic, the former commander of the
guards, took a visitor to a basement room packed with rows of
bunk beds. There were never more than 270 prisoners at
Omarska at any one tmme, Mehajic said, and ``this is where
they all slept.''
But the detainees said they had slept on the
ground, on floors, or cr ouching jammed into closets _
anywhere but in beds. The beds were brought a few days after
the media drew attention to Omarska, according to a foreign
humanitarian aid expert.
Milan Kovacevic, the city manager in Prijedor,
said Omarska was an investigative facility, set up ``to see
who did what during the war, to find the guilty ones and to
establish the innocent so that they didn't bear the
consquences.'' He said the camp was closed when the
investigation was completed.
Drljaca, who became police chief when the Serb
minority took power, s aid 3,334 people were arrested on
suspicion of resisting or plotting against the new Serb
authorities and were taken to Omarska. Drljaca insisted that
no one had been killed at Omarska, and that only two
prisioners died between May 25 and mid-August, both of
``natural causes.'' Another 49 ``disappeared,'' including the
former lord mayor of Prijedor, Mohamed Cehajic, and were
presumed dead, Drljaca said.
In the official version, detainees were
interrogated for four days an d shipped out. But not one of
more than three dozen Omarska survivors whom U.S. embassy
officials interviewed at Karlovac said he had been questioned
before being taken to Omarska. Only a few of several dozen
interviewed by Newsday had been interrogated, and they said
they were beaten before and during questioning. Most had been
held more than two months.
Slobodan Balaban, an ethnic Serb who was technical
director of the mi ning complex, said Serbs were motivated to
operate the camps by revenge for the perceived suffering of
Serbs in other conflicts. ``The main factor that influenced
our conduct has been the treatment of our people who were
taken to Croatian camps,'' he said.
Tahirovic Redzep, 52, said he was brought to
Omarska with hundreds of others on May 26, after Serbs
destroyed and ``cleansed'' the nearby Muslim town of Kozarac.
In a sworn statement given to the Bosnian office on war
crimes investigation, he said guards called out a dozen
people a day for five days and decapitated them with chain
saws near one of the main pits. He said Omarska prisoners
were forced to witness the massacre, as well as the
subsequent execution of 20 non-Serb policemen from Prijedor.
There were ways to avoid beatings, detainees said.
Rule 1 was never t o look a guard in the eye. Rule 2 was that
if called to an interrogation, to confuse the guards by
saying he had just come from one. Prisoners sometimes smeared
themselves with blood from a newly beaten detainee ``so that
we would be spared as much as possible in the next round,''
Kamber Midho, 31, said in a sworn statement to the Bosnian
government.
At least one prisoner was burned alive at Omarska.
The burning occurred in late July as detainees
lined up for lunch, ac cording to Nedjad Hadzic, 23, an
eyewitness now in Karlovac. The man was emerging from an
interrogation, and a guard ordered him to run, as if in
preparation to shoot him. ``You are cowards. You know nothing
but cruelty,'' the man taunted the guard.
While the guards were shoving him, he grabbed a
gun from one of them, but then gave it up. ``They shoved him
toward the White House, poured gasoline over him and set him
alight,'' Hadzic said.
And Osman Hamuric, who is now recovering outside
London, told Newsday he had twice witnessed forced cannibalism.
On one occasion, he said, guards cut off a
prisoner's ear and forced another man to eat it. The second
time, a guard cut a piece of flesh off a wounded prisoner and
told him to eat it. He refused. ``Why not? It's cooked,''
Hamuric quoted the guard as saying. Hamuric could not say
whether the man ate his own flesh. ``All I know is that they
took him away and we never saw him again.''
U.S. Embassy officials found a witness to an
incident in which a man had his testicles tied with wire to
the back of a motorcycle, which took off at high speed. He
died of massive blood loss.
During their first five days in Omarska, prisoners
were generally giv en no food, witnesses said. After that,
they were taken in groups of 30 to the cafeteria for the sole
meal of the day, which consisted of a slice of bread and a
bowl of thin soup.
Dysentery was rampant, and conditions were so
unclean that some pris oners counted 10 types of lice or
vermin on their bodies. ``We had lice on our eyelids. They'd
fall out of your beards,'' said Hadzic. Detainees said they
were bathed only twice all summer. The guards ordered
prisoners to disrobe in groups of 50 and then aimed firehoses
at their genitals. ``It was pure sadism. They'd laugh if we
fell over,'' Hadzic said.
A mystery is what happened to the people
transferred from Omarska at the time of its closing.
Prisoners said they reckoned a population of 2,500 to 3,000
at Omarska, basing their estimates on such things as counts
of the lunches served on a particular day. Of the prisoners
there at the end, 1,374 were transferred to Manjaca, a POW
camp, according to the International Red Cross. About 700
others went to Trnopolje, a transit camp, according to
prisoners later taken from there to Karlovac. That leaves
between 500 and 1,000 unaccounted for. ^ Distributed by the
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service=
Wounded Eye Witness Tells of Torture in Serb Camp (Omarska)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
OMARSKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ Edin Elkaz counts
himself lucky to have been shot in the Serb interrogation
camp where Muslims and Croats were taken between May and
August after Serbs captured the town of Prijedor and rounded
up anyone suspected of opposing them.
Elkaz had been a Bosnian soldier, one of the few
Omarska prisoners wh o had actually fought the Serbs. Stuffed
with 130 others into a one-car garage, Elkaz was standing
near the door on May 30 when guards seized a friend of his
and executed him outside at close range.
The bullet penetrated the door, entered the
stomach of Elkaz' brother and finally came to rest in Elkaz'
leg. In the hospital for six weeks with his leg suspended
from a bar, Elkaz had difficulty recovering because Serbs
came by and poked the wound with a stick, repeatedly
reinfecting it.
``I had a very good (Serb) neighbor who came by
one day and said hell o. I came to regret it,'' Elkaz said,
smiling at the irony. ``He brought 15 people to beat me up
over six weeks.''
But Elkaz' weeks in the hospital reduced the time
he was exposed to t he brutality of the Omarska camp. Once
back in Omarska, he was taken with several other Bosnian
soldiers to a room in the ``White House,'' where torture was
conducted. He could see the beatings through a glass door.
The guards used wooden clubs and iron bars and usually
concentrated on the head, the genitals, the spine and the
kidneys. Sometimes they smashed prisoners' heads against
radiators. ``You'd see pieces of flesh or brain there the
next day,'' Elkaz recalled.
But the worst torture was to stand a prisoner
against the wall and be at him with a cable. ``I think they
killed at least 50 men with that cable,'' Elkaz said.
Each morning, he said, detainees laid out the
corpses in front of the White House. Others then loaded them
into the small yellow truck that had just been used to
deliver food to the camp kitchen. A four-man burial detail
would accompany the truck, but only one of them would return
alive.
novine.111.bale.,
Report Used by White House to Defend Iraq Policy Was Flawed (Washn)
By Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ A Department of Agriculture report
used in recent months by the Bush administration to defend
its prewar assistance to Iraq was known to be flawed and
incomplete before it was released in 1990, according to
internal documents and interviews.
A senior federal investigator cited the
deficiencies when he tried to delay release of the report,
which stemmed from an inquiry into allegations that Iraq had
misused U.S.-backed loans.
Records show that the official complained that the
report represented an incomplete and ``rosy'' picture of
Iraq's abuse of the loan program, which included paying
bribes to U.S. exporters and possibly trading food for arms.
Releasing the report could embarrass the administration, he
warned.
But the Department of Agriculture, after pressure
from President Bush 's national security adviser, released
the report essentially unchanged. It said that the
department's internal auditors had uncovered no evidence that
Iraq had traded goods bought with U.S. loans for weapons, and
the United States did not suspend its aid to Iraq.
``The administration's investigation of Iraqi
abuses was a whitewash at best,'' said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy,
D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which
has been investigating the Iraqi loan guarantees. ``At worst,
it was an unsuccessful effort to hide a foreign policy
failure.''
Concerns about the accuracy of the Department of
Agriculture report c ome in the wake of recent questions
about the thoroughness of a simultaneous criminal
investigation into a massive loan scheme involving Iraq and
the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.
The criticism has centered on the apparent failure
by U.S. government prosecutors to pursue key evidence and the
withholding of intelligence files, possibly to avoid
disclosing the extent of administration aid to Iraq.
The BNL case has become a major issue in the final
weeks of the presi dential campaign, with Democrats accusing
the administration of a coverup and administration officials
denying that there was an effort to conceal information.
Attorney General William P. Barr has appointed an outside
investigator to examine the BNL matter.
Dissatisfied with the appointment, all eight
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Barr
Monday for an independent counsel _ who would not report to
the Justice Department _ to investigate the government's
handling of the BNL inquiry. The House Judiciary Committee
made a similar request Friday.
A Department of Agriculture spokeswoman would not
comment Monday on t he 1990 Iraqi report or the criticisms of
it.
The Department of Agriculture inquiry that led to
the report was init iated in response to evidence uncovered
in the BNL investigation. The two sets of investigators even
collided later when they tried to interview the same Iraqi
officials.
When FBI agents raided the Italian bank's Atlanta
branch in August 19 89, they found evidence of $5 billion in
illegal loans to Iraq. Nearly $2 billion had been guaranteed
by the Agriculture Department through its Commodity Credit
Corp. to promote U.S. farm exports.
Investigators discovered indications early that
food bought with the loans may have been traded by Iraq for
military goods. They also uncovered evidence that Iraq had
demanded bribes from U.S. exporters participating in the
program.
Agents from the FBI and the Department of
Agriculture inspector gener al's office pursued the bank case
and internal auditors from Agriculture began to examine the
loans.
In early 1990, both teams wanted to interview the
same Iraqi governme nt officials, but officials in Washington
decided that only one group would be able to interview the
Iraqis. The lead agent in the criminal inquiry later
testified in court that it was decided that the auditors
would interview the Iraqis because both groups believed that
the Iraqis would lie anyway.
In April, the audit team interviewed Iraqi
officials in Baghdad and e xamined documents indicating
possible misuse of the loans. The documents, however, were in
Arabic and never were translated.
In late April 1990, the first draft of the audit
investigation was wr itten and, in an unusual step, sent to
the National Security Council at the White House for review.
It also was reviewed by Craig Beauchamp, the assistant
inspector general for investigations at the Department of
Agriculture, who immediately found that the auditors did not
thoroughly investigate many allegations about Iraq's abuse of
the program.
On May 8, 1990, Beauchamp telephoned Lawrence A.
Urgenson, a senior a ttorney at Justice who was supervising
the criminal investigation of BNL. He told Urgenson that the
report was a ``very incomplete picture of Iraqi involvement''
in abuses and warned that Justice and Agriculture ``could be
embarrassed'' by its release, according to Beauchamp's notes
of the conversation, which were obtained by the Los Angeles
Times.
Two days later, Beauchamp again complained to
Urgenson, saying that t he report painted ``a rosy picture''
of Iraq. He said that he had tried to persuade his superiors
to delay the report's release.
Urgenson apparently took the warning seriously and
responded with a l etter to Agriculture officials saying that
criminal investigators had evidence of Iraqi complicity in
criminal abuses of the loan program, including demanding
bribes. But the letter did not address whether goods had been
traded for weapons.
At the time, Iraq was scheduled to receive
another $500 million in lo an guarantees. Beauchamp and
others were trying to halt the program, but the White House
wanted to keep it open to avoid straining relations with
Iraq, according to documents.
On May 18, 1990, Brent Scowcroft, the president's
national security a dviser, contacted then-Agriculture
Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter and urged him to hold off
suspending the loan guarantees, according to internal
documents.
Yeutter complied and did not announce the
suspension of the program w hen the audit report was released
on May 21. The additional $500 million was still pending when
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, according to various
documents and interviews.
Clinton's Record as Governor: Ambiguous, Contradictory
By David Lauter
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ During his 12 years as governor of
Arkansas, Bill Clinto n has improved the schools, kept taxes
low, increased the number of jobs, improved civil rights for
minorities and maintained one of the cleanest environments in
the country.
Or, he has presided over one of the worst-educated
states in the coun try, raised taxes on everything from
groceries to used cars, watched as wages declined, failed to
gain a civil rights law for his state's citizens and allowed
the poultry industry to stall state regulation of water
pollution caused by chicken droppings.
Both pictures are true. Neither is complete.
Clinton's record is as ambiguous and contradictory
as the man himself often has been on this year's campaign
trail. When he took over, Arkansas ranked as one of the
nation's poorest states. It still does. But in many ways, the
state has made steady progress under Clinton's tenure.
The overall assessment of his record depends in
large part on whether one looks at where the state stands or
where it is moving. Much also depends on what year one looks
at.
During the first part of the 1980s, Arkansas was
hard hit by the twin downturns in the nation's farm economy
and its oil and gas industry. Economic statistics taken from
that decade show slow growth, declining incomes and poor job
markets. During the last four years, however _ while
President Bush presided over a stagnant national economy _
Arkansas' picture has improved substantially.
Here is a closer examination of the Clinton record:
Economy
The official version of the history of the
Arkansas economy during t he Bill Clinton era runs something
like this:
When he first took office in 1978, economic
development in the small Southern state amounted to
``smokestack chasing.'' State officials would look for
industrial plants in the Midwest and Northeast and woo them
with promises of cheap labor, low taxes and lax regulation.
Clinton has said that he quickly realized that
such efforts were self-defeating. Employers attracted by the
promise of low wages would forever remain low-wage employers.
They would stay in the state for a while but eventually would
be lured away by other areas _ Mexico or Taiwan _ that could
promise even lower costs. And in the meantime, such
industries would do little to lift the state from poverty.
And so, during his first two-year term and again
in 1982 when he rega ined his office after losing it in 1980,
Clinton set out to change the state's approach to encouraging
development in its impoverished backwaters. He pushed for
major education reforms to improve the future work force, as
well as the creation of new agencies to provide capital to
encourage local business start-ups.
At first, progress was slow, particularly in the
recessionary years o f the mid-1980s. But in recent years,
Arkansas has led the nation in new job growth.
This version of the story is true. But only in part.
Clinton's programs may have had some impact on the
state's job-growth rate, but the impact has been small. The
main source of new jobs has been the state's rapidly growing
chicken industry, growth that has made the poultry producers
a powerful entity in Arkansas. And that, in turn, has stymied
efforts to control chicken-related pollution.
In addition, jobs in the chicken factories are
generally low paying, as are jobs in the timber industry _
another source of Arkansas' strong employment growth in
recent years.
Comparing 1979 and 1991, the number of non-farm
jobs in Arkansas has increased by 24 percent, a rate slightly
higher than the national average of 20 percent during that
period. Nationally, most of that job growth took place in the
early and mid-1980s. In Arkansas, much of the growth was in
the last four years. Since Bush took office, jobs nationwide
have increased by only 1 percent, while jobs in Arkansas have
increased by 11.5 percent.
In another key economic category, Arkansas' per
capita annual income has gone from $6,911 in 1979 to $14,629
in 1991. That was a healthy rate of growth, but overall only
kept pace with the national averages. And the state remains
near the bottom in per capita income; only West Virginia,
Mississippi and Utah rank below it.
Still, during the years Clinton and Bush have both
been chief executi ves, Arkansas has done better than the
nation as a whole. Nationally, per capita income adjusted for
inflation has dropped 1 percent since 1989. In Arkansas, per
capita income adjusted for inflation has grown 2 percent,
making the state one of the few that can show actual income
growth during the Bush years.
-0-
Spending and Taxes
As governor, Clinton has faced strict constraints
on his ability to e ither spend money or raise it. Under the
Arkansas constitution, the budget must be balanced. The state
has an automatic budget-cutting process that cuts spending to
match revenues each quarter of the year. As for taxes, most
can be increased only if three-fourths of the Legislature
concurs. Effectively, that means that as few as 12 members of
the state Senate can kill a tax increase, and they usually
have.
The exceptions to that rule are sales taxes and
fees, and Clinton has turned to both to raise revenue. As
governor, he put through two major sales tax increases. The
first, in 1983, raised the sales tax from three cents on the
dollar to four cents. The second increase, in 1990, added
another half cent to the levy.
Adjusted for inflation, state spending in Arkansas
increased 33 perce nt between 1980 and 1991. Spending
increased somewhat faster than statewide income. But despite
those spending increases, Arkansas has one of the lowest tax
burdens in the nation.
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Education and Environment
No issue has had a greater priority with Clinton
than education. His biggest political battle was a
confrontation with the state teachers union over teacher
competency tests _ part of a broad package of educational
reforms Clinton was able to get passed in 1983.
Clinton's efforts on education even won him praise
from President Bus h. In 1989, when Clinton headed a task
force of governors that worked with administration officials
in setting new education goals, Bush wrote him a letter
complimenting his work.
Nonetheless, education reforms take many years to
have an impact, and so far, the measurable changes in the
state's rankings are small.
On the environmental front, Clinton took on the
timber industry durin g his first term (1979-81) and lost a
major battle over clear-cutting in the state's forests. He
also staged a major fight with the state's chief utility over
nuclear power. When he returned to office in 1983, Clinton
took a more low-key approach on environmental concerns,
playing down the issue in the interests of economic growth.
The resulting problems have been most evident in
northwestern Arkansa s, the center of the state's poultry
industry. The chief culprit is chicken droppings, which area
farmers traditionally have used for fertilizer. In limited
amounts, that practice causes few environmental problems, but
as the industry has grown, the amount of chicken waste has
exceeded the land's ability to absorb it, resulting in runoff
into lakes and streams, where the nitrogen in the chicken
droppings causes sharp increases in the growth of algae.
That, in turn, robs the water of oxygen needed by fish.
Clinton and his aides correctly note that overall,
the state remains one of the nation's cleanest. The vast
majority of the state's rivers and streams are clean, and
Arkansas is one of the few states that complies fully with
the federal Clean Air Act _ mostly because the state
industrialized late and has few old, high-polluting factories.
Examination of Bush's Successes, Failures as President
By Douglas Jehl
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ That George Bush's first-term record
looms as a problem even for him is evident in the strategy he
has adopted for re-election. Rather than dwell upon the past
four years, the president has mostly tried to change the
subject.
He is glad to talk about his agenda for American
``renewal.'' He is e ager to talk about Democrat Bill
Clinton's record as Arkansas' governor. But he dares not ask
voters whether they are better off now than when he took
office. This election, he now insists, should focus on the
future.
That approach carries deep irony: While incumbency
is usually regarde d as an advantage, Bush's past has proved
a burden. Not since World War II has a president presided
over an economy so stagnant. In promising better times ahead,
Bush finds himself conceding that ``times have been very,
very difficult for many Americans.''
The sense of ``Marching In Place,'' as a new book
on the Bush preside ncy is titled, extends across a wide
domestic spectrum. In his first term, Bush has done what he
promised not to do _ raise taxes _ and stopped short of what
he vowed to be _ the environmental and education president.
If the past has become a handicap, that fate also
serves as a remind er of politics' cruel tricks. With the
Cold War over and the Persian Gulf war won, Bush discovered
that great successes only make voters yearn for more.
Victorious abroad, Americans demanded similar victories at
home.
Here is a closer examination of the Bush record:
The Economy
Bush took office with promises of massive job
growth and sunny prospe rity. Instead, Americans lost ground
in three crucial areas: economic growth, income and jobs.
Under Bush, the economy has grown by just 1
percent a year. And media n family income, when adjusted for
inflation, has actually declined. Bush promised to create 30
million jobs in eight years; but in a little less than four
years, total employment has increased by just 2.8 million,
and the number of private-sector jobs has actually declined.
The jobless rate, 5.4 percent when he took office, has shot
upward, standing at 7.5 percent in the latest report. One
American in 10 is now on food stamps.
The statistics are not uniformly bleak. The U.S.
economy remains the world's largest; inflation, its bane a
decade ago, no longer poses a serious threat. And interest
rates are at their lowest level in 20 years, setting the
stage for a spree of investment that Bush claims leaves that
nation ``poised for a dramatic recovery.''
To listen to the president, the poor economic
record is mostly Congre ss' fault. As an example, he points
to lawmakers' steadfast refusal to pass the capital gains
tax-cut proposal that has been the most consistent element of
his economic agenda.
Bush's advisers also point to the structural
slowdown in the defense industry brought about by the end of
the Cold War. With various major weapon programs being
canceled or slowed, thousands of jobs have been loss.
But it is also true that, until this year, Bush
devoted little attent ion to the state of the economy. When
he finally did so, his election-year proposals had virtually
no chance of winning the embrace of a Democratic-controlled
Congress.
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Taxes and Spending
For all his disdain of taxing and spending, Bush
has presided over la rge increases in both. The income tax
increase he reluctantly approved (he now calls it a
``mistake'') in a 1990 budget-agreement with Congress was the
second-largest in American history. Since he took office,
federal spending, adjusted for inflation, has shot up 8.7
percent a year.
Bush justified his support for the tax hike as a
necessary step to ma intain budget discipline. But it has not
had that effect. In just four years, the federal deficit has
nearly doubled, swelling to $290 billion this year. The total
federal debt has increased to $4 trillion, from $2.6 trillion
four years ago.
To be sure, Bush tried but failed to persuade
Congress to accept a cu t in the capital-gains tax rate. His
own spending proposals have been consistently smaller than
those ultimately approved by Congress. But as a would-be
deficit-cutter, he has been less than courageous. While
calling for spending cuts, he has refused to identify the
programs he would shrink or eliminate.
-0-
Foreign Policy and Defense
So much more impressive is Bush's record here that
he has sought to u se it as a symbol. ``If we can change the
world, we can change America,'' he has said. But just as the
resulting defense build-down has contributed to economic
problems at home, so too have extraordinary successes made
the next steps more confusing.
Since Bush took office, the Cold War has ended,
the Berlin Wall falle n and the Soviet Union disbanded.
Nuclear war no longer looms as a threat and arms control
agreements have cut deep into the former adversaries'
arsenals. Perhaps more than ever before, the United States
holds an unparalleled position of world leadership.
That prestige was reinforced by Bush's success in
mustering the international coalition that drove Saddam
Hussein's armies from Kuwait. In a standoff in which he was
never seen to waver, Bush earned acclaim from a public that,
polls show, even now regards his gulf war leadership as his
top accomplishment.
Recently, however, even his record on this front
has suffered, fallin g prey to disclosures showing that his
administration coddled Iraq until only days before it invaded
Kuwait.
-0-
Environment and Education
While Bush has fulfilled his specific pledges on
these issues, his re cord has fallen short of the standard
most voters had been led to expect.
The slower course reflects in part the tension
Bush perceived between environmentalism and the economy.
After winning passage of a landmark Clean Air Act, the Bush
administration has moved to weaken some standards on the
grounds that they involved too much regulation. While putting
the coasts of New England, southern Florida and California
off limits to oil exploration, Bush has pressed to open the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.
On education, Bush's efforts have been limited by
spending constraint s. He has increased education funding by
11 percent a year since taking office. But while creating an
America 2000 program of goals and standards, he has resisted
pressures for a more active federal role. His most innovative
proposal, to guarantee ``school choice,'' remains limited:
His plan to provide $1,000 vouchers that parents could use
toward paying for their children's educations at public,
private or parochial schools would include no more than 2
percent of the nation's schoolchildren.
-0-
Drugs
``This scourge will end,'' Bush said of the
nation's drug epidemic. B ut after nearly four years and a
doubling of federal spending to $12 billion, the end is not
in sight. Drug use among teen-agers and so-called casual
users has declined, but its incidence among addicts and in
inner-city neighborhoods has not abated.
The slow progress may have been the fault of a
misdirected drug war. A so-called Andean strategy that aimed
vast new resources at crackdowns in Peru, Bolivia and
Colombia has shown little success; the amount of cocaine
reaching the United States appears mostly unchanged.
novine.112.bale.,
GENEVA, Oct 18, Reuter - After seven months of fighting,
Bosnia-Herzegovina's Moslems, Serbs and Croats appear as far
apart as ever on the shape of a state where they could live
together again.
The three main communities in the former Yugoslav
republic have made clear to international mediators working
in Geneva that they have widely differing views on how they
could share power from foreign affairs down to customs duties.
In presentations to the mediators of their views, the
Moslem-led Bosnian government argues for a single if
decentralised state, the rebel Serbs insist on a
confederation and the Croats argue for a federation.
The presentations, in copies obtained by Reuters this
weekend, show the government insisting that the high degree
of intermingling before the conflict erupted in April meant a
split on ethnic lines would be economic nonsense.
The Serbs have told mediator Martti Ahtisaari, according
to the documents, that they want three clearly identified
ethnic states each with their own central bank, police force
and army or National Guard.
Between these two positions, Croat leader Mate Boban says
the country should be "a democratic and federal state of
constituent and sovereign nations" where the three national
groups are organised in their own "units."
The presentations were made in response to a
questionnaire from Ahtisaari, an experienced Finnish diplomat
and United Nations negotiator who heads a working group on
Bosnia set up by the Geneva conference on the old Yugoslavia.
The conference co-chairmen, former U.S. secretary of
state Cyrus Vance and ex-British foreign secretary Lord Owen,
say that despite the continued ferocity of the conflict,
progress is being made in discussions on a future constitution.
But the presentations suggest there has been little
change of position since European Community-brokered talks in
February and March this year failed to prevent war between
the Serbs and the loosely allied Moslems and Croats.
Then the idea of "cantonisation" along the Swiss model
was pursued but the Serbs -- just under 30 per cent of the
population -- also demanded near total autonomy in their own
region covering two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In a referendum on March 3, boycotted by most Serbs, the
Moslems and Croats voted almost unanimously for independence
from the rump Yugoslavia -- already reduced to only Serbia
and Montenegro -- and it was immediately proclaimed.
An EC plan for constitutional settlement, which in
outline resembled that now offered by the Croats who
represent 18 per cent of the country's people, was rejected
by Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as too centralist.
Despite apparent initial agreement, Bosnia's
parliamentary president Alija Izetbegovic rejected division
into ethnic cantons on grounds almost identical to those
which he and his colleagues still defend.
He feared the Moslems, concentrated by history in small
pockets of territory and many major towns but spread thinly
across the countryside, would be left with an unviable mini-
state under constant threat from its larger neighbours.
Although he retains the backing of some urban Serbs who
reject the fierce nationalism of Karadzic, he is accused by
the Bosnian Serb leaders of aiming to create an Islamic state
where Moslems would dominate the rest.
But in his government's presentation to Ahtisaari, he
argues for a "democratic, secular and decentralised state"
based on equal rights "for Croats, Moslems, Serbs and all
other citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
Decentralisation, the presentation argues, should be
based on geographic and economic criteria as well as national
and cultural grounds, and be around "natural centres" in the
larger towns and cities.
These "constituent units-regions," the document
declared, "do not have the character of a state." The Serbs,
who have proclaimed their own republic and through "ethnic
cleansing" have removed many Moslems and Croats, insist that
they should.
"Naturally," their document says, the constituent units
"are sovereign states with all the consquences known in
internal and international law" joining a future
Confederation of Bosnia- Herzegovina "of their own free will."
novine.113.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 19, 1992
SARAJEVO, B-H - Heavy fighting was reported in the Bosnian capital Sun-
day with all parts of the city coming under artillery, tank, mortar, and
sniper fire. The main grain mill was hit and destroyed after taking
three direct hits. Directors of the main bakery estimated that the sup-
ply of bread would run out in less than two days and no more bread can
be made. At least 17 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in
the bombardment. The commander of the Bosnian Army said the renewed
shelling was the result of a dipute between the Serbian and Muslim sides
over a body exchange. A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping forces, Mik
Magnusson, said the overland routes were desperately needed in oreder to
supply the city and prepare it for the upcoming winter. Relief aid from
the air is not enough. Building and construction materials are needed,
he said, to put roofs on houses and some kind of protection where glass
windows used to be. He added that the city is freezing, damp and miser-
able, as well as starving. One of Bosnia's most popular guerrilla
leaders, Juka, was arrested yesterday in Sarajevo. According to Bosnian
government sources, he was arrested on Igman mountain for allegedly try-
ing to seize control of military operations. There was an attempt by
his forces in Sarajevo to try and relay a message on Sarajevo TV, which
was denied to them. The Bosnian Vice-President, Ejup Ganic, said mili-
tias in Sarajevo are resisting attempts by the government to unify the
army.
GRADACAC, B-H - Serbian infantry units have continued to try and advance
through defense lines in the outlying villages and towns. Heavy fight-
ing was reported Sunday with continued shelling. The situation is said
to be dramatic, with shells falling near the chlorine tanks that have
been placed along the front lines in an attempt to stop the shelling.
Serbian 120 and 125 millimeter artilley units have kept up a continuous
bombardment of the town throughout the day today, targeting civilian
houses in town. Chlorine barrels have reportedly been placed in Tuzla
and the Bosanska Posavina region in addition to those already in place
around Gradacac. The announcement came from the Bosnian high command in
Tuzla on Sunday. The command added if Serbian attacks on the sector did
not cease, they would open the cannisters and release the gas.
MAGLAJ, B-H - Heavy fighting continued in the northern Bosnian town over
the weekend. Serbian forces shelled the road between Maglaj and Jepce
Saturday night while infantry battles continued into Sunday. Shells
also landed in the town itself while the defense lines were reported to
be under heavy fire. Serbian forces are said to be reinforcing their
positions thorough the area.
MOSTAR, B-H - The front lines around Bijelo Polje were under attack from
Serbian forces and the bridge at the hydroelectric station was also
reported to be under attack throughout the day, yesterday. Bosnian
President Alija izetbegovic, was in Mostar yesterday to discuss joint
military command with the Croatian Defense Council forces.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - A meeting between the three parties of the con-
flict in former Yugoslavia will take place in Geneva today. The talks
will be held under the joint chairmanship of Cyrus Vance, from the UN,
and Lord Owen, from the EC. They will consider new proposals on the
future of Bosnia, including plans that envisage a decentralized state
split up into ten regionsall with a high degree of autonomy. Included
in the proposals are plans for a new costitution for a divided republic
of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnian Foreign Minister, Haris Silajdzic,
said his republics government was prepared to make a major concession to
the Serb forces who have effective military control over much of
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Silajdzic said the plans were being considered to
split the republic into as many as 10 regions, each with a high degree
of autonomy but the divisions would not be along ethnic lines.
novine.114.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 201, October 19, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
TAJIK MILITANTS TAKE RUSSIAN HOSTAGES. Supporters of the Islamic
Renaissance Party blockaded a Dushanbe school for an hour and a
half on 15 October in an attempt to force a Russian division
stationed in Tajikistan to repossess tanks and armored transports
the militants believe were given by the Russians to forces
fighting the Tajik government in the southern part of the country,
ITAR-TASS, quoting the Russian Defense Ministry, reported on 17
October. The school is attended by Russian children as well as
other nationalities. Western press agencies reported on 16 October
that the militants subsequently took a group of Russians hostage
near the school. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
IRAN OFFERS TO MEDIATE IN TAJIK CIVIL WAR. Iran has again offered
to mediate between opposing sides in the continuing conflict in
Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS reported on 17 October, quoting the official
Iranian news agency IRNA. The offer was made by Iran's ambassador
to Tajikistan, Ali Ashraf Mojtahed Shabestari, at a cultural
symposium in Dushanbe. While the Iranian offer might be welcomed
by some elements of the former opposition coalition, it is
unlikely to be viewed favorably by forces opposed to the Tajik
government, who reject any meddling by an Islamic state such as
Iran. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
GEORGIA CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN FORCES FROM ABKHAZIA.
Addressing the final session of Georgia's state council on 16
October, Georgian parliament speaker-elect Eduard Shevardnadze
stated that if the next round of Georgian-Russian negotiations on
a settlement of the Abkhaz conflict fails, Georgia will be
compelled to use military force to recover the territory occupied
by Abkhaz forces, ITAR-TASS reported. A Georgian government
statement issued on 17 October called on the Russian military
command to withdraw its forces from the conflict zone. A CSCE
fact-finding delegation held talks with Shevardnadze on 17 October
and with Georgian officials in Sukhumi on 18 October, Interfax
reported. Pope John Paul II appealed on 18 October for peace in
Georgia, which he termed "a country of long-established and
important Christian tradition." (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN FOR POSTPONEMENT OF CONGRESS. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin has asked the parliament to postpone the Seventh Congress
of People's Deputies, ITAR-TASS reported on 16 October. Yeltsin
argued that if the Congress was held in March and not, as
scheduled, in early December, it could adopt the new Constitution
which is not yet completed. He said that if convened now, the
Congress would only lead to a political struggle. The leaders of
the Republics of the Russian Federation issued a joint statement
also asking parliament to postpone the date of the Congress.
Yeltsin also accused the so-called "National Salvation Front" of
attempts to set up power structures parallel to those in his
administration, and he criticized the parliament for tolerating
these activities. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHERNOBYL BLOCK SWITCHED ON. The third block of the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor was switched on again on 16 October, an RFE/RL
correspondent and Ukrinform-TASS reported. Trial operations were
scheduled to be run for two days, after which the block was to
operate at full capacity. The second block is to be restarted at
the end of October. A spokesman for the Ukrainian parliamentary
commission on Chernobyl rejected the warnings of Western
specialists on the potential danger of restarting the Chernobyl
reactor. Several authoritative Ukrainian spokesmen have reiterated
that the Chernobyl reactor will be closed permanently starting in
1993, but that Ukraine will continue to need nuclear power. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW RUSSIAN TV COMPANY ESTABLISHED. Following a recommendation by
the Russian Ministry for Press and Information, President Yeltsin
has issued a decree establishing a new TV company, the Federal TV
and Broadcasting Agency (FTS-TV Rossiya), ITAR-TASS reported on 17
October. FTS-TV Rossiya will broadcast on the fifth channel, which
has been used previously by St. Petersburg TV and RIA-TV. The
boards of both TV companies have been incorporated into FTS-TV
Rossiya. St. Petersburg TV will thus cease to exist as a separate
body. The prominent St. Petersburg TV moderator, Bella Kurkova,
has been appointed head of the new TV agency. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA TAXES IMPORTED VODKA. Russia has imposed a 100% tariff on
imports of alcohol in an effort to protect domestic vodka
producers, Interfax reported on 16 October. The tariff had been
set at 15% in early 1992, and was raised to 30% in August. Sales
of domestically produced vodka have plummeted. Many Russians
appear to prefer the imported brands, which are more expensive,
because they are thought to be superior in quality. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS DETAIL GREENPEACE TERRITORIAL VIOLATIONS. Russian Foreign
Ministry press spokesman Sergei Yastrzembski charged that the
Greenpeace ship Solo, seized by Russian naval forces on 12 October
off the Arctic nuclear testing ground on Novaya Zemlya, had
deliberately violated Russian territorial waters. In remarks
carried by Interfax on 16 October, he reported that water and soil
samples had been discovered aboard the ship. He claimed that this
proved that the crew had been engaged in research in violation of
international law, since they had no permission for such work. The
Solo arrived in Tyuva Guba, a military port near Murmansk, early
on the morning of 18 October. Consular officials from six Western
countries were taken to the site but not allowed aboard. Western
agencies reported that, ironically, the Solo ended up towing its
captor into port after the Russian ship broke down. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV PESSIMISTIC OVER KURILS. In an interview published on
17 October by the Japanese Kyodo news service, CIS
commander-in-chief Evgenii Shaposhnikov hinted that Russia could
reconsider its earlier pledge to withdraw all its troops from the
four southern Kuril islands claimed by Japan. He was quoted as
saying that a Russian unilateral withdrawal was "meaningless," and
that it would be necessary to beef up the border guards in the
area if the islands were demilitarized. Shaposhnikov suggested
that the way could be opened for a settlement of the island issue
if Japan were to provide more economic assistance to Russia, and
if "politicians in the new [Russian] generation" understood that
Japan was not an enemy. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS STUDYING IDEA OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE IN KURILS. An AFP
report on 16 October cites a statement by Russian presidential
adviser Sergei Stankevich that President Yeltsin is awaiting a
report by experts before signing a decree transforming the Kuril
Islands into a special economic zone. The plan was first announced
in Hong Kong on 15 October by Valentin Fedorov, the Governor of
Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Fedorov said that the zone would
afford tax breaks and other incentives to foreign investors. (Hal
Kosiba, RFE/RL Inc.)
GAPS IN CIS AIR DEFENSE SHIELD. Kommersant reported on 16 October
that the CIS high command is concerned over the ongoing
disintegration of the former Soviet air defense system,
particularly as a result of developments in Central Asia and the
Caucasus. According to the report, an exodus of military
specialists and funding shortfalls have forced the closing of
radar stations along the Tajik-Afghan border. At the same time,
plans to disband in April of 1993 the 19th Air Defense Army,
stationed in the Caucasus, are likely to create a gap there that
would further impair the functioning of the formerly integrated
air defense system. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN POLICE SEIZE ENRICHED URANIUM. According to a Reuters
report of 16 October, German police seized 2.2 kilograms of
allegedly highly enriched uranium in Munich on 13 October. The
material was apparently smuggled in from Russia, and a German
police union leader called for Russia to help prevent attempts to
smuggle radioactive materials. Reports were unclear on the extent
of enrichment: Reuters claimed that uranium-234, 235, and 238 were
seized. Only the uranium-235, if sufficiently pure, would be of
use in making an atomic bomb. Previous seizures of "highly
enriched uranium" have involved uranium enriched to only 3-3.5%
uranium-235 for nuclear reactor fuel, rather than the much higher
90-100% enrichment required for producing atomic bombs. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN AND GATES MEET. During a three day visit in Moscow, CIA
Director Robert Gates met with President Yeltsin, Evgenii
Primakov, the director of the Russian foreign intelligence
service, and Viktor Barannikov, the minister of state security,
ITAR-TASS and Western agencies reported on 17 October. Yeltsin
told Gates that the Russian and American intelligence services
could cooperate in the fight against drug smuggling, the
proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He
added, however, that Russia could not give away all of its
secrets, including information about Russia's former KGB network
in the West. Yeltsin also provided Gates copies of the
declassified KGB documents concerning the shooting down of a South
Korean passenger airliner in 1983. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.).
CIA CHIEF TELLS YELTSIN ABOUT LOST SOVIET SUBMARINE. ITAR-TASS
reported that during his meetings with President Yeltsin and
high-ranking Russian intelligence officials, Robert Gates gave
Yeltsin details of the CIA's 1974 attempt to recover a Soviet
Golf-2 class submarine, which sank in the northern Pacific in
March 1968. Using the research ship Glomar Explorer, the CIA
secretly raised a part of the sub from the ocean floor. The
remains of six crewmen were recovered. Gates explained that the
six were buried at sea in a ceremony that included the playing of
the Soviet anthem. He gave Yeltsin the Soviet flag that had draped
the remains during the funeral. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
CABINET CHANGES IN UKRAINE. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk
issued three decrees affecting the composition of the Ukrainian
government, DR-Press reported on 17 October. Anatolii Lobov has
been appointed minister of the cabinet of ministers, replacing
Volodymyr Pyekhota, a longtime Communist Party functionary. Yurii
Shcherbak, who will serve as Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, was
relieved of his post as environmental minister. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET UPDATE. The commander of the Ukrainian Navy, Rear
Admiral Boris Kozhin, told the newspaper Krymskie izvestiya that
he believes the existing infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet
should belong to Ukraine. According to a 16 October Interfax
summary of the interview, Kozhin also suggested that expert groups
from Russia and Ukraine were completing a new agreement that would
deal with the interim joint command of the fleet and the phased
creation of independent Russian and Ukrainian navies. (Stephen
Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN ARMS DEALS. Ukraine and India concluded a barter deal on
17 October in which Kiev agreed to supply weapons and spare parts
to New Delhi in exchange for Indian goods, including medicine and
cloth, Reuters reported. India also agreed to pay partly in hard
currency. The talks had appeared deadlocked on 16 September when
the Ukrainian Minister of Machine-Building, the
Military-Industrial Complex, and Conversion, Viktor Antonov,
apparently insisted on dollar payments. Meanwhile, on 17 October
the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied a
report published by Komsomolskaya pravda that a deal is in the
works whereby Kiev would sell the aircraft-carrying cruiser Varyag
to France in exchange for several French-made submarines. The
denial was reported by Interfax. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS: GENERALS DISMISSED; OTHER DEVELOPMENTS. Prime Minister
Vyacheslav Kebich has dismissed two Lt. Generals for "abuse of
power" and "failure to manage military property," Interfax
reported on 16 October. Three deputy defense ministers were
reportedly also severely reprimanded and several top posts were
eliminated. The corruption charges were first raised on 11
September. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Pavel Kozlovsky called upon
parliament to increase the military budget, according to the same
report. He said that the armed forces were having difficulties
holding on to their best pilots and other specialists. He also
said that the high command would not tolerate "any political
organizations in the army." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
KYRGYZ CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION COMPLETES WORK. A commission
drafting a new constitution for Kyrgyzstan has completed its work,
Interfax reported on 16 October. The group's chairman was quoted
as saying that a statement that Kyrgyzstan is in the process of a
spiritual rebirth oriented toward Islamic values has been deleted
from the preamble to the draft constitution. The draft permits
only the state to own water and natural resources. According to
Interfax, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev told the last session of
the commission that he opposes creation of a constitutional court,
because the Russian experience shows it can be misused to stage
political trials. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPE
MAZOWIECKI TALKS ABOUT RIGHTS ABUSES IN KOSOVO. UN human rights
envoy and former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki on 18
October warned that the human rights of Kosovo's Albanian majority
which constitutes over 90% of the population were being
"systematically violated" by Serbian authorities. He called for
the establishment of a "joint Albanian-Serbian group under
international auspices," and recommended one of his assistants to
head the project, the BBC said on 19 October. The Albanians agreed
to his suggestion, but local Serbian officials said they had no
authority to accept. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International media reported on 18 October that
Bosnian officers had agreed to remove a roadblock on the main
highway into Sarajevo to allow the UN to resume overland relief
convoys after several days' break. The BBC said on 17 October that
the Bosnians had claimed they were trying to prevent Serbian tanks
from using the road. Its correspondent suggested, however, that
they were simply trying to be difficult since they wanted arms,
not aid. Austrian and German TV said on 17 and 18 October,
respectively, that there were unconfirmed rumors in Sarajevo of a
coup against President Alija Izetbegovic. The putsch was allegedly
staged by Vice President Ejup Ganic and several ministers
reportedly regarded as hard-liners. On 18 October international
media reported increased shelling in Sarajevo, while Croatian
Radio said that Serbs had also intensified their attacks on Bihac
and Maglaj. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS UN EMBARGO VIOLATED. Ion Ratiu,
vice president of the opposition National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic, said in Washington Romania was violating the UN
sanctions imposed on trade with former Yugoslavia, Reuters
reported on 17 October. Ratiu said the government was helping
Serbia and that violations included traffic on the Danube river
and sharing of electricity. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM REJECTS CRUCIAL SPENDING CUT. By a slim margin of three
votes, the Polish Sejm voted on 17 October to accept the
government's economic program for 1993 which favors investment
over consumption. The Sejm voted down a motion to reject proposed
revisions to the 1992 budget; these will raise the deficit ceiling
by 16 trillion zloty ($1.1 billion, RFE/RL Inc.), cut spending by
3.5%, and impose new taxes. The Sejm refused, however, to consider
a related government proposal to reduce cost-of-living increases
in pensions from 30% to 18%. The vote on the pensions issue was
the government's first parliamentary defeat and drives home the
need to broaden the ruling coalition. The Sejm's decision forces
the government to choose between a further increase in the budget
deficit, risking the IMF's displeasure, or additional unpopular
cuts in social services. Finance Minister Jerzy Osiatynski said
the failure to limit pension increases required the government to
find new spending cuts of up to 23 trillion zloty ($1.6 billion).
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITTLE CONSTITUTION CLEARS POLISH PARLIAMENT. The Sejm voted on 16
October to reject most of the Senate's proposed changes to the
"little constitution," which is designed to clarify the balance of
power in the executive branch. In normal circumstances, only the
president's signature would now be needed to make the bill law.
But, before voting, the Sejm changed its own rules of procedure to
require a two-thirds majority to accept the Senate's revisions
rather than a two-thirds majority to overrule them, as had been
the case up until now. A group of 52 deputies has asked the
Constitutional Tribunal for a ruling on the legality of this
procedural change. President Lech Walesa, who has charged that the
little constitution unduly limits the powers of the presidency,
announced he would postpone any decision until the Constitutional
Tribunal rules on the case. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
FIAT TAKES OVER POLISH AUTO PLANT. Representatives of Fiat and the
Polish finance ministry signed "opening date" agreements on 17
October (backdated to 16 October) granting the Italian auto maker
90% ownership of the FSM firm. FSM is already producing compact
Cinquecento cars. Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka attended the
ceremony. The agreement makes possible the wage increases that
were delayed by the summer strike at the FSM plant in Tychy. The
Fiat deal, with a total value of $2 billion, is the largest
Western investment in Poland so far. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM ON KATYN. On 17 October the Sejm adopted a resolution
welcoming President Yeltsin's release of documents showing that
the CPSU Politburo had ordered the execution of 21,000 Polish
prisoners of war in 1940. "Although the Polish nation always knew
the criminals' true names," the statement said, "the release of
the documents creates a new moral situation in Polish-Russian
relations. The whole truth must be revealed, the crimes punished,
and justice done." The statement expressed confidence that
legality and truth would enable Poland and Russia to overcome the
burden of the past in building the future. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL
Inc.)
NEW ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT CONVENES. The new Romanian parliament,
elected on 27 September, convened in Bucharest on 16 October,
Rompres and Radio Bucharest reported on the same day. The parties
represented in the new legislature's two chambers set up new
parliamentary groups. The Socialist Labor Party, heir to the
Communist Party, and the extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party
(GRP) set up a joint group in the Senate, named "the national
bloc" (partida nationala). It will be headed by Adraian Paunescu,
a former "court poet" under Ceausescu. At a press conference in
Bucharest Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a new senator and the GRP leader,
said the next prime minister must be an "authentic Romanian" (an
allusion to former prime minister Petre Roman's Jewish origins)
and should not be a "personality of the diaspora" (an allusion to
rumors that Iliescu might nominate former dissident Mihai Botez as
premier). (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.).
KING MICHAEL AND THE ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT. Festivities were held in
Alba Iulia on 17 October to commemorate the seventieth anniversary
of the inauguration of the town's cathedral and the coronation of
King Ferdinand as sovereign of Greater Romania. Radio Bucharest
broadcast on the same day a message from exiled King Michael and
the response of the government. The king said that he had been
hindered from attending the ceremonies by those who in the past
had "backed a regime that brought misfortune" and who were now
inventing new pretexts and going back on earlier promises. In
reply, the government's spokeswoman said no pretexts or new
conditions had been raised for the king's visit. The prolonged
electoral process, the convening of the new parliament and the
investiture of the president had made it impossible to issue in
time a visa for the king to attend the celebrations. There would
be "other occasions" for a visit by the royal family, the
spokeswoman said. (Michael Shafir)
DUBCEK REELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SLOVAK SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Alexander Dubcek, the former First Secretary of the Czechoslovak
Communist Party and symbol of the "Prague Spring," was reelected
chairman of the Slovak Social Democratic Party (SSDP) on 17
October. Dubcek joined the SSDP shortly before this year's June
elections but failed to lead it to an election victory. The SSDP
is represented in only one chamber of the federal parliament, and
has no representation in the Slovak National Assembly. Meanwhile,
Dubcek's condition remains critical after several operations
following a car crash on 1 September in which he suffered chest
and spinal injuries. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN DEPUTY REPRIMANDED. Jozsef Debreczeni, a liberal deputy
of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum was reprimanded by his
party's ethics committee for publishing an article in the
socialist daily Nepszabadsag criticizing a controversial essay by
Istvan Csurka, one of the vice presidents of the Forum, MTI
reported on 16 October. Debreczeni wrote that the essay, which had
anti-Semitic overtones, was the basis of Nazi ideology. The ethics
committee called attention to its earlier decision that debates
among party members should be published in periodicals close to
the forum. Debreczeni said that he was not familiar with this
decision. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS MEET. The presidium of the Hungarian
Christian Democratic Peoples' Party (HCDP) met on 17 October to
discuss the political situation in the country. Party chairman
Laszlo Surjan said that a common ideology was not enough to share
in the responsibility of governing and that the HCDP was an open
party ready to cooperate with any other political force that
showed good will and even make ideological concessions to make a
coalition work. Surjan's statements, made it clear, however, that
he was not thinking about leaving the coalition before the next
national elections in 1994. The meeting adopted a resolution
stressing that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed
after the 1956 revolution were not subject to the statute of
limitations. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
ENERGY PRICE INCREASES IN LITHUANIA. On 17 October Lithuanian
Prime Minister Aleksandras Abisala said on national television
that due to the higher costs of oil and natural gas from Russia
energy prices in Lithuania would be increased, Baltfax reported on
18 October. Households will have to pay 5.4 coupons (the temporary
currency in the republic) for a kilowatt of electricity. The
monthly charge for hot water will be 139.5 coupons, for natural
gas--196 coupons, and for heating--12.6 coupons per square meter.
Hot water would be supplied to apartments for no more than 6 to 8
hours a day and apartments would be heated only to 15 degrees
Centigrade. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
SWEDISH KING CONCLUDES VISIT TO LITHUANIA. On 17 October Swedish
King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Sylvia completed an official
three-day visit to Lithuania during which they held talks with
Lithuanian officials and visited Vilnius, Trakai, and Kaunas,
Radio Lithuania reported. On 16 October Swedish Foreign Minister
Margaretha af Ugglas and Lithuanian counterpart Algirdas Saudargas
signed a treaty on free trade and protection of investments. At a
press conference she noted Sweden's concern about the safety of
the Ignalina plant and promised 40 million krona to help insure
its safety. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
IGNALINA LEAK AFFECTS LATVIA. Radio Riga reported on 15 October
increased levels of radioactivity in various parts of Latvia
following the leaks at the Ignalina nuclear power station in
Lithuania. At Daugavpils, Zilani and Dagda the monitoring stations
had noted readings of 14, 13, and 12 microroentgens per hour
earlier in the day. On 17 October Lithuanian officials inspecting
the second reactor at the Ignalina plant that had been shut down
on 15 October discovered a crack a centimeter long in a pipe in
the main cooling circuit of the reactor, Western agencies
reported. Another crack was found in a pipe in the emergency
cooling system. The repairs of the reactor will not be completed
by 21 October as previously thought, but by 23 October at the
earliest. (Dzintra Bungs and Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS IN SOFIA OUTLINE STRATEGIES. At a conference
on the ecological problems of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, organized by the Washington-based Center for Democracy, the
Howard Gilman Foundation, and under the patronage of Bulgarian
President Zhelyu Zhelev, environment ministers representing some
twenty countries adopted a joint declaration outlining chief
strategies in fighting pollution. BTA reported on 16 October that
the Sofia conference had found that many countries had little
knowledge about the environmental problems of their neighbors. It
had been suggested that a network for conveying such information
be created. A larger conference involving all the environment
ministers of the region is scheduled for early 1993 in Florida.
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK OFFICIALS TO DISCUSS GABCIKOVO IN BRUSSELS. A Slovak
government delegation is scheduled to discuss the controversial
Gabciko-Nagymaros hydroelectric project with EC officials on 19
October, CSTK reported. A spokesman for the Slovak Environment
Ministry was quoted as saying that the Slovak delegation would
present its position on the environmental, technical, and legal
issues involved in the project. The Chairman of the Slovak
parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Ivan Laluha, said on 18
October that the Slovak side was willing to continue talks with
the Hungarian government, but made it clear at the same time that
Slovakia would commence diversion of the Danube on 20 October.
Hungarian officials have argued that the diversion of the Danube
would change the border between the two countries and was thus
illegal. Meanwhile, more than a thousand people rallied in front
of Hungary's parliament on 18 October to show their opposition to
the Slovak plans. On the same day, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry
formally protested to Slovakia, saying that the "unilateral
opening of Gabcikovo breached EC recommendations." (Jan Obrman,
RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS TO START ON 23 OCTOBER? Latvian-Russian
talks on troop withdrawal have once again been postponed. At the
request of the Russian side, they are now scheduled to start on 23
October in Moscow. Radio Riga also reported on 17 October that a
group of Russian parliamentarians, after completing their
fact-finding visit to Latvia, told the press that they had found
that the human rights of Russian troops in Latvia were not being
violated--a claim that had been made by groups wishing to restore
Soviet power in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN EMBASSY IN RIGA REOPENS AFTER WATER SUPPLY RESTORED. On 16
October German Ambassador Hagen von Lambsdorf told the press in
Riga that he had authorized the closing of his country's consular
and diplomatic offices because the building had been without water
since 12 October and the Riga city authorities had still not
resolved the problem. Radio Riga announced on 18 October that the
water supply had been restored during the weekend, and the German
diplomatic and consular offices on Basteja Boulevard would reopen
on 19 October. The problem may stem from Riga's antiquated water
supply system. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.115.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 202, October 20, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
MINISTERS WARN OF COUP. State Secretary Gennadii Burbulis,
information minister Mikhail Poltoranin, foreign minister Andrei
Kozyrev, and deputy prime minister Anatolii Chubais warned at a
press conference that conservatives in the parliament are plotting
against Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his reform policy, The
Guardian reported on 19 October. Poltoranin stated that the "coup"
is being prepared under the direction of parliamentary speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov. He accused conservatives of attempting to
replace the present judges of the Constitutional Court to make
that institution more obedient to right-wing forces. Burbulis
claimed that the government has lost control over the police and
prosecutors' offices in many regions to the right-wing opposition.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOBETS: MILITARY WOULD PREVENT COUP. General Konstantin Kobets,
recently appointed as the chief military inspector of the Russian
armed forces, told Interfax on 19 October that "the army will not
allow an overthrow of the president." He claimed that the
situation in the military was "stable enough, but its officer
corps well understands the changes taking place in the country and
is committed to the President and the government." Kobets, a
former deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, played a
prominent role in foiling the August coup attempt. Subsequently,
he became a military advisor to Yeltsin. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL
Inc.)
YELTSIN SIGNS NUCLEAR TEST MORATORIUM DECREE. President Yeltsin on
19 October signed a decree prolonging until July 1, 1993 the
Russian moratorium on nuclear weapons tests. ITAR-TASS reported
that the decision had been taken in connection with the recent
suspension of similar tests by France and the United States.
Yeltsin appealed to the other two declared nuclear powers, Great
Britain and China, to join the moratorium as soon as possible. At
the same time, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said that
the moratorium could be extended throughout 1993 if the United
States would agree to follow suit. However, he told the visiting
New Zealand minister of defense that "a moratorium cannot be
unilateral permanently. If we do not reach accord, Russia, most
evidently, will resume nuclear tests in the middle of 1993." (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA DENIES REPORT ON CHINA DEAL. Russian officials on 19
October denied a report published in The New York Times one day
earlier--quoting US officials--that accused Moscow of fueling an
arms race in Asia by selling advanced weapons systems to the
China. The US charges focused on alleged sales to China of
technology for enriching uranium, as well as missile-guidance
technology, rocket engines and rocket technology. A Russian
spokesman for "Oboroneksport," which oversees such transactions,
said that Russia had violated neither the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty nor other arms control agreements, and
that Russia was operating strictly "within the framework of United
Nations agreements." The story was reported by Western agencies.
(Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHINA SAID TO HAVE BACKED OUT OF FIGHTER DEAL. Quoting "competent
sources," Interfax on 19 October reported that China had annulled
an agreement to buy 10 Su-27 "Flanker" combat aircraft from the
Gagarin plant in Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur. The sale was first
reported by the same agency on 3 August, and seemed to have been
confirmed by Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev during the
visit to Moscow in late August by the Chinese minister of defense.
The latest report said factory officials suspected that China
intended to buy Western aircraft with more advanced electronics.
They said that the Gagarin factory--which had the capacity to
build 10 Su-27s each month--at present had only two of the
fighter-bombers under construction. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV, KOBETS ON BALTIC PULL-OUT. Russian Defense Minister Pavel
Grachev said on 19 October that adverse conditions for Russian
military forces in the Baltic States dictate an early withdrawal
from the region, ITAR-TASS reported. Grachev pointed to training
difficulties and to the prohibition against sending new conscripts
to the Baltic states, saying that soon there would be only
officers serving there. He said that the troops should be
withdrawn "without delay" and suggested that military housing
shortages in Russia should not be a factor. Grachev nevertheless
appeared to hedge on the precise timetable of the withdrawal,
saying it should commence "right after the pull-out from Eastern
Europe in 1994," a qualification that will probably not please
Baltic leaders. On the same day, Interfax quoted Army General
Konstantin Kobets, the Russian Army's Chief Military Inspector, as
saying that Russian terms for withdrawing from the Baltic were
"completely reasonable," that "everything there is going according
to schedule," and that there is "no special animosity in the
process." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN GAS DELIVERIES CURTAILED. The supply of Russian natural
gas to Germany and France was roughly halved last week, The Wall
Street Journal reported on 19 October. The shortfall was
attributed to the pumping of gas by Ukraine from transit
pipelines, resulting in lower pressure, as a consequence of a
disagreement between Russia and Ukraine over transit fees. The
transport director for the Ukrainian gas utility, Urgasprom, was
quoted by Reuters as saying that Ukraine has a right to take its
share of Russian gas in the case of any shortfall. Deliveries of
gas to Western Europe are reported to be slowly returning to the
normal level. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GAIDAR VISITS YAKUTIA AND MAGADAN. Russian Prime Minister Gaidar
was on tour of the natural resource rich regions of Yakutia and
Magadan on 16 and 17 October. In Yakutia, the President of the
autonomous republic, Mikhail Nikolaev, and Gaidar signed a
document creating a Russian-Yakut joint-stock company for mining,
processing and marketing diamonds in the region. The two also
discussed issues related to the decentralization of political and
economic power within the Russian Federation, Interfax reported.
In Magadan, Gaidar discussed the economic development of the Far
East with oblast officials, and approved of their plans for
attracting foreign companies to extract minerals in the territory,
"Novosti" reported on 18 October. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHERNOBYL DEVELOPMENTS. The head of environmental policy at the
European Commission and the German environment minister have
expressed concern over the restarting of the third block of the
Chernobyl nuclear reactor on 16 October, Western agencies
reported. Meanwhile, a report by the State Commission of
Ecological Experts on the impact of the 1986 explosion at
Chernobyl on the Russian environment was scheduled to be presented
to President Yeltsin on 19 October. One of its authors told an
RFE/RL correspondent in Moscow that the study puts the cost of
cleaning up the after-effects of Chernobyl within the Russian
Federation at 74 billion rubles by the year 2000. At current rates
of exchange, this works out at about $220 million. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
MINIMUM WAGE TO BE RAISED IN RUSSIA. ITAR-TASS reported on 19
October that the Russian Finance Ministry plans to raise the
minimum monthly wage from 900 to 2,250 rubles, starting in January
1993. The average monthly wage is currently approximately 5,500
rubles. Increases to student grants and to pensions are also
reported to be in the pipeline. According to Interfax, 19 October
1992, the head of the Social Security Department of the Labor
Ministry has claimed that one third of the Russian population are
currently living below the (unspecified) poverty line, and that
living costs are expected to double by the end of the year. A new
social security system is due to be introduced early next year.
While extra protection is obviously required to protect the
population from the effects of soaring prices and inflation,
increases in the minimum wage and benefits will add extra strain
to the budget deficit. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
TRADE UNIONS PLAN PROTEST ACTION. According to Interfax on 19
October, the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions is
planning protest rallies the 24 October to support its demands
that the minimum monthly wage be raised to 4000 rubles, that
prices for bread, potatoes and milk be frozen, and that incomes
and savings be indexed. The unions have also been demanding the
dismissal of the Gaidar government. The government has set up a
conciliatory commission led by the Minister of Labor, Gennadii
Melikyan. If current negotiations between the commission and the
unions fail to produce results, strike action may follow. November
23 has already been put forward as a tentative date for such
action. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA AND MONGOLIA TO KEEP MILITARY TIES. Following the signing
of an agreement on bilateral relations and cooperation in Moscow
on 19 October, the Russian and Mongolian Foreign Ministers said
that both sides would like to continue cooperating in the area of
defense and security, Interfax reported. The Mongolian Foreign
Minister said that the withdrawal of Russian troops from Mongolia
does not signify an end to military cooperation with Moscow, and
called for expanding these relations. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
YAROV PESSIMISTIC ON BLACK SEA FLEET TALKS. Yurii Yarov, head of
the Russian delegation negotiating with Ukraine on the Black Sea
Fleet, said on 19 October that the talks were proceeding with
difficulty, Interfax reported. He said that documents regulating
the fleet's activities during the 3-year "transitional period" had
not been completed by 1 October, as planned. He added that some
areas of common interest had been found in terms of naming a new
fleet command, that Russia insisted that as few new posts be
created as possible, and that the fleet would be manned equally by
Russian and Ukrainian citizens. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHANIBOV IN GUDAUTA TO MEET ABKHAZ LEADERS. Musa Shanibov,
president of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus,
arrived in Gudauta (in Abkhazia) on 19 October. He told Interfax
he had come to tell the Abkhaz leaders of the Confederation's
decisions as regards political and military aid to the Abkhaz.
Shanibov described the decisions as "radical" but refused further
comment on them. Shanibov said that the Caucasus was well aware
that its future would be decided in Abkhazia and was prepared, if
necessary, to fight to prevent its occupation. Shanibov had come
from a two-day session of the Confederation's parliament in
Groznyi. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF CONGRESS OF KABARDIAN PEOPLE. An
extraordinary session of the Congress of the Kabardian People
(CKP) was held on 17 October in response to statements by the
Kabardino-Balkar Supreme Soviet and the republican prosecutor that
the activity of the CKP's Executive Committee during the
continuous protest meeting from 24 September to 4 October was
unconstitutional, Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on 20 October.
Participants in the session rejected the charges, blaming recent
political events on the shortsightedness of the republic's top
leadership, which had refused a dialog with local political
movements. They also declared they would continue providing
assistance to the Abkhaz until the complete withdrawal of Georgian
troops from Abkhazia. A third, extraordinary Congress of the
Kabardian People is to be held in November where those delegates
"who showed cowardice at critical moments" will be replaced. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
TAJIKS DEFEND RECORD ON MINORITIES. Tajikistan's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs defended the record of the Tajik government in
providing help to refugees regardless of nationality, ITAR-TASS
reported on 19 October. The ministry was responding to an
expression of concern by its Russian counterpart, in which the
Russian Foreign Ministry had called attention to the rise in Tajik
nationalism and what it described as political pressure on the
non-Tajik population. The Tajik response rejected the charges. The
same day, acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov set up a Security
Council consisting of the leadership of Tajikistan's legislature
and the Cabinet of Ministers, and appointed filmmaker and
opposition leader Davlat Khudonazarov his chief presidential
advisor. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHECHENS ORDERED OUT OF UST-KAMENOGORSK. Reuters, quoting a CIS TV
broadcast, reported on 19 October that the Eastern Kazakhstan
Oblast Soviet in Ust-Kamenogorsk has ordered the deportation of
all Chechens from the oblast. The previous day Russian TV's
"Vesti" had reported that inhabitants of Ust-Kamenogorsk demanded
the deportation after a group of Chechens from Orenburg were
implicated in the murders of four Kazakhs in a city dormitory.
Participants in a spontaneous demonstration attempted to march on
a Chechen settlement, but were stopped by the militia. Reuters
quoted a report of the independent Kazreview news agency that
alcohol sales had been banned, and that the deportation decision
might be rescinded. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
ANOTHER ATTACK ON BIRLIK LEADER. Two armed men attacked Abdurahim
Pulatov, leader of the Uzbek opposition organization Birlik, on 19
October, Radio Rossii reported. The attack occurred in a Tashkent
subway station. Pulatov told an RL/RFE correspondent that this was
the third attempt on his life in six months. This time colleagues
overpowered the attackers, who were armed, and handed them over to
the militia. Earlier this year Pulatov was badly beaten and
suffered a fractured skull. Birlik supporters believe that the
attacks have been carried out at the instigation of the Uzbek
government, which has cracked down on domestic opposition in the
wake of the unrest in Tajikistan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
POWER STRUGGLE IN BELGRADE. International media reported on 19
October that Serbian police had seized the interior ministry of
Serbia-Montenegro and all of its files. This appears to be the
latest chapter in a power struggle between Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic and the rump Yugoslav leadership headed by
President Dobrica Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic. Public
opinion appears to be increasingly behind Cosic and Panic, but
Milosevic can still count on the backing of the army and the
police. The files would be invaluable in any future trials of war
crimes, particularly those committed by Serbian forces in
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia- Herzegovina. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL
Inc.)
IZETBEGOVIC AND COSIC MOVE TOWARD PEACE IN BOSNIA? On 19 October
Cosic met under UN and EC sponsorship with Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic. International media reported that they agreed to stop
and reverse ethnic cleansing, demilitarize Sarajevo, "eliminate"
armed irregulars, and support bringing war criminals to justice.
These pledges reaffirm those made at the London Conference in late
August. The presidents enjoy considerable moral standing among
their respective peoples, but most of the real authority in
Bosnia-Herzegovina appears to be in the hands of local Serb and
Croat leaders, so it is doubtful whether the promises can be kept.
Izetbegovic confirmed to Vecernji list on 19 October that his
government favored a "decentralized, not a unitary state," a
position his people had also taken in London in an apparent
departure from their previous insistence on a centralized state.
They want, however, the autonomous regions based on geography
rather than on ethnic criteria, which the Serbs advocate. It
remains to be seen whether this is a bargaining ploy or a serious
bid for compromise. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CROATIAN PARLIAMENT MOVES AGAINST FAR-RIGHT PARTY. On 17 October
the Croatian Sabor voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of
Croatian Party of [Historic] Rights (HSP) leader Dobroslav Paraga
and two other HSP deputies. They are to face charges of terrorism
stemming from the activities of the HSP's paramilitary group the
Croatian Defense Force (HOS). Sabor President Stipe Mesic told
Novi Vjesnik on 18 October that it was the stormiest parliamentary
session in living memory and that justice would now take its
course, adding that no country would tolerate private armies like
HOS. Others note, however, that President Franjo Tudjman's
government seems to be anxious to silence its critics from any
point on the political spectrum and point to administrative
measures taken recently against the leading independent daily
Slobodna Dalmacija. HOS is popular in some of the war-torn parts
of Croatia where it is credited with putting up a better fight
than the Croatian military. Vecernji list on 18 October published
a poll showing that 73% of those interviewed favored banning
paramilitary groups but that two-thirds opposed banning the HSP.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT DENIES EMBARGO INFRINGED. In a communique
released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and broadcast by Radio
Bucharest on 19 October, the government denied the trade embargo
on former Yugoslavia was being infringed. It said that opposition
leader Ion Ratiu, who made the allegation in Washington, had never
before shown an interest in the problem and that his "sensational
declarations" were intended to generate international "suspicion
and mistrust" toward the government's policy. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.).
ILIESCU STARTS COALITION TALKS. President Ion Iliescu has begun
consultations with leaders of the political parties represented in
the new parliament for the purpose of designating the new premier,
Radio Bucharest reported on 19 October. He said he had no
"prejudices" and no "hard feelings" and that he hoped to set up a
government that would be "broadly accepted." The program of
economic reform and the legislation connected with it must be
completed, he added, in order to overcome the present crisis. At
the end of the talks, Iliescu said they had been positive but the
leader of the National Peasant Party Christian Democratic,
Corneliu Coposu, ruled out collaboration with the Democratic
National Salvation Front. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION LEADER DENIES DCR ABOUT TO SPLIT. Corneliu
Coposu, president of the National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic and interim president of the Democratic Convention of
Romania (DCR) denied the DCR was about to split. In an interview
with the daily Romania libera on 20 October, Coposu said none of
the eighteen parties and formations belonging to the DCR intended
to leave it. Such a step, he said, would be "suicidal" for any
formation deserting the convention. Arpress released an advance
summary of the interview on 19 October. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL
Inc.)
ROMANIAN PARTY TAKES "TURN TO LEFT." The Party of National Unity
of Romania (PRNU), the political arm of the anti-Hungarian
organization "Romanian Cradle," has taken what the independent
news agency Arpress termed on 19 October as a "turn to the Left."
At its extraordinary national convention held in Cluj on 18 and 19
October, the leadership of the party approved the election of
Gheorghe Funar, the PRNU candidate in the last presidential
election, as president of the formation. The decision confirms a 3
October move to replace former PRNU leader Radu Ceontea,
considered by observers as centrist on the economy and more
moderate on the national question. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA ON FOREIGN POLICY. Speaking on 18 October at the
inauguration of the academic year at the Catholic University of
Lublin, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka said that the priorities of
Polish foreign policy were European integration, association with
NATO, and regional cooperation. Although optimistic about Poland's
prospects of joining NATO, Suchocka said it would be naive to
think that "distant alliances" could provide a substitute for
secure relations with Poland's neighbors. She criticized the EC
for treating the "triangle" countries as potential rivals rather
than as partners; European integration would have to serve
Poland's economic interests. Suchocka also warned against
succumbing to the provincialism that Poland's past status as a
Soviet satellite had fostered. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOLIDARITY TO HELP BROADEN COALITION. Parliamentary caucus leader
Bogdan Borusewicz announced on 19 October that Solidarity's
deputies in the Sejm would undertake talks aimed at bringing the
Center Alliance into the government coalition. Solidarity deputies
brokered the original coalition agreement in July. Although the
seven-party coalition needs another partner to secure a
comfortable pro-capitalist majority, the Center Alliance may not
be an especially attractive candidate. Guided in part by personal
antagonism toward President Lech Walesa, Center Alliance leader
Jaroslaw Kaczynski has voiced shrill opposition to the current
government's policies. Disciplinary proceedings were begun on 19
October against four Center Alliance deputies who failed to vote
with the rest of the party against the government's proposed
revisions to the 1992 budget. The same four deputies had
previously advocated bargaining for a place in the coalition.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka fired three voivodship
heads on 19 October. Two of these were Center Alliance members who
had opposed the government's budget proposals during the Sejm
debate on 17 October. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
ECONOMIC UPTURN CONTINUES IN POLAND. Economic statistics released
on 19 October showed that September was the sixth consecutive
month in which Polish industrial production exceeded the previous
year's totals. Production in September 1992 was 13.1% higher than
in September 1991. Growth was recorded in all industrial branches,
with the exception of paper and food processing. Prices in
September rose 5.3% over August, the largest monthly jump in
inflation since January 1992. This was mainly due to huge food
price increases caused by the summer's drought. Real wages dropped
0.4% in September. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW ESTONIAN PM CONFIRMED. The parliament approved Mart Laar as
Estonia's new prime minister on 19 October, according to the local
media. Laar, who was named Prime Minister Designate two weeks ago
by President Lennart Meri, was formally confirmed after the
Riigikogu approved the coalition agreement signed by the three
parties forming the ruling majority. Laar has seven days to
formally name a cabinet. The Riigikogu must confirm a number of
the appointments, including the internal affairs, defense, foreign
affairs and economics ministers. Laar has already announced his
choice for five of the ministries: Marju Lauristin for social
welfare, Lagle Parek for internal affairs, Paul-Erik Rummo for
culture and education, Ain Saarman for economics and Kaido Kama
for justice. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIA'S RULING COALITION PROPOSES LIBERALIZATION ON CITIZENSHIP
LAW. In the coalition agreement approved on 19 October, the ruling
majority has called for liberalization of the citizenship law. The
agreement, signed by the parties Pro Patria, the Moderates, and
the ENIP, proposes a number of changes aimed at eliminating much
of the legal ambiguity that currently exists. It includes
provisions for dual citizenship and derivation of citizenship
through both male and female lines. It also calls on all CIS
republics to grant citizenship to those living in Estonia who wish
to take the citizenship of those states, and promises help for
those wishing to leave Estonia. In his statement to parliament
after the signing, Laar also said all non-Estonians who wanted to
stay should be integrated into Estonian society, BNS reported.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN LATVIA PROCESSES CITIZENSHIP APPLICATIONS. BNS
reported on 17 October that the Russian embassy in Riga had
started to process applications for Russian citizenship from
residents of Latvia. Some 300 applicants had already submitted
forms which include a statement that the applicant has not already
requested Latvian citizenship. Russians comprise 34% of Latvia's
population of about 2.6 million. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN GYPSIES SET UP NATIONAL LOBBY ORGANIZATION. At a meeting
in Sofia on 17 and 18 October Bulgarian gypsies set up a national
organization, the United Roma Federation (URF). Vasil Chaprasov, a
teacher from the city of Sliven who was elected chairman, told a
Western agency the organization was independent and politically
unaffiliated. According to Trud of 19 October, the URF adopted a
declaration calling on the government to ensure Roma influence in
local politics. It demanded the resignation of Culture Minister
Elka Konstantinova who recently branded gypsies as "uncivilized."
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARTS OF THE DANUBE TO BE DIVERTED TODAY. A 30-kilometer leg of
the Danube is scheduled to be diverted by Slovak engineers today
as part of the controversial Gabcikovo hydroelectric project.
Although Hungarian news agency MTI reported on 19 October that the
diversion might not begin as scheduled, there have been no reports
from Slovakia indicating a change of plans. According to various
sources, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Austrian, and German
environmentalists are planning to converge for demonstrations at
the dam site. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN DEFENSE MINISTER ON NATIONAL SECURITY. Defense Minister
Lajos Fuer, in a 19 October interview in Magyar Hirlap, said
Hungary was not threatened at present by any "direct military
attack from either the East, or the South, or the North." On the
other hand, the serious conflict to the south "could spill over
into Hungary at certain points and in certain forms," Fuer added.
Hungary's army would continue to show restraint in the Yugoslav
conflict but would also make clear that it would take a resolute
stand against "small aggression" coming from any quarter, he
concluded. (Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL Inc.)
DEFENSE MINISTER OF REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA VISITS BULGARIA. Vlado
Popovski, the Republic of Macedonia's Defense Minister, heading a
delegation which included Chief of the General Staff, Colonel
General Mitre Arsovski, met with counterparts in Sofia on 19
October. According to BTA, discussions focussed on regional
security issues and Popovski informed Alexander Staliiski,
Bulgaria's Defense Minister, that Bulgaria was an important and
stabilizing factor in the Balkans especially for Macedonia. Both
stressed that there were no problems between the republics of
Macedonia and Bulgaria. Popovski noted that the Macedonian army
was equipped with weapons from the former Yugoslav territorial
defense forces and would seek those weapons which it lacked
through normal diplomatic contacts. In order to counter recent
allegations in the Bulgarian press that Bulgarian arms had been
shipped to the new republic, Popovski stressed that "not one
Bulgarian rifle sling has entered Macedonia." (Duncan Perry,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN DETAINED IN RIGA. Radio Riga reported on 19
October that earlier that day a Russian troop train had been
detained at Skirotava station, Riga. The echelon, carrying troops,
6 tanks and 11 missile systems, arrived in Latvia from Estonia
without an entry permit and failed to halt for inspection at
Lugazi border post. Radio Riga said that such activity by the
Russian military was a flagrant violation of earlier accords on
movement of troops and weapons in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL
Inc.)
SOLDIERS SUPPORT MORATORIUM ON TROOP PULLOUT FROM LATVIA. On 15
October members of a local organization defending the rights of
Russian soldiers staged a demonstration in Daugavpils. They
demanded a moratorium on troop withdrawal and that the Latvian
government guarantee officers' families' welfare. They also called
for a halt to the transfer of military structures to the Latvian
authorities, BNS reported on 16 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL
Inc.)
novine.116.bale.,
Law, Public Opinion Don't Govern Serbia (Belgrade)
By Blaine Harden
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ When Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic orde red his police to take over the
Interior Ministry of the new Yugoslav state here this week,
he reminded his countrymen and his political adversaries that
neither the rule of law nor public opinion governs Serbia.
He also sent a sobering message to the two leaders
of the Yugoslav government who are trying to force Milosevic
from office and halt the factional war in neighboring Bosnia
that he did more than anyone to foment. ``What happened at
the Interior Ministry is a depressing reminder that Milosevic
is not going to leave peacefully,'' said a Western diplomat.
But the popularity of Yugoslav President Dobrica
Cosic and Premier Mi lan Panic _ both hand-picked by
Milosevic to give credibility to the new Serb-controlled
Yugoslav state he created _ appears to be growing with each
passing week, and they are defying Milosevic almost daily.
Hours before Serbian police seized the Interior
Ministry and its sens itive police files Monday, Cosic flew
to Geneva to meet for the first time with Bosnia's Slavic
Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, and the two men seem to
have agreed to a number of peace gestures on the Bosnian
crisis that Milosevic has long opposed.
Here in Belgrade, capital of both Serbia and
Yugoslavia, Milosevic-controlled media explained the sudden
seizure of the ministry as nothing more than a normal
settlement of a property dispute. They said a Belgrade court
had ruled that the building belongs to the Serbian
government, not to Yugoslavia _ which is essentially an
unequal alliance of Serbia and its tiny seaboard satellite,
Montenegro. This assertion, however, was challenged by senior
Belgrade judge Bratimir Tocanac, who declared Tuesday that
``Serbian police have no legal basis for seizing the
building.''
Since Milosevic rose to power here in the late
1980s, he has shown a genius for bending the law to his
purposes. Under his guidance, for instance, the Serbian
constitution was rewritten to disenfranchise ethnic Albanians
who make up 90 percent of the population of the Serbian
province of Kosovo.
The new two-republic Yugoslavia is a similar
Milosevic invention, con jured up last summer as a way of
winning respectability for a regime that had outraged the
world by inciting and supporting Serb nationalist aggression
in Bosnia and Croatia.
Panic and Cosic were called upon to prop up
Milosevic's flagging popu larity at home and curry favor
abroad, but Cosic, a novelist and oracle of Serbian pride,
and Panic, a Serbia-born U.S. entrepreneur, are proving poor
flunkies. Using the mantle of Milosevic's invented
government, they are mending fences with the West, meeting
with Milosevic's enemies and pressing for democratic
elections that could boot Milosevic out of power.
Until his police stormed the Yugoslav Interior
Ministry, Milosevic ha d seemed uncharacteristically stymied.
He had denounced Panic as an American spy, and questioned if
Cosic was really a loyal Serb. But even Belgrade Television,
Milosevic's chief propaganda instrument, has been unable to
work up much enthusiasm for denouncing Cosic as anti-Serbian.
Tuesday, as Cosic was meeting with Izetbegovic in
Geneva, Cosic's chi ef political adviser was calling into
question a fundamental precept of Milosevic's
ultranationalist agenda. Svetozar Stojanovic told a Belgrade
daily that ``conditions are now inadequate'' for the Serb
populations of Bosnia and Croatia to have their own
independent states. In effect, he was telling the people of
Serbia that 16 months of fierce warfare _ costing tens of
thousands of lives, creating 2 million refugees and making
Serbia an international pariah _ had been fought for an
impossible goal.
Such defiance appears to backing Milosevic into a
corner in which his only option is force. Before the Yugoslav
leadership turned on him, Milosevic had always tolerated a
limited amount of dissent, tolerance of a kind that helped
him survive as that last old-style Marxist leader in Europe.
Opposition politicians have been free to let off
steam, but their cri ticism reached only a small Belgrade
audience through a low-power television station and a
small-circulation magazine. These views rarely reached the
masses in the countryside, but this seems to be changing.
Serbia's two biggest newspapers, Politika and Borba, are now
publishing accurate and extensive accounts of the
confrontation between Milosevic and the Yugoslav government.
Like East European communist leaders in the
revolutionary year of 198 9, Milosevic is being buffeted by
an unexpectedly powerful wind, but the ministry takeover
suggests he will not give way without battening down behind
his police. It appears, therefore, that the model for
democratic change in Serbia is unlikely to be the peaceful
revolutions of Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Rather, the
model may well be Romania, where a desperate dictator was
driven from power in a hail of gunfire.
Bosnian Leader Agrees to Partitioning of His Republic (Belgrade)
By Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ In the face of growing
Serbian militancy, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina gave
in Tuesday to pressures to permit the division of his
war-torn republic, while federal Yugoslav authorities backed
away from a confrontation with police of the Serbian republic.
At the Yugoslav peace talks in Geneva, Bosnian
President Alija Izetbe govic appeared to abandon hopes of
preserving a united and integrated republic when he agreed
with Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic to a partitioning of
Bosnia into autonomous zones.
But it remained unclear whether the agreements
between Izetbegovic an d Cosic would be adhered to by
militants who have been emboldened by Serbian territorial
gains, particularly Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and
Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic.
Reversing recent assurances to mediators that
Bosnian Serbs wanted on ly peace and security, Karadzic was
quoted by the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug as saying that his
supporters demand the right to secede.
``We can exist as an independent state or unite
with others of the fo rmer Yugoslavia,'' Karadzic told Tanjug.
Izetbegovic opposes division along ethnic lines,
but his poorly armed republic forces have been powerless to
stop the de facto partitioning by rebel Serbs who now control
70 percent of the republic. They have driven out most
non-Serbs in a practice they call ``ethnic cleansing.''
The Bosnian president, a Muslim, probably softened
his position in Ge neva in hopes of ending the siege of
Sarajevo and other embattled cities soon enough to avert mass
starvation and freezing as winter sets in throughout the
republic, where six months of war have left 2 million
homeless and blocked most supply routes.
Izetbegovic has long insisted that ethnic division
is neither necessa ry nor wanted by most of the 4.4 million
people who inhabited his multiethnic republic. But his
resolve to continue battling Serbian extremists bent on
carving up Bosnia was dealt a blow last week when Foreign
Minister Haris Silajdzic failed to win U.S. support for
lifting a U.N. arms embargo against the republic.
Acting U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence S.
Eagleburger said that he r emained unconvinced that Western
countries should allow the Bosnian government to arm itself
against the Serbian onslaught, even though Washington has
repeatedly identified Serbian forces as the aggressors and
lamented the weapons imbalance that has given the attackers
an insurmountable advantage.
In Belgrade, one day after heavily armed Serbian
police seized the fe deral Interior Ministry in the downtown
of the joint Yugoslav and Serbian capital, the ministry's top
officials moved to another government building, at least
temporarily abandoning the security headquarters to its
occupiers.
Federal security troops, who are grossly
outnumbered by republic poli ce and reservists loyal to
Milosevic, will operate out of the main government
headquarters until courts determine whether the building
belongs to the federal or Serbian government, Tanjug reported.
Dispute over ownership has been cited by both
Yugoslav and Serbian of ficials as the reason gunmen
infiltrated the key ministry and have prevented federal
workers from entering the building.
However, that version of events is widely seen as
a fig leaf for Milo sevic's direct challenge to the authority
of federal Prime Minister Milan Panic. Belgrade judicial
authorities know nothing of a court ruling the Serbian
government claims gave it the right to occupy the building,
Tanjug said.
Founder of Germany's Greens Party Found Dead (Berlin)
By Marc Fisher
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
BERLIN _ Petra Kelly, the U.S.-educated founder of
Germany's Greens p arty, was found dead in her home, shot in
her sleep by her longtime companion, ex-general Gert Bastian,
who killed Kelly and then turned his pistol on himself,
police said Tuesday.
The deaths of two of the most prominent figures in
the world's most influential environmental party shocked a
country already suffering from a wave of political violence.
Prosecutors said the shootings were either a
murder-suicide or the re sult of a suicide pact. Colleagues
said Bastian had been upset recently by Germany's failure to
halt the current wave of neo-Nazi attacks on foreigners.
Kelly was said to be depressed both by her lack of political
impact in the two years since German reunification and by her
recent firing from a cable TV channel, where she had been
moderator of a talk show.
Although the Greens have had a lower profile since
German voters oust ed them from Parliament in 1990, their
environmentalist-pacifist message remains part of the
country's political mix, and the party is part of ruling
coalitions in four of Germany's 16 states.
Kelly, a 1970 graduate of American University in
Washington and stepd aughter of a U.S. Army colonel, was one
of Germany's best-known politicians, a fast-talking dynamo
who was attempting to shift from electoral politics to TV.
She had been moderator of ``Five to Twelve,'' an ecological
program.
Kelly, 44, lived for close to a decade with
Bastian, 69, a career off icer who in 1980 was forced out
when he criticized the proposed deployment of medium-range
U.S. nuclear missiles on German soil. Both Kelly and Bastian
spent most of the 1980s in the West German Parliament.
Police found the badly decomposed bodies of the
couple late Monday ni ght after concerned relatives, who had
not heard from Kelly or Bastian for weeks, asked a friend to
look inside their Bonn rowhouse.
After an autopsy Tuesday, chief homicide
investigator Hartmut Otto sa id Bastian shot Kelly in the
left temple with a single bullet from his .38-caliber
Derringer while she lay sleeping beneath a blanket. Bastian
then used the same pistol to fire a single shot into his own
forehead. Otto said police could not determine whether Kelly
had acquiesced.
Police said no note was found at the house.
Tuesday, the Greens party released the text of an open letter
Bastian wrote last month decrying anti-foreigner violence in
Germany. ``Evil memories of my youth in the 1930s are
awakened,'' he wrote. ``Today, as then, a shameful number of
good citizens watch murderous arsonists without acting, often
with barely disguised pleasure.''
``Petra was depressed because she had no leading
role anymore,'' said Wilhelm Knabe, a founding member of the
Greens and former Parliament member, in an interview. ``To
the end, she was a wonderful messenger, carrying to people
abroad the Green ideas. She helped people think in a new way.
Now, after unification, Germany has no politician who offers
goals and ideals as we did in forming the Green party.''
Rita Suessmuth, president of the Parliament, said
Kelly and Bastian w ere committed to ``a worldwide political
order without fear of war, torment and deprivation.''
Kelly was a slight, frail woman who was
hospitalized several times fo r exhaustion. She emerged from
six years in a Bavarian convent, her college experience in
Washington, and work as a volunteer in the presidential
campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey to
found the Greens in 1972.
The environmental group evolved into a political
party in 1979, winni ng support and opposition _ both
vociferous _ as it mounted huge demonstrations against
nuclear power and NATO's plans to station medium-range
nuclear missiles in West Germany. Bastian was arrested
several times for taking part in sit-ins at U.S. military
facilities.
The Greens, first elected to Parliament in 1983,
became a model for ecological politics in many Western
countries and in the East Bloc, where Kelly was often viewed
as a heroine by dissidents.
In the Bonn Parliament, Greens helped change
German society through a mix of traditional compromise _
making West Germany the world leader in recycling and other
ecological advances _ and rebellious theatrics. These
included a refusal to adhere to rules and a studied
informality that precluded jackets and ties and allowed Kelly
to wear T-shirts while meeting heads of state.
Within the party, Kelly and Bastian were
mistrusted by hard-core environmentalists, who opposed the
very notion of leadership and insisted that the party adhere
to a strict rotation of its top officers and Parliament
members.
By 1990, when the Greens were the only West German
party to oppose unification with Communist East Germany,
Kelly and Bastian were virtual outsiders in their own party.
The long delay in finding their bodies _ as much
as three weeks, poli ce said _ ``showed how they had been
abandoned and pushed to the fringes, which they never
deserved,'' said Konrad Weiss, a legislator whose eastern
German Alliance 90 party represents Green ideas in the Bonn
Parliament. ``It showed how cold the political climate has
become in Germany.''
Outside the couple's rowhouse, the doorway
obscured by a late-bloomin g rose bush, neighbors described
the pair as reclusive and unfriendly. Signs warned salesmen
to stay away.
novine.117.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic countries urge lifting of arms embargo in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: Serbian forces harass U.N. military chief near airport
Subject: Fighting continues as Yugoslav leaders talk
Subject: Little progress seen in peace talks between Croatia, Yugoslavia
Subject: U.N. troops come under fire in Croat-Muslim clashes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic countries urge lifting of arms embargo in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 19 Oct 92 22:36:38 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Six Islamic countries Monday asked the
Security Council to urgently consider lifting the arms embargo imposed
on Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``If the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina had more adequate means to
repel aggression, the likelihood of achieving a peaceful and just
solution through negotiations would be enhanced,'' the six countries
said in a letter to the president of the 15-nation council.
Egypt, Pakistan, Senegal, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which formed
the Contact Group of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said
violations by Serbian forces of the London conference's agreements and
Security Council resolutions were the reason for them to call for
lifting the arms embargo.
The Security Council decreed the arms embargo on the whole former
Yugoslavia last year when fighting broke out between Serbian minority
and Croatian forces after Croatia declared independence from the
Yugoslav federation. The war spread to Bosnia-Hercegovina earlier this
year involving Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slavs.
The six countries said Serbs will continue to violate the London
conference as long as they can use force and those countries thefore
called on the council to meet urgently to ``consider and secure the
lifting of the arms embargo.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian forces harass U.N. military chief near airport
Date: 19 Oct 92 22:57:18 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian gunners peppered the
Bosnian capital with artillery fire that wounded dozens of people
Monday, and militiamen harassed U.N. vehicles traveling the airport
road, at one point briefly detaining the top commander of U.N. forces in
the city.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek, the head of the U.N.
Protection Force in Sarajevo, described his brief detention as an
``irresponsible action'' and warned that ``UNPROFOR in Sarajevo will not
accept such an action being repeated.''
Abdul Razek's armored personnel carrier was one of a dozen U.N.
vehicles stopped at a Serbian checkpoint established on the city's main
airport road despite earlier assurances guaranteeing U.N. forces freedom
of movement. The checkpoint apparently was established in response to a
Bosnian roadblock.
Abdul Razek was forced out of his vehicle and briefly detained while
being questioned by the Serbian militiamen at the checkpoint. No one was
injured in the incident, but Abdul Razek's aides said the Serbian troops
sometimes pointed their guns toward the U.N. military officials.
The incident came as city and U.N. officials began to assess the
damage of heavy Serbian shelling over the weekend. The shelling hit
apartment buildings, a state hospital and a bread factory that
authorities had been counting on to mill flour for the coming winter
months.
Meanwhile, an advance party of 20 soldiers of British U.N. relief are
racing against time to set up a forward command post before the onset of
the Bosnian winter.
The troops will escort the humanitarian-aid convoys across front
lines and say they are ready to shoot back if fired upon. ``It's not our
intention to fight the convoys through but we are prepared if it comes
to that,'' Nigel Gillies, spokesman for the British troops said.
The first troops are part of 6,000 scheduled to arrive. About 1,800
more British troops will should come within the next few weeks, Gillies
said.
Compounding the man-made disaster in the newly independent republic,
Mother Nature chimed in with a moderate earthquake that measured 4.1 on
the Richter scale and was centered about 15 miles north of the city, the
U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of damage
or casualties caused by the quake, which occurred about 2:41 p.m. local
time.
Conditions also were reported to be deteriorating Monday for some 80,
000 people taking refuge in and around the eastern Bosnian town of
Srebrenica, where they fled after being forced or frightened out of
nearby Serbian-controlled areas.
The refugees, who outnumber natives remaining in the Muslim Slav-
majority town by some six-to-one, include about 8,000 children and are
in dire need of food and medicine, Sarajevo radio and the Vecernje
Novine newspaper reported.
Most are living in wooded land around Srebrenica, where they have
been shelled repeatedly and are dying from simple wounds that go
untreated, the reports said. Doctors have been performing limb
amputations with hot wires, they said.
Heavy artillery and infantry attacks continued Monday in several
cities of northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina, where Serbian-backed
forces are fighting to establish a self-declared Serbian state.
The Serbian forces dropped rounds of artillery Monday on Travnik and
Bugojno in the central part of the republic and Gradacac, Brcko and
Maglaj in the north, Sarajevo radio said.
Maglaj, completing a full month under seige, was hit throughout the
night and into the morning by fire from tanks, howitzers and incendiary
ammunition, the radio said.
At least 34 people were reported injured Monday in Sarajevo. The
shelling came just a day after a city-wide artillery barrage Sunday hit
apartment buildings, the state hospital and a major bread factory and
left at least 10 dead and 130 wounded.
One shell exploded Monday near a government kitchen in the northwest
Sarajevo neighborhood of Podhrastovi where people gathered to receive
donated food.
``While I was standing in front of the public kitchen it exploded and
I got shrapnel in my left leg,'' Sedik Basic said while being treated at
the city's Kosevo hospital complex.
Doctors at the facility Monday handled at least 34 injured patients --
22 civilians and 12 fighters -- and one patient who died, said Dr. Jovo
Vranic, the hospital's trauma director.
The strike on the bread factory destroyed the city's major grain
mill, meaning U.N. relief workers already well behind schedule in
stockpiling food and medicines for winter will have to begin delivering
more flour.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which coordinates aid
deliveries, said it was asked to provide another 50 tons of flour per
day to replace that produced by the damaged mill.
``We'll do what we can,'' UNHCR spokesman Larry Hollingsworth said
Monday. ``The basic difference is that it will mean 50 tons a day of
something else we can't bring in.''
The mill had stored about two to three months worth of grain that it
could have processed into flour, and officials estimated it would take
about six weeks even in peacetime to repair the damage.
The capital at least had some water and electricity services restored
by Monday morning, although supplies remained sporadic as warring
parties continued to block repair crews and shoot at transmission
facilities.
``At exactly at 20:46 last night, Sarajevo got electricity, but
unfortunately at 11:44 this morning it went out,'' said Irfan Durmic,
director of Elektroprenos, the city's electrical utility.
In Geneva, Switzerland, the presidents of both Bosnia-Hercegovina and
the Serbian-dominated two-republic Yugoslav union met Monday with U.N.
and European Community negotiators at the site of the ongoing Yugoslav
peace talks.
Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic were to meet U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and his EC
counterpart Lord Owen amid reports of a possible deal for power sharing
within the former Yugoslavia.
The signs of movement came as the Serbian-run Yugoslav army was
removing its last troops from Croatian soil, just one year after its
highly criticized bombardment of the 12th century coastal city of
Dubrovnik.
But Croatian military sources complained the Yugoslav army, while
leaving Dubrovnik as scheduled by Tuesday, was just relocating a few
miles south and was leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery for
Serbian forces still fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting continues as Yugoslav leaders talk
Date: 20 Oct 92 17:44:37 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fighting continued across
northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina Tuesday, officials and news
reports said, as Yugoslav faction leaders met in peace talks in Geneva,
Switzerland.
The heaviest attacks were reported in the northeastern town of
Gradacac. About 10 Serbian helicopters from the direction of Brcko and
road convoys from the area of Bosanski Samac moved toward Gradacac,
where Serbian forces attacked with fire from howitzers, tanks, artillery
and ground troops, Sarajevo radio reported.
Civilian targets were hit in heavy grenading in Jajce that followed
an artillery attack Monday that killed four women and injured several
other people as they were waiting outside to collect water, the radio
said.
Jajce, in the central part of the republic, remained without
electricity, water or telephone services, it said.
Artillery attacks also were reported in Tuzla, Bihac, Maglaj and
Tesanj, the Bosnian radio said.
Fighting also was reported in Vitez, the town north of Sarajevo where
the U.N. High Commission for Refugees keeps its main storage depot for
UNHCR trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Sarajevo.
The U.N. Protection Force dispatched three armored personnel carriers
to the area Tuesday afternoon to investigate whether UNHCR workers
needed to be evacuated, an UNPROFOR spokesman said.
In Geneva, Presidents Dobrica Cosic of Yugoslavia and Franjo Tudjman
of Croatia met for the second time in a month Tuesday as a four-day
peacekeeping effort by U.N. and European Community mediators drew to a
close in a flurry of diplomatic activity.
Also, the commander of the U.N. protection force in ex-Yugoslavia,
Indian Gen. Satish Nambiar said Tuesday there is ``no way'' any one
party could win a lasting military victory in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Nambiar also said he would be in Sarajevo Wednesday to get local
military leaders to meet to discuss demilitarizing the besieged city.
Sarajevo remained without much of its water, electricity and
telephone services, as well as its primary grain mill, after two days of
artillery attacks that added scores more to Sarajevo's six-month total
of dead and wounded.
The strike on the grain mill meant the UNHCR, already well behind
schedule in stockpiling food and medicines for winter, will have to
begin delivering another 50 tons of flour each day.
A total of 57 rounds of heavy artillery fire fell onto Bosnian-
controlled areas around the capital, compared to 23 rounds reaching
Serbian-controlled territory, during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Monday, the UNPROFOR said in its daily survey.
Sarajevo radio reported Tuesday that male Serbs in villages
surrounding the Bosnian-held northeastern town of Brcko were breaking
their own arms and legs in bids to avoid compulsory Serbian military
service.
Separately, French Maj. Gen. Phillipe Morillon was due to arrive in
the Bosnian capital Tuesday, one day after his colleague in charge of
the UNPROFOR's Sarajevo operation was held at gunpoint by Serbian troops
at an unauthorized checkpoint along the city's airport road.
The UNPROFOR Sarajevo chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek,
who was unhurt in the incident, said he suspected it may have been
related to the recent controversy over a Bosnian blockade of the airport
roadway and insisted any such repetitions would not be tolerated.
UNHCR spokeswoman Sylvana Foa said Tuesday in Geneva that U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata called off road convoys trying to
ship supplies into Sarajevo from the Croatian port of Split through
Mostar after they were shelled in contravention of assurances to Ogata
from all three warring factions as late as last weekend that there would
be no interference with U.N. truck traffic.
``Mrs. Ogata now calls into question the fact of whether the
representatives of the three factions in Geneva have any control at all
over what their people on the ground in Bosnia-Hercegovina do,'' Foa
said.
``What were talking about here is banditry and the UNHCR is going to
stop its road convoys along the Mostar road as a result of what
happened,'' Foa said.
The airlift into Sarajevo airport will continue despite steadily
worsening weather, she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Little progress seen in peace talks between Croatia, Yugoslavia
Date: 20 Oct 92 19:28:17 GMT
GENEVA, Switzerland (UPI) -- The presidents of Croatia and Yugoslavia
agreed to speed up repatriation of refugees during a day of peace talks
Tuesday but failed to make substantial progress toward ending the
conflict among the warring Balkan countries.
The meeting between President Dobrica Cosic of Yugoslavia and Franjo
Tudjman of Croatia was part of a flurry of diplomatic activity that came
at the close of four-day peace-making effort by the United Nations and
European Community peace negotiators.
Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and EC
negotiator Lord David Owen, said while the two leaders were able to
agree on repatriation of refugees and condemnation of racist ``ethnic
cleansing'' in Serb-held areas, they were far from finding a way to end
the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``There's been a lot of hard work and some movement but I'm not going
to put a time frame on when the talks might end,'' Eckhard said. He said
the two presidents had agreed to meet again to discuss refugee matters
and the evolving situation among the former Yugoslav republics.
Vance and Owen were joining the daylong talks with Tudjman and Cosic
along with Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. peace-keeping forces
in the former Yugoslavia, and Cedric Thornberry, senior U.N. political
officer there.
Tudjman met privately Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic before the
official meeting at the U.N. building here. Izetbegovic and Cosic, after
a late night meeting Monday, had issued a joint appeal for an urgent
cease-fire in Sarajevo as the number one priority in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
That appeal was on the agenda for Cosic and Tudjman Tuesday but the
talks were also expected to focus on refugee problems, sources in the
Vance-Owen office said. Croatia has claimed it cannot accomodate any
more refugees from Bosnia-Hercegovina and has said it will give only
temporary asylum to 1,500 ex-prisoners freed by the U.N. High Commission
for Refugees and the International Red Cross earlier this month from
camps in Serb-held areas of Bosnia.
Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, said Tuesday the relief
agency now had offers of asylum for some 600 of the former prisoners
from as far away as New Zealand but has so far only moved 92 out of
their temporary refugee in Croatia -- to Norway.
Paul-Henri Morard, a spokesman for the International Committee for
the Red Cross, said the ICRC was continuing its efforts to bring ex-
prisoners out of camps in Serb areas but had so far not moved more than
the 1,500 already announced.
Foa said Refugee High Commissioner Sadako Ogata had called off road
convoys trying to ship supplies into Sarajevo from the port of Split
through the Mostar road after they had been shelled -- despite the fact
that all three of the warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina had assured
Ogata as late as last weekend that there would be no interference with
U.N. truck traffic.
``Mrs. Ogata now calls into question the fact of whether the
representatives of the three factions in Geneva have any control at all
over what their people on the ground in Bosnia-Hercegovina do,'' Foa
said. ``What we're talking about here is banditry and the UNHCR is going
to stop its road convoys along the Mostar road as a result of what
happened.''
She described the militias of all three factions operating in the
Sarajevo area as ``bandits, thugs -- guys in black hats.''
The airlift into Sarajevo airport would continue despite steadily
worsening weather, she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. troops come under fire in Croat-Muslim clashes
Date: 20 Oct 92 20:17:46 GMT
GORNJI VAKUF, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A convoy of British U.N.
troops came under fire Tuesday when their vehicles crossed through a
region in central Bosnia-Hercegovina where fighting suddenly erupted
between Muslim and Croat forces, officials said. There were no reports
of casualties.
About 20 U.N. troops were caught in a hail of mortar and machine-gun
fire, a soldier in the British unit said. He said one rocket-propelled
grenade passedbetween two U.N. vehicles.
The troops did not return fire because they did not believe they were
being targeted, said John Field, unit commander of the British forces,
in an interview with United Press International shortly after the
incident.
``It was all noise...People were firing at everything. The situation
is completely confused with a lot of people who think they are in
command, and no one knows what anyone else is doing,'' Field said.
The fighting erupted two days after Mate Boban, leader of the self-
proclaimed Croat state of Herceg-Bosnia, announced that Travnik, a mixed
Croat and Muslim town in central Bosnia, would become part of his state.
Barricades and checkpoints have been set up outside nearby towns
including Vitez, Travnik and Novi Travnik, Field said shortly after the
incident.
``All the villages have barricades in and out. There are mines in the
road and a lot of fire was coming within our vicinity,'' said Field
after arriving in the town of Gornji Vakuf, some 22 miles northeast of
Travnik.
The British troops, who arrived on Saturday, were the first part of a
6,000-member multi-national U.N. force scheduled to come to Bosnia-
Hercegovina to secure humanitarian aid convoys against heavy fighting
during the winter.
When asked why the supposedly allied Muslim and Croat forces were
fighting each other at a newly established front line, a soldier in the
Bosnian-Hercegovina army said the Croats want a republic like the Serbs,
adding: ``We say no. This is Bosnia.''
Tensions have been mounting between Muslims and Croats within the
last few months but this has been the most serious confrontation so far.
No accurate figures on casualties among the warring factions were
available.
novine.118.bale.,
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Subject: Yugoslav prime minister dubs Serbian police action 'nonsense'
Subject: Aid flights suspended amid Bosnian-Croat clashes
Subject: U.N. health agency returning to Sarajevo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav prime minister dubs Serbian police action 'nonsense'
Date: 21 Oct 92 13:16:23 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic
Wednesday discounted the seizure of a federal police headquarters by
Serbian police as political ``nonsense'' that had no real significance.
``It was nonsense what they (Serbian police) did...It does not mean
anything as we have many buildings,'' Panic told the Serbia-controlled
Tanjug news agency.
``A purely political affair is in question which should have not be
done, I think it was a mistake,'' Panic said in his first public comment
on the incident.
Panic, a Belgrade-born Serb and naturalized U.S. citizen, attended
peace talks in Geneva during the weekend. He returned home to Belgrade
Sunday evening when Serbian police stormed the Yugoslav federal police
headquarters and seized the building.
The seizure was made public Monday morning, adding fuel to the
ongoing power struggle between hard-line communist President Slobodan
Milosevic of Serbia and Federal President Dobrica Cosic and Panic,
leaders of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Panic and Cosic consider the ouster of Milosevic as a pre-condition
for the lifting of strict economic sanctions, imposed by the United
Nations on May 30 on Serbia for its involvement in the ongoing war in
the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian police kept control of the stone building in downtown
Belgrade for a third day Wednesday and Yugoslav Federal Interior
Minister Pavle Bulatovic moved to a new office in the federal government
building, which also accommodates Panic and a number of other federal
ministers.
The Yugoslav Public Prosecutor's office Tuesday announced it was
preparing, on behalf of the federal government, to undertake legal
action against the Serbian Interior Ministry for ``trespassing'' after
Serbian police refused to move out of the federal police building.
The Yugoslav federal police, totalling about 1,000 men, represent no
real threat to the Milosevic-controlled Serbian police of nearly 50,000
well-equipped policemen.
Zoran Sokolovic, the Serbian interior minister, Tuesday tried to play
down the incident, saying it was ``nothing but an ordinary owner's
rights issue''.
``The building was more or less empty anyway,'' said Sokolovic,
saying that the complex was assigned to the republic of Serbia by a
Belgrade municipal court order.
However, Belgrade news reports suggested the Serbian police seizure
of the federal police headquarters might be aimed at taking over files
including information on war crimes reportedly committed by the Serbian
paramilitary units in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian police took over the federal building only three days after
Cosic publicly demanded that paramilitary ``patriotic'' units be
disbanded and disarmed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Aid flights suspended amid Bosnian-Croat clashes
Date: 21 Oct 92 14:56:50 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Humanitarian aid flights into
Sarajevo were suspended Wednesday while the United Nations assessed
security along the approach to the airport, cutting off all main aid
routes into the Bosnian capital, a U.N. spokesman said.
One Canadian and one British plane flew into the capital early
Wednesday before the the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
suspended flights into Sarajevo, said UNHCR spokewsman Michael Keats.
The main land route into Sarajevo was closed Tuesday after shelling
in Mostar.
Keats said, ``We are reviewing the security situation at the airport
as the whole area is tense. There is fighting on the flight approach.''
Keats, who did not think flights would resume until the trucks start
rolling again, said the UNHCR were now unloading aid supplies at
Posusje, but added: ``as an interim measure, we are sending at least 20
aid trucks from Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big
convoy from Belgrade to Sarajevo on Saturday. It'll take two days to
arrive.
Formerly allied Bosnian and Croat forces fought each other Wednesday
in towns of central Bosnia-Hercegovina, bringing new dimensions and
theaters to the 7-month-old conflict in the disintegrating republic.
Meantime, Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, overall commander of the U.N.
Protection Force (UNPROFOR), making his first visit to the Bosnian
capital in 1 1/2 months, acknowledged growing signs of disrespect for U.N.
forces in the republic but said he would continue to ask for the
cooperation of the warring parties.
``The fact that the U.N. flag and presence is not respected is one of
the more uncomfortable aspects of the situation here in Sarajevo, as it
is elsewhere,'' Nambiar told reporters after visiting Bosnian leaders.
But, said Nambiar, who also was visiting Serbian leaders during his
day-long visit, ``There's no point in making threats.''
Only a few hours earlier, a French UNPROFOR soldier was shot and
wounded by a sniper firing from Bosnian-controlled territory while the
soldier was escorting humanitarian aid deliveries in a Serbian-
controlled section of Sarajevo.
The Bosnian-Croat fighting north of Sarajevo, which in one town
forced the evacuation of a main U.N. warehouse used for humanitarian aid
to the beseiged capital, was prompted by growing signs of Croat
dominance in their anti-Serb alliance with the Muslim Slav-majority
Bosnian forces.
Fighting Wednesday in Novi Travnik set fire to an apartment building
in the center of the town as Croats appealed for a cease-fire to permit
evacuations, Mujo Delibegovic, a Sarajevo radio reporter, said Wednesday
from nearby Zenica.
Croatian forces in Novi Travnik also asked for reinforcements from
Vitez, Kiseljak and Fojnica, Delibegovic said, and both Bosnian and
Croatian forces were reported taking civilians hostage in surrounding
villages in apparent bids for bargaining leverage.
In Vitez, site of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees warehouse for
humanitarian supplies, both Croatian and Muslim Slav residents gathered
Wednesday morning in downtown for a joint protest for peace, he said. No
new fighting was reported in the town.
The fighting among allies began Monday in Novi Travnik when a dispute
over control of a gasoline station prompted Croat leaders to demand the
town's Bosnian military leader surrender his force's weapons,
Delibegovic said.
It also appeared to have been touched off by the declaration Sunday by
Mate Boban, leader of the self-proclaimed Croat state of Herceg-Bosnia,
that Travnik would become part of his state.
Barricades were set up shortly afterward outside Travnik, a mixed
Croat and Muslim Slav town in central Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as
Vitez and Novi Travnik, said John Field, a commander of British troops
caught briefly in Tuesday's crossfire.
The fighting, the most serious so far in months of mounting tensions
in the Croat-Bosnian alliance, began the same day Yugoslav leaders at
the ongoing peace talks in Geneva ended four days of top-level
negotiations with some agreement on the repatriation of refugees but
little progress on ending the actual fighting.
Iin Belgrade, the struggle for control of the city's federal police
headquarters continued between Yugoslav forces loyal to Cosic and
federal Prime Minister Milan Panic and those backing Serbia's hard-line
nationalist President Slobodan Milosevic.
Panic and Cosic, who have threatened to take legal action against
Serbian police who seized the building Monday, believe Milosevic must be
removed to convince the United Nations to lift economic sanctions
against Serbia and its tiny ally Montenegro.
Bosnian and Serbian military leaders in Sarajevo faced their own test
of promises Wednesday as a planned exchange of the bodies of dead
soldiers was reported moving forward.
The deal approved after two days of U.N.-mediated talks involved the
exchange of eight bodies of Serbian troops killed two weeks earlier when
Bosnian forces blew up a restaurant along the front line, in return for
those of 18 Bosnian fighters who died a few days later in the areas of
Stup and Zuc. In addition, both sides agreed to turn over 18 prisoners
apiece.
Sunday's heavy shelling of Sarajevo, which began exactly at the 10 a.
m.deadline Serbian forces set for the initial body transfer demands,
broke what U.N. military observers had described as the quietest week of
the six-month seige of Sarajevo, causing scores of civilian casualties
and destroying city's major grain mill.
The new fighting around Vitez could further hinder the UNHCR's
efforts to catch up on supplying food and other aid to Sarajevo, which
already was hurt in the past week by the loss of the grain mill, Serbian
and Bosnian interference with U.N. use of the Sarajevo airport road, and
shelling in Mostar that prompted the UNHCR to temporarily suspend the
use of its main overland supply route.
Nambiar said the Bosnian military, which had been boycotting a
planned system of regular u.n.-mediated talks with their Serbian
counterparts, now appeared ready to join, as their condition -- the
restoration of sarajevo's water and electricity -- had largely been met.
The wounded French soldier, who was expected to survive, was hit in
the shoulder and head by a shot fired from the Sarajevo's Dobrinja
neighborhood while standing on a street during aid deliveries, a
UNPROFOR spokesman said.
Kenan Delic, a Bosnian liaison officer at UNPROFOR headquarters,
conceded Bosnian responsibility for the shooting but said: ``it must
have been a mistake.''
The eight UNHCR workers in Vitez, a mixture of international and
local staff, had become accustomed to occasional shelling by Serbian
forces but asked for the evacuation late Tuesday after the Croat-Bosnian
confrontation erupted into actual street fighting outside their
building, a UNCHR official said.
``It was shelling and heavy street fighting,+ said the official, Marc
Vachon.
Most of the evacuated workers were to be flown to zagreb while the
UNCHR decides the future of its warehouse in Vitez.
Croat-Bosnian fighting was not reported in Mostar, the major city
between Sarajevo and the coast, but Bosnians formed their own political
alliance last week and charge nationalist Croats with seeking to
dominate local government.
The permanent loss of the road through Mostar would virtually cut off
land access to Sarajevo, a UNHCR spokeswoman said, because other roads
from the Adriatic coast that have been traveled in the past become
unusable in the winter.
Heavy fighting was reported continuing Wednesday between Serbian and
Bosnian forces in northern and central parts of the republic, with
Serbian troops forced by an armistice to leave Dubrovnik reported
joining battles elsewhere.
The Serbian troops leaving the historic Croatian port city, now badly
damaged after months of fighting, were arriving in two main groups to
the areas of Nevesinje, Stolac and Mostar, and the areas of Gacko,
Tjentiste and Foca, Sarajevo radio reported.
Bosnian forces nevertheless claimed military successes in routing
Serbs at the mountain of Cemerena, which the Serbs had been using to
rain artillery fire on Olovo, just north of Sarajevo, and in the Praca
Valley east of the capital, the radio said.
But the beseiged Bosnian-controlled town of Gradacac, in northeast
Bosnia-Hercegovina, suffered through another day of heavy artillery and
infantry attacks that killed at least nine people and left 20 injured,
it said.
Maglaj, Jajce and other towns in the northern and central parts of
the republic also had another day of artillery attacks, it said.
At least 24 people were killed and 130 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Wednesday, including three
killed and 43 injured in Sarajevo, bosnian health officials said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. health agency returning to Sarajevo
Date: 21 Oct 92 16:48:54 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The World Health Organization
said Wednesday it is sending a full-time field officer to Sarajevo to
help cope with what other U.N. experts have predicted could be a health
catastrophe this coming winter.
The planned return was anxiously awaited by the U.N. Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) in Sarajevo, which has been forced to provide humanitarian
services outside its expertise as military peacekeepers, and Sarajevo
medical professionals, who said U.N. assistance in health matters has
been seriously deficient.
The absence of both the WHO and the International Committee for the
Red Cross, which pulled out of Sarajevo in May after one of its workers
was killed, has left the city's hospitals forced to seek supplies and
help through one or two highly overworked members of the U.N. High
Commission for Refugees, said Dr. Bakir Nakas, director of Sarajevo's
state hospital.
``If it is a humanitarian organization, and if they really want to
help people, they must be aware of the risks and the eventual casualties
by going to crisis areas,'' Nakas said of the two groups.
The WHO field officer, scheduled to arrive Saturday, will be in
charge of monitoring U.N. food and medical supplies reaching the
besieged capital, David MacFadyen, of the group's Zagreb headquarters,
said in Split.
The WHO, whose workers traditionally do not become directly involved
in areas of ongoing combat, currently has only a health monitoring unit
in Sarajevo attached to the UNHCR, MacFadyen said.
The ICRC decided May 27 at its Geneva headquartes to pull out of
Bosnia- Hercegovina after one of its workers, Pierre Maurice, was killed
and two others injured when their medical assistance convoy was fired
upon May 19 outside Sarajevo.
The ICRC, which left the republic by the end of May, had
``exploratory visits'' to Bosnia-Hercegovina in June and on July 7 it
re-opened some Bosnian offices and began sending convoys with
assistance, said Judith Hushagen, a Canadian spokeswoman for the ICRC in
Belgrade.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson in Sarajevo said he could understand
the two groups' security concerns, but said their absences have been
sorely felt in such areas as evaluating injured civilians on their
medical needs and arranging exchanges of prisoners and war dead.
``We need them back here,'' Magnusson said.
In one recent case, a failed agreement between Bosnian and Serbian
forces on an exchange of prisoners and war dead erupted Sunday into
several hours of shelling by Serbs that resulted in scores more dead and
wounded civilians.
``In their absence,'' Magnusson said of the ICRC, which traditionally
handles such exchanges worldwide, ``we have been doing what we can to
assist.''
Nakas said his hospital, where the ICRC was offered space to
establish its Sarajevo headquarters, has felt the rejection in concrete
terms, figuratively and literally.
The absence of the ICRC we feel is shown best by the holes in the
walls of the hospital caused by the numerous grenades, which we believe
would not have happened if they had been here,`` Nakas said.
He said his hospital also must deal with the additional red tape of
seeing its requests for standard hospital supplies first passed to UNHCR
offices in Zagreb and elsewhere for their approvals.
``They are working themselves to death,'' Nakas said of the UNHCR
staff in sarajevo, ``but with little progess to show for it.''
``We cannot easily work with people when they are far away and we
lack proper communications,'' said Dr. Slavenka Straus of the city's
Kosevo hospital complex.
The absence of the WHO or other outside medical professionals also
has left UNPROFOR with no expert advice on which wounded civilians it
should take on its flights out of the city, Magnusson said.
Other than wounded children, whose cases are handled by the Sarajevo
office of the U.N. children's organization UNICEF, and wounded U.N.
personnel, Magnusson said he knew of almost no other medical air
evacuations. ``The only(other) cases i'm aware of are journalists,'' he
said.
Straus said her hospital has ``begged'' U.N. officials in vain for
help in evacuating seriously wounded patients, including amputees, who
have been assured space in western hospitals, and said she believed the
failures were mostly due to a lack of U.N. medical expertise.
The UNHCR has said the people of Sarajevo face a health catastrophe
this winter when bitterly cold weather returns to a city short on food,
medicine, shelter and basic utilities.
The ICRC, when it returned to Bosnia-Hercegovina in July, reopened
offices in the towns of Mostar, Zenica, Velika Kladusa and Banja Luka,
but not as yet in Sarajevo, Tuzla or Bijeljina.
ICRC officials in Geneva said they still needed guarantees from all
sides that ICRC convoys and vehicles will not be attacked heading into
or out of Sarajevo.
``We are still waiting from security guarantees,'' Hushagen said.
``We cannot spend the whole day in shelter, we have to be able to work.''
novine.119.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 203, October 21, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS FROM BALTIC SUSPENDED? The Russian Defense
Ministry announced on the morning of 21 October that the
withdrawal of Russian forces from the Baltic would be suspended
for those units scheduled to be redeployed to areas in Russia that
lacked adequate housing, Interfax reported. While Defense Minister
Pavel Grachev said that he would "not station forces in a bare
field," he nevertheless suggested that the overall timetable for
the withdrawal would not be changed; the movement of individual
sub-units will apparently be altered to conform with the
availability of housing in Russia. Grachev said that the Defense
Ministry had issued the statement to draw the public's attention
to the army's housing shortage, but the obvious confusion in
policy statements suggests that military leaders may themselves be
split over the withdrawal issue. (Stephen Foye)
STANKEVICH ACCUSES, CHURKIN THREATENS BALTIC STATES. Sergei
Stankevich, an advisor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, sent a
letter to the Council of Europe in which he accused Estonia and
Latvia of stripping their Russian residents of the possibility of
becoming loyal citizens of the two countries and of unspecified
human rights violations against the Russians, Interfax reported on
20 October. That same day Vitalii Churkin, identified by Interfax
as Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister, said that despite the
fact that the European Community had advised against using "power
measures" to resolve human rights issues in Estonia and Latvia,
the Russian Supreme Soviet has not ruled out the possibility of
using economic sanctions against the two Baltic states. (Dzintra
Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV ON MILITARY REDUCTIONS, RUSSIAN MINORITIES. In a
wide-ranging interview published by Rossiiskaya gazeta on 21
October, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev repeated Moscow's
plans to stand-down strategic missiles throughout the CIS. He also
said that air defense troops on the island of Novaya Zemlya would
be significantly reduced, while several radar units and fighter
squadrons would be transferred to the mainland. He said that there
was now little difference between nuclear and conventional war.
Turning to the former Soviet republics, he said that there were no
immediate plans to withdraw the 201st motor rifle regiment from
Tajikistan, the 345th parachute assault regiment (or any other
troops) from Abkhazia, or the 14th Army from Moldova. Russian
assault troops will be withdrawn in the very near future from
South Ossetia, he said. Grachev also defended orders he has issued
for Russian troops to protect themselves, saying that it was "not
I who sent the troops into our former republics, and it is not for
me to decide how and when to withdraw them." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL
Inc.)
HARDLINERS RENEW CLAIM ON IZVESTIA. The Russian parliament has
renewed its claim to the newspaper, Izvestiya, ITAR-TASS reported
on 20 October. Both chambers of the parliament voted in favor of
taking over the founding rights for the Izvestiya publishing
house, and authorized the Presidium of the parliament to appoint a
new director. The bill calls on the parliamentary presidium to
confirm the publishing house's charter and to appoint its
director. The conservative-minded parliament had already made an
attempt last summer to take the newspaper under its jurisdiction,
but President Boris Yeltsin resisted the move by issuing a decree
confirming the paper's independence. Information Minister Mikhail
Poltoranin said that the Russian leadership will appeal the
decision to the Constitutional Court. (Alexander Rahr & Vera Tolz,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN ACCUSED OF CURBING FREEDOM OF SPEECH. The former director
of St. Petersburg TV, Viktor Yugin, complained that President
Yeltsin's latest decree abolishing the independence of his TV
station by placing it under governmental control is aimed at
silencing criticism of Yeltsin's policies, Western news agencies
reported on 20 October. He said that the decree curbs freedom of
speech. Information Minister Mikhail Poltoranin had accused St.
Petersburg TV of favoring hardliners and nationalists. Yeltsin
decreed that the station, which broadcast on the fifth channel, be
transformed from a local into a federal Russian TV company called
Rossiya. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARLIAMENT CHAMBER VOTES ON FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BILL. The Russian
parliament's Council of Nationalities approved on the first
reading a draft law which gives citizens of Russia the right to
freely choose their place of residence within the Federation,
ITAR-TASS reported on 20 October. This draft eliminates the
existing system of residence permits according to which the
authorities could give or deny citizens the right to live in any
city or village of the country. ITAR-TASS said the Council of
Nationalities called for more revisions to the draft aimed at
eliminating several unclear points. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE EXCHANGE RATE DROPS FURTHER. The ruble fell to 368 to the US
dollar at the 20 October trading session of the Moscow Interbank
Currency Exchange, Biznes-TASS reported. The rate on 15 October
had been 338 rubles to the dollar. The volume traded was $46.7
million, up from $37.9 million at the previous session.
Contributory factors cited included high inflationary
expectations, the continuing decline in output, and a government
decision to oblige state enterprises to convert 100% of their
hard-currency receipts at the market rate by the end of 1993.
However, this last factor may not be valid, as earlier government
pronouncements suggested that mandatory full conversion of
hard-currency would be enforced "soon." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
USE OF FOREIGN CREDITS IN RUSSIA. On 20 October, the Russian
Government Collegium approved a draft directive on the use of
foreign credits, Interfax reported. The directive, which was
proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin, distinguishes
between trade and investment credits. To receive a trade credit,
an enterprise must pay its entire cost outright, either in hard
currency or in rubles at the market rate. To receive an investment
credit, the enterprise will have to pay 15% of the total value in
advance and undertake to repay the balance within the stipulated
period. The credits will be distributed on a competitive basis
through auctions instead of being administratively allocated.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV WANTS TV TIME TO REPLY TO ZORKIN. On 20 October, former
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sent a letter to the chairman
of the Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company, Oleg
Poptsov, requesting TV time to reply to accusations made against
him by Constitutional Court Chairman Valerii Zorkin. At a TV press
conference, Zorkin attacked Gorbachev for ignoring summons to
attend the constitutional court and described them as evidence of
Gorbachev's disrespect for the law. He said that Gorbachev has
deprived himself of the rights of Russian citizenship. Interfax
quoted Gorbachev's letter as saying that the press conference cast
doubt on Zorkin's objectivity and independence. On 20 October,
deputy prime minister and information minister Mikhail Poltoranin
reiterated that Russian authorities hold "very serious documents"
signed by Gorbachev that could incriminate the former Soviet
leader. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PESSIMISTIC ON ECONOMY. Newly
appointed Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma says that
Ukraine's economy is in worse condition than he had suspected,
Reuters reported on 19 October. Kuchma is reported to have told
the Ukrinform news agency that he could not promise "an easy life"
and that the economic situation would grow worse. At the same
time, he promised that his government would work
"conscientiously." Kuchma is due to announce his cabinet next
week. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
MEETING OF UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN INDUSTRIALISTS. Ukrainian and
Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs were scheduled to meet in
Belgorod on 20 October to discuss coordination of their
activities, Radio "Mayak" reported. It was expected that Arkadii
Volsky and Vasilii Yevtukhov, the heads of the Russian and
Ukrainian organizations of industrialists and entrepreneurs, would
address the meeting. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
NO PROGRESS IN ABKHAZ PEACE TALKS. Georgian Foreign Minister
Aleksandre Chikvaidze returned to Tbilisi on 20 October after
talks with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in which no
progress was made on an Abkhaz peace settlement, Russian foreign
ministry spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky told Interfax. Parallel
talks took place behind closed doors in Sukhumi on 19 October
between members of the ethnic Abkhaz and Georgian factions within
the Abkhaz parliament, ITAR-TASS reported. Continued fighting
between Abkhaz and Georgian troops was reported near Sukhumi and
Ochamchire on 19-20 October. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE OFFICIAL GEORGIAN ELECTION RESULTS? Ten
days after the Georgian parliamentary elections, the central
electoral commission has apparently still not made public the
composition of the new parliament. On 20 October the unofficial
Iberia News Agency cited statistics on the distribution of 145 of
the total 234 seats, which confirm earlier predictions that the
Mshvidoba (Peace) bloc, which is dominated by former Communist
Party apparatchiks, is the largest single faction within the new
parliament with 24 seats, followed by the moderate 11 October and
Unity blocs with 18 and 14 seats respectively. The Neue Zuercher
Zeitung reported on 14 October that 226 seats in the new
parliament had been filled. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARMENIA APPOINTS NEW DEFENSE MINISTER. Former Prime Minister
Vazgen Manukyan, who resigned over policy disagreements with Levon
Ter-Petrossyan in September 1991, shortly before the latter's
election as Armenian President, has been appointed Armenian
Minister of Defence, according to Armen-Press-TASS. Manukyan
replaces Vazgen Sarkisyan, who has been named special advisor to
Ter-Petrossyan and envoy to the Armenian raions bordering on
Azerbaijan. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
RESIGNATION OF VALERII TISHKOV. Valerii Tishkov, chairman of
Russia's State Committee for Nationality Affairs, has resigned
after only seven months in office, Radio Rossii reported on 19
October. Tishkov told Rossiiskie vesti (20 October) that one
reason was his inability to get a new building in the center of
Moscow or recruit the best people for the committee. More
important reasons were the senselessness of many Russian laws,
which were dictated by narrow political interests (Tishkov cited
in particular the laws on the rehabilitation of the repressed
peoples and the Cossacks which anyone aware of the situation knew
would only provoke conflicts) and the failure of the top
decision-making bodies to consult the committee. (Ann Sheehy,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN AT OPENING OF YAKUT PERMANENT REPRESENTATION. Continuing
his wooing of the Russian Federation's republics, Yeltsin attended
the opening of the permanent representation of the republic of
Sakha (Yakutia) in Moscow on 20 October, ITAR-TASS reported.
Yeltsin said that the representations of the republics in Moscow
would have a special role to play in the development of new
federal relations. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONFEDERATION OF CAUCASIAN PEOPLES' PARLIAMENT CALLS FOR
DENUNCIATION OF FEDERAL TREATY. The session of the parliament of
the Confederation of Caucasian Peoples in Groznyi on 18 October
endorsed the decision of the October Congress of the Mountain
Peoples of the Caucasus to call on the North Caucasian republics
to denounce the federal treaty with Russia, Interfax reported on
20 October. Interfax said that the parliament also decided to send
a delegation to Baku to discuss the Lezgin question. The
consequences of the possible establishment of a state frontier
between Russian and Azerbaijan that would split the Lezgin people
is to be discussed at the 4th Congress of the Lezgin People in
early November. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Tajik Foreign Minister Khudoberdy
Kholiknazarov and newly appointed State Advisor Davlat
Khudonazarov met with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev on
20 October to explore ways to find a way to end the civil war in
southern Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS reported. None of the three
described what concrete proposals had been discussed, but Kozyrev
said that Russian help could not take the form of interference in
Tajikistan's internal affairs. Tajikistan's highest-ranking Muslim
clergyman, Kazi Akbar Turadzhonzoda, was reported by a Western
news agency to have said on 19 October that Russia could end the
Tajik civil war in two days if it wanted, by ending its support
for fighters in Kulyab Oblast who oppose the present Tajik
government. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
LENINABAD OFFICIALS APPEAL FOR RUSSIAN HELP. Officials in
Tajikistan's Leninabad Oblast have issued an appeal for more
Russian troops to be sent to the country, Khovar-TASS reported on
20 October. Leninabad, which has rejected the inclusion of
opposition forces in the government in Dushanbe and which is known
for procommunist sympathies, has succeeded in staying out of the
armed conflict that has ravaged southern Tajikistan since June.
The oblast leadership denied that arms from Leninabad have been
supplied to forces in the south that support deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, who is now living in Leninabad, and it offered to
host meetings between the opposing sides in the southern conflict.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
EAST KAZAKHSTAN CANCELS CHECHEN DEPORTATION. The Deputy Chairman
of the East Kazakhstan Oblast Soviet, Mukhtar Nukeshev, told an
RL/RFE correspondent on 20 October that the council had reversed
its earlier order that all Chechens be expelled from the oblast.
The decision was reversed, according to Nukeshev, because a
confrontation between Kazakhs and Chechens in Ust-Kamenogorsk had
ended. Kazakhs had demonstrated for several days, demanding the
expulsion of the Chechens, after Chechens were implicated in the
murder of some Kazakhs. A commission was sent from Alma-Ata to
examine the legality of the deportation order, and Interfax
reported that a delegation from the Chechen parliament was on its
way to Ust-Kamenogorsk. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
TUDJMAN AND COSIC SIGN AGREEMENT. The New York Times reported on
21 October that the presidents of Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro
had signed an agreement under UN sponsorship in Geneva a day
earlier. The agreement commits the two to some concrete goals,
such as opening the main Belgrade-Zagreb highway as well as
liaison offices in each other's capitals. An earlier agreement
concluded on 30 September has not been truly implemented, though
one clause was fulfilled on 20 October when Serbian forces
completed their withdrawal from Croatia's Prevlaka peninsula near
Dubrovnik, which is now under UN control. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL
Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. The BBC reported on 21 October that UN armored
personnel carriers had succeeded in rescuing a relief mission
trapped by fighting between Muslims and Croats in the town of
Vitez between Sarajevo and Travnik. The two sides are nominal
allies in a fight against the Serbs, but the Muslims suspect the
Croats of having agreed to the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina
with the Serbs and of now trying to consolidate their positions.
The Croats may well be keeping all options open. There have been
clashes between Muslims and Croats before, notably around Mostar,
and the Muslims wonder out loud why the Croats do not move up from
their strong positions in Herzegovina to break the siege of
Sarajevo. The BBC also said that UN human rights envoy and former
Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki had visited Serbian and
Muslim detention camps in Bosnia on 20 October. Mazowiecki said
that the difference between the two was one of "hell and
happiness," with hundreds of Muslims living in cramped conditions
on the floors of the Serb camp, while a smaller number of Serbs
had "proper beds and two regular meals per day" in the Muslim
facility. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOSOVO ALBANIAN STUDENTS POSTPONE PROTESTS. The Committee for
Albanian Education in Kosovo has suspended protests by ethnic
Albanian pupils and students until officials of the rump federal
Yugoslav and Serbian education ministries meet representatives of
Albanian educational associations on 22 October in Belgrade. The
committee warned the protests would continue if talks did not
yield "concrete results," Radio Serbia reported on 19 October.
Ibrahim Rugova, chairman of Kosovo's main party, the Democratic
League, reiterated in the latest issue of the Albanian weekly
Bujku his insistence on creating a "neutral and independent
Kosovo," as the basis for all his talks with Serbian officials.
Serbia opposes any form of sovereignty for Kosovo whose population
is over 90% Albanian. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WILL THERE BE EARLY ELECTIONS IN SERBIA? According to Radio Serbia
on 19 October, parliamentary caucus chairmen in Serbia's National
Assembly agreed at a closed-door meeting with Assembly President
Aleksandar Bakocevic that early elections should be held in Serbia
by the end of this year. They also agreed that republican
elections should be held on the same day as federal elections.
Proposals on their organization and date are to be submitted by
the end of this week. A constitutional amendment allowing for
early general and presidential elections failed to win public
approval in a recent referendum. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAKIA POSTPONES DIVERSION OF DANUBE... Slovakia announced on 20
October that it would postpone the planned opening of the
Gabcikovo hydroelectric project which involves diverting the
Danube. A spokesman for the Slovak government said that the
decision was based on technical, rather than political
considerations and that the river would be diverted by November.
The Czechoslovak federal government will discuss the possibility
of setting up a three-party commission of Czechoslovak, Hungarian,
and European Community experts to settle the dispute between
Hungary and Slovakia. Negotiations between the interested parties
are beginning in Brussels today. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
..AND ANTALL APPEALS TO WORLD LEADERS. Meanwhile, MTI reported
that Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall sent a letter to
leading politicians in Europe and North America (including
Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin) in which he made it
clear that the diversion of the Danube "will seriously violate the
interests of the international community and create a new source
of conflict in Central Europe endangering stability and European
cooperation." Antall asked the statesmen to "help rationality to
prevail" and urge the Czechoslovak government to postpone the
diversion "at least until international inquiry and mediation
proceedings are completed." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARY DENIES ALLEGED TROOP MOVEMENTS. Following a phone inquiry
from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense about alleged Hungarian
troops movements near Rajka on the Slovak-Hungarian border,
Hungary's Defense Ministry has stated that there was no military
nor extraordinary border guard activity in that area, MTI reported
on 20 October. Hungary's Deputy State Secretary of Defense Rudolf
Joo called in the Czechoslovak military attache in Budapest and
proposed setting up a joint monitoring group to strengthen mutual
confidence and reassure the local population, as well as to
prevent misunderstandings. (Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK MINISTER REJECTS COMPLAINTS OF HUNGARIAN MINORITY. Slovak
Foreign Minister Milan Knazko accused Miklos Duray, the Chairman
of the predominantly ethnic-Hungarian opposition party Coexistence
of stirring ethnic tensions in Slovakia, CSTK reported on 20
October. Earlier, Duray told reporters that the new Slovak
constitution sharply curtailed minority rights and that Hungarians
were in many respects worse off now than under the communist
regime. Knazko said that these statements were "unfounded and
baseless." He added that Duray was a "militant, interpreting the
constitution in a twisted way to hurt ethnic relations in Slovakia
for political reasons." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CHASTISED BULGARIAN PREMIER. After a closed
session which carried on past midnight, a narrow majority of the
Bulgarian parliament on 21 October chastised Prime Minister Filip
Dimitrov for his way of dealing with a Macedonian request to buy
arms from Bulgaria, BTA reported. Dimitrov was criticized for
actions that might have led to "lowering the country's prestige"
and "damage to national security." Parliament praised the
investigation led by head of counterespionage, General B.
Asparuhov, but expressed disapproval that he had stated publicly
his suspicions of government involvement in illegal arms deals.
All UDF deputies boycotted the vote in protest. A day earlier the
UDF daily Demokratsiya published what it claimed were the minutes
of a 2 October meeting between the Premier and President Zhelyu
Zhelev, according to which the two had agreed that Dimitrov had
acted in an appropriate manner. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILIESCU HOLDS TALKS ON FUTURE CABINET. On 20 October Romanian
President Ion Iliescu held talks on forming a government with
leaders of the parties represented in parliament. According to
Radio Bucharest, Iliescu received leaders of the Democratic
National Salvation Front (DNSF) which had backed him in the 27
September elections; the National Peasant Party--Christian
Democratic; the Democratic Agrarian Party; the Civic Alliance
Party; the Party of Romanian National Unity; and the National
Salvation Front (NSF). NSF leader Petre Roman stated that he had
offered support for the rival DNSF in parliament on condition that
it promised to foster market reforms despite its pledges to the
contrary during the electoral campaign. He also said that the NSF
might join a coalition government that included the centrist
Democratic Convention. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW POLITICAL PARTY IN LATVIA. On 17 October, 98 delegates
convened in Riga for the formal founding of the Democratic Center
Party. The main speakers were Supreme Council Deputy Janis Skapars
and former Deputy Prime Minister Ilmars Bisers, who said that the
party would aim to steer a moderate course both politically and
economically and seek its adherents among all the nationalities
living in Latvia. Among the new party's activistists are former
liberal communists who supported and worked for the People's Front
of Latvia when it was founded in October 1988, Radio Riga reported
on 18 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT PROPOSES NEW BUDGET CUTS. Responding to the
Sejm's refusal to consider limiting cost-of-living increases for
pensioners in 1992, the Polish government approved new spending
cuts of 1.8 trillion zloty ($129 million) on 20 October. The cuts,
part of a package of revisions to the 1992 budget, would reduce
subsidies to the railways and defense industries, credits for
farmers, central investments and budgetary reserves. At the same
time, the government pledged to return to the pension issue in the
draft budget for 1993. Social security payments have in recent
years become a huge drag on the budget. They will amount to 20% of
expenditures in 1992 and, if unchecked, could rise to 30% in 1993.
Finance ministry officials argue that no normal state can afford
this burden. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
RECORD VOLUME ON WARSAW STOCK MARKET. Trading reached record
levels on the Warsaw stock market on 20 October after most of the
firms represented reported positive economic results for the first
three quarters of 1992. Volume exceeded 55.1 billion zloty ($4
million). Demand for shares in two firms--Prochnik and
Mostostal--was so great that trading in them had to be suspended.
Eight of the nine firms which announced their results before the
trading session opened (of the sixteen on the market) have so far
recorded profits in 1992; two others reported balances in the
black earlier in the month. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIA TO RECEIVE EC CREDITS. The finance ministers of European
Community countries agreed at a meeting in Luxemburg to release
100 million Ecu in credits to help Bulgaria overcome its present
balance of payments problems, Bulgarian and Western dailies wrote
on 20 October. The first of two installments will be made
available immediately, while the second part is to be provided
when Bulgaria has renegotiated its debt agreement with the Paris
Club of creditors. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA'S ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN SEPTEMBER. Romania's National
Statistics Board released on 20 October data on the previous
month's economic performance. Industrial production was up 5.5%
from August, but was still 23.5% below the level of September
1991. The trade balance registered a surplus of $68.2 million.
Compared to August, prices for consumer goods and staples were
10.1% and 12.1% higher, respectively. Compared with October 1990,
when price liberalization began, food prices were up 1,074%. Over
869,000 people (7.7% of the labor force) were out of work. The
communique said that seasonal sowing was behind schedule, with
only 29% of wheat fields sown. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
WALESA: SOVIET PARTY WAS "CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION." In an interview
with the Russian weekly Novoe Vremya on 20 October, Polish
President Lech Walesa took the part of Russian President Boris
Yeltsin. Walesa said the Soviet communists who enslaved Poland
were a "criminal organization." Resolving this question once and
for all through the release of documents on the Katyn massacres,
Walesa said, had opened the way for democratic relations between
the two nations. "Without Yeltsin," Walesa said, "this would have
been impossible." Walesa called the conflict between Yeltsin and
former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a "contest over Russia's
future policies." Only Yeltsin had understood that revealing the
full truth about the criminal nature of the communist system was
the only way to keep Russia moving forward and to forestall
efforts by former communist leaders to pretend that the old system
"wasn't really so bad." "Other Soviet leaders knew the truth but
were afraid to reveal it," Walesa observed. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL
Inc.)
UPDATE ON RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN. Radio Riga reported on 20 October
that in response to Latvian inquires about the illegal entry of a
Russian train transporting troops and missiles to Latvia from
Estonia, the Russian embassy and the Northwestern Group of Forces
leadership apologized, claiming that this was a "misunderstanding"
and that the Estonian authorities regretted that they had not
promptly informed Latvia of the Russian military's plans to send
the train. Minister of State Janis Dinevics said that a protest
note had been sent and that Latvia would seek a peaceful solution
to the incident. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIAN OPPOSITION CALLS NEW GOVERNMENT NATIONALIST-SOCIALIST.
Two opposition factions in the Estonian parliament are calling the
proposed Pro-Patria-Moderates-ENIP government "national
socialist," BNS reports. The Coalition Party Alliance and the
Rural Union Alliance, which together formed the pre-election
coalition Secure Home, circulated a statement criticizing the
government program approved on 20 October by the Riigikogu. The
Secure Home coalition is made up of former Savisaar government
ministers and collective/state farm directors. (Riina Kionka,
RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.121.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 204, October 22, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN UNDER ATTACK. Hardliners will seek to impeach President
Boris Yeltsin and abolish the institution of the presidency at the
next Congress, Komsomolskaya pravda reported on 20 October. The
opposition is united in a newly created front of national
salvation: an organization that has already started to establish
its units on the local level. In Ekaterinburg, for example, the
front conducted a congress of workers, peasants and "labor
intelligentsia" of the Central Urals which called for Yeltsin's
resignation. The Civic Union, which apparently helped set up the
front, has now officially distanced itself from that organization.
Yeltsin and Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi have reportedly joined
forces to fight the Front. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONGRESS WILL TAKE PLACE IN DECEMBER. The Russian parliament has
rejected the proposal made by President Yeltsin and the leaders of
the republics of the Russian Federation to postpone the Seventh
Congress of People's Deputies until spring 1993, ITAR-TASS reported
on 21 October. Observers believe that the Congress, which is
scheduled to start on 1 December, may seriously weaken the position
of Yeltsin and the reformist government. At the suggestion of the
Civic Union, parliament also summoned for testimony four senior
members of the Russian leadership (Gennadii Burbulis, Andrei
Kozyrev, Mikhail Poltoranin and Anatolii Chubais), who at a press
conference on 16 October had warned of an impending coup attempt
against the President by members of the legislature. Parliament
will demand that the ministers to explain their reasons for issuing
this warning. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
ANOTHER WARNING OF HYPERINFLATION IN RUSSIA. Professor Jeffrey
Sachs has warned of hyperinflation in Russia, The Times reported on
21 October. Speaking at a London conference on banking reform in
Eastern Europe organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, Sachs stated that the Russian money supply had
ballooned by 150% since 1 July, from 1.5 trillion to 4 trillion
rubles. This has caused prices to accelerate by perhaps 10% a week,
that is, an annual rate of more than 14,000%. "There has been no
help from outside and Russia's problems are about to explode."
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT HIKES PENSIONS. On 21 October, the Russian
parliament enacted a bill "On Raising State Pensions in the Russian
Federation," Interfax reported. This stipulates an increase in the
minimum state pension from 900 rubles to 2,250 rubles a month,
effective 1 November. It also provides for indexing minimum
pensions every three months, starting on 1 February 1993. (On 19
October, ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian government proposed to
raise the minimum wage from 900 to 2,250 rubles starting in January
1993). No price tag was put on the pension increase, but the
finance minister and the employment minister warned parliament of
the inflationary impact. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILO PREDICTS STEEP RISE IN RUSSIAN UNEMPLOYMENT. The ILO has
carried out its second survey of industrial enterprises in Moscow
and St. Petersburg, and is predicting that mass layoffs will begin
early in 1993, according to western agencies on 21 October. The
first survey covered 500 enterprises, and the second one, carried
out in mid-1992, covered 191, 109 of which were also included in
the earlier survey. After the first survey the ILO predicted that
unemployment figures would reach ten to eleven million by the end
of 1992. The numbers of unemployed registered with the state
employment service in September was however still below 1 million.
40% of the enterprises covered by the second survey claim that they
will cut employment by mid 1993. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
KUCHMA ON ECONOMY, POLITICS. Newlyappointed Ukrainian Prime
Minister Leonid Kuchma told Le Figaro that Ukraine has been
preoccupied with politics rather than economics. Privatization, he
asserted, should have begun a long time ago. His remarks appear in
an interview published in the newspaper on 21 October. Kuchma
argues that privatization should be initially focused on the trade
and service sector and that farmers should be given the land to
work. In the industrial sector, small and middle-sized enterprises
should be privatized, but the nuclear, energy, and military
industries must remain under state control. Kuchma also told the
newspaper that he proposes the formation of a government of popular
trust that will be committed to the reform process. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINE CAUTIONED ON SEPARATE CURRENCY. Ukrainian Central Bank
Chairman Vadim Hetman told a Kiev news conference on 21 October
that it was technically possible to launch the hrivnya by the end
of the year, but he advised against it, Reuters reported. "Nowhere
has it proven possible to introduce a new currency amid
catastrophic economic conditions." Hetman recommended that the
country first work out a coherent reform program based on
privatization. He repeated Ukraine's intention of paying its 16.37%
share of the debt of the former Soviet Union, and ruled out
Russia's proposals that Moscow assume full responsibility for the
debt provided that it inherited all former Soviet assets. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
FOREIGN POLICY "CONCEPT" TO APPEAR SOON. The Russian Foreign
Ministry's long-awaited "concept" of Russian foreign policy--a
statement which is intended to map out Russia's overall foreign
policy goals and stances--is expected to appear soon. Nezavisimaya
gazeta reported on 21 October that the 53-page document is all but
complete and needs only President Yeltsin's stamp of approval.
According to the paper, the Foreign Ministry's report continues to
emphasize good relations with the "near abroad" (the former
republics of the USSR), and rejects the use of strong-arm tactics
in this region. The authors of the document emphasize the utility
of bilateral agreements, thus continuing a trend of Russian policy
toward the near abroad, which started in the spring of 1992, and
which is designed to hedge against the collapse of the CIS.
(Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN TO SPEAK AT FOREIGN MINISTRY. Reports about the coming
publication of the Foreign Ministry concept coincide with reports
that President Yeltsin plans to address the Russian Foreign
Ministry in late October. His talk will be designed to show support
for the embattled policy line of Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian
foreign minister, Interfax reported on 20 October. The fact that
this speech will occur in the weeks preceding the Congress of the
People's Deputies is intended to send a message to legislators:
criticism of Kozyrev will not find sympathy with Yeltsin. It is
likely that the Russian president's speech will also be used for
christening the new Foreign Ministry concept for Russia's foreign
policy. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
FINANCIAL VIOLATIONS IN GORBACHEV FOUNDATION DISPUTED. An article
in Moscow News (No. 43) asserts that President Yeltsin's closure of
the Gorbachev Foundation was an act of political oppression.
According to the article, in August 1992, Yeltsin sent to the
foundation an audit commission from the Russian Ministry of Finance
with instructions "to find illegal sources and uses of the income
and property by the Gorbachev Foundation." In fact, the commission
found no financial violations, only minor cases of confusion that
resulted from unclear instructions from the newly established
Russian fiscal agency. According to Moscow News, the Russian
government is trying to convince the public that the foundation's
employees have enriched themselves at the public's expense, but
this accusation is totally unfounded, since the Russian government
has not contributed a single ruble either to the foundation or to
the upkeep of its premises. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS RATIFIES THE CFE TREATY. The Supreme Soviet of the Republic
of Belarus ratified the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty
at a closed session on 21 October, ITAR-TASS reported. The treaty,
which sets limits on five categories of conventional weapons in
Europe, came into force on 17 July this year. Armenia is now the
only one of the 29 signatories not to have ratified the treaty.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENT. Interfax reported on 21 October that
Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev has appointed Vice Admiral
Petr Svyatashov Chief of Staff of the Black Sea Fleet. The report
provided no details as to the exact role that the Admiral would
play in the disputed fleet or whether his appointment needed also
to be approved by the Ukrainian side. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
OUTLINES OF THE NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT. The new Ukrainian cabinet
of ministers will retain Konstantin Morozov and Anatolii Zlenko,
the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, respectively,
according to remarks made by Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma to
Interfax on 21 October. Kuchma also said that probably the
ministers for industry, the military-industrial complex, conversion
(Viktor Antonov), and health (Yurii Spizhenko) would also be
included in the new government. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN STUDENTS CONTINUE STRIKE. As of 19 October, 22 students
were continuing their hunger strike in Kiev as part of a campaign
to force new parliamentary elections and Ukraine' withdrawal from
the CIS. At the same time, more students have abandoned their
classrooms in support of the campaign. All institutes of higher
education in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk have gone on strike, as well
as the Luhanksk Pedagogical Institute, the Ukrainian National
Humanitarian Lyceum, individual departments of Kiev State
University, the Kiev Polytechnic, and the Kiev Agricultural
Institute. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN-ABKHAZ TALKS. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and
Abkhaz parliament chairman Vladislav Ardzinba met in Moscow on 21
October. Ardzinba subsequently told journalists that the talks had
yielded a better understanding of the issues at stake but no
progress had been made on resolving the conflict. He affirmed that
Abkhazia was complying with the terms of the 3 September ceasefire
agreement and wanted a peaceful settlement, but insisted that
Georgia withdraw its troops from Abkhazia. Ardzinba also accused
Georgia of wishing to create "a new unitary state structure" that
would entail the abolition of any autonomy for Abkhazia, ITAR-TASS
reported. (Liz Fuller)
RUSSIAN COMMANDER WARNS GEORGIANS. Interfax reported on 21 October
that General Fedor Reut, commander of the Transcaucasus Military
District, has sent a letter to Eduard Shevardnadze warning him that
attacks on Russian military personnel in Georgia could lead to
unpredictable consequences. The report suggested that the letter
was not written in a hostile tone, and speculated that Reut is
himself bound by instructions from Russian Deputy Defense Minister
Georgii Kondratev and by a General Sigutkin, identified in the
report as the Russian Defense Ministry's special representative in
Abkhazia. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN SIGN PROTOCOL ON RAIL TRAFFIC. The ongoing
talks between Armenian and Azerbaijani defense ministry officials
on safeguarding rail traffic between the two states resulted on 21
October in the signing of a protocol establishing security zones
along the frontiers between the two states from which all armed
formations and military hardware are to be withdrawn on 24-25
October, Radio Erevan reported on 21 October. Implementation of the
agreement will be monitored by Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian
observers. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
WORSENING SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Deputy Prime Minister Asmiddin
Sohibnazarov appealed to the world community for humanitarian aid,
saying on 21 October that there are now more than 200,000 refugees
who have fled their homes to escape fighting in the southern parts
of Tajikistan. Most have gone to Dushanbe and the Kulyab and
Leninabad Oblasts, and local resources are nearly exhausted.
Sohibnazarov's appeal follows reports that the economic situation
of the country is disastrous. Much of Tajikistan's cotton crop was
not harvested, and several regions, including Kulyab Oblast, face
severe shortages of food. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DIVISION GIVEN PERMISSION TO SHOOT. On October 21,
ITAR-TASS reported that the commander of the Russian motorized
division stationed in Tajikistan has authorized his men to shoot
without warning if their personal safety is threatened. An increase
in the number of attacks on division soldiers has been reported
recently. Tajik militiamen have also been authorized to fire on
vehicles ignoring an order to stop. The same day, ITAR-TASS
reported that acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov wants units of
the Russian division to take part in peacekeeping operations and
has submitted a plan to the representative of the Russian Defense
Ministry in Dushanbe. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT ON LEFT BANK'S STATUS. President Mircea Snegur
outlined Moldova's policy on the "Dniester" question to a visiting
party of fifty-six Russian journalists in Chisinau on 16 October,
as reported by Moldovapres and Interfax, and in an interview with
Nezavisimaya gazeta of 21 October. Moldova will continue to resist
its transformation into a "federation" of republics and the
creation of a "Dniester republic" with an army, security services,
border guards, and other attributes of statehood. Chisinau is,
however, prepared to grant the left bank of the Dniester
"self-government" with political, economic, and cultural autonomy,
within an "integral and indivisible" Moldova. Chisinau is also
ready to recognize the left bank's full right of self-determination
in the event of "a change in Moldova's status as a state" (that is,
unification with Romania, which the "Dniester" Russian leadership
professes to fear and which Moldova itself opposes). (Vladimir
Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
UN STOPS RELIEF FLIGHTS TO SARAJEVO. The 22 October Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the UN had announced the previous
day that fighting between Croats and Muslims near Novi Travnik had
made it impossible to continue aid flights safely, and that the
missions would be stopped. The previous weekend, similar fighting
had prompted the UN to halt overland shipments from Split.
Sarajevo's food reserves are reportedly exhausted, and tank shells
recently put the city's vital flour mill out of action. Meanwhile,
an RFE/RL correspondent at the UN said on 21 October that Milan
Panic, prime minister of the rump Yugoslavia, had offered to
provide a secure overland relief route from Belgrade to Sarajevo.
Panic pledged 100 trucks with drivers and safe passage, but it was
not clear whether he could actually bring Bosnian Serb leaders
ground to agree. Finally, the 22 October Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung quoted UN human rights envoy Tadeusz Mazowiecki as
reporting from Bosnia that it was not a question of refugees
surviving the winter, but of their surviving the autumn. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
WHAT IS GOING ON IN BOSNIA? The 22 October Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung said that Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic had told UN
mediator Cyrus Vance in Geneva that he approved dividing his
republic into 8 to 10 cantons set up on a geographic, not an
ethnic, basis. Izetbegovic said he would not stand for reelection
when his term runs out on 18 December, but he denied rumors in the
Croatian media that he had already been toppled by Vice President
Ejup Ganic in a coup allegedly aimed at uniting Bosnia with rump
Yugoslavia. Bosnian officials mocked the Croatian reports, calling
them "silly" and propagandistic. The 22 October New York Times
reported that the current wave of fighting between Muslims and
Croats might be the result of desperation by the Muslims, who might
well fear that the Croats and possibly Izetbegovic have made a deal
with Belgrade at their expense. Another theory suggested that
Izetbegovic was trying to rally Muslim troops serving in Croatian
units to turn on the Croats in a desperate life-or-death struggle.
Finally, as if to add to the confusion, international media on 21
October reported renewed fighting between Serbs and Croats
southeast of Dubrovnik. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONTROVERSY OVER INTERIOR MINISTRY CONTINUES IN BELGRADE. The
independent Belgrade daily Borba warned on 20 October that the
takeover by Serbian police of the Federal Interior Ministry in
Belgrade has heightened tensions between Serbia's President
Slobodan Milosevic and leaders of the federal rump Yugoslav
government and raised fears of the army's intervention. A statement
by Serbia's main opposition party, the Serbian Renewal Movement,
described the move as "Milosevic's foolish resolve to provoke war
in Serbia" adding that "to keep his own position, this man is
prepared to turn Belgrade into Sarajevo." A Serbian Interior
Ministry statement said that the federal administration had to move
out because a Belgrade court ruled the building was the property of
the Republic of Serbia. However, Bratimir Tocanac, head of that
court said he knew nothing about such a ruling, according to Radio
Serbia on 20 October. The Federal Interior Ministry relocated to
the federal government's Palace of the Federation building and
announced it would prosecute the Serbian police, who, according to
Belgrade media, were backed by Serbian militia from Croatia and
Bosnia. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOSOVO DEVELOPMENTS. Radio Serbia reported on 21 October that 19
ethnic Albanians had been convicted by a provincial court of
planning to use violent means to seek Kosovo's independence from
Serbia. The group, allegedly members of the National Front of
Albanians, were given sentences totalling more than 70 years.
International media reported that Bujar Bukoshi, Prime Minister of
the selfproclaimed Republic of Kosovo, has urged the US to press
Serbia to lift martial law and also asked the UN to impose a
"no-fly" zone over Kosovo and take control of Serbian military
hardware there. Bukoshi added that such actions were necessary in
order to head off an imminent "massacre" of Albanians by heavily
armed Serbs. He made the remarks at the end of his three day visit
to the US on 21 October. Kosovo's Albanians, who make up more than
90% of the province's population, reject Serbian domination and
seek independence. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW ESTONIAN GOVERNMENT. President Lennart Meri named Prime
Minister Mart Laar's choices for the new government on 21 October,
local sources report. The new government, drawn from the strongly
promarket ruling coalition of Pro Patria, the Moderates and
Estonian National Independence Party, stands as follows: former
deputy Foreign Minister Trivimi Velliste (Pro Patria) for Foreign
Affairs; Kiel professor Hain Rebas (ENIP) for Defense; former
dissident Lagle Parek (ENIP) for Interior Affairs; Stockholm
economist Madis Uurike for Finance; former deputy speaker Marju
Lauristin (Moderates) for Social Welfare; agronomist Ain Saarmann
(Pro Patria) for the Economy; former Supreme Council deputy Kaido
Kama (Pro Patria) for Justice; poet Paul-Eerik Rummo (Pro Patria)
for Culture; agricultural engineer Jaan Leetsar (Moderates) for
Agriculture; former Transportation Ministry functionary Andi
Meister (ENIP) for Transportation; geographer and former Supreme
Council deputy Andres Tarand (Moderates) for the Environment. The
two ministers without portfolio include scientist and former
Supreme Council deputy Liia Hanni (Moderates) for Minister of
Reform; and Toronto energy executive Arvo Niitenberg for Energy, a
post he held under the previous government. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL
Inc.)
LATVIAN GOVERNMENT SURVIVES VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. With the exception
of the Minister for Economic Reforms, the government of Prime
Minister Ivars Godmanis survived the vote of no confidence in the
Latvian Supreme Council, Baltic media reported on 21 October. Votes
were also taken against Foreign Minister Janis Jurkans and Internal
Affairs Minister Ziedonis Cever, but failed to force their
resignation. After these votes it appears unlikely that the
government will resign en masse. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ELECTION LAW ADOPTED IN LATVIA. On 20 October the Latvian Supreme
Council adopted a new election law that stipulates that all
citizens of Latvia can vote, provided they are at least 18 years
old and have not been members of organizations opposing Latvia's
independence, such as the KGB, Radio Riga reported. (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN PREMIER ASKS FOR CONFIDENCE VOTE. On the evening of 21
October the Bulgarian government proposed that the National
Assembly take, on the following day, a vote of confidence on the
government's performance and policies, BTA reported. Prime Minister
Filip Dimitrov, who had been rebuked by parliament earlier that day
for his decision to send a political adviser to discuss an arms
deal with Macedonian leaders, told reporters that a government
could not continue to rule if it had been denigrated and its arms
and legs were tied. In a statement the UDF's governing body accused
President Zhelyu Zhelev of instigating recent attacks on the
government. Emergency talks between UDF leaders and their MRF
counterparts, who hold the balance of power in parliament, carried
on through the night. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
NO COALITION GOVERNMENT IN SIGHT IN ROMANIA. On 21 October
Romania's President Ion Iliescu ended two days of talks with
political party leaders on forming a government. Interviewed by
Radio Bucharest, Iliescu admitted that the talks had failed to
produce a national unity government, or a broad-based coalition
involving the main political parties. He added that the focus would
now shift to the possibility of forming a narrower coalition led by
his Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF). Iliescu, who called
for "a political pact" in the parliament, proposed a parliamentary
"moratorium," a period of grace during which the parties that did
not join the ruling coalition would not obstruct a DNSF-led
government. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW DATE SET FOR DIVERSION OF DANUBE. Czechoslovak Foreign Minister
Jozef Moravcik said on 21 October that the planned diversion of the
Danube as part of the controversial Gabcikovo hydroelectric project
will take place on 3 November, CSTK reported. Moravcik's
announcement conflicts with earlier official Slovak statements
which said that the diversion would begin on 7 November. The
federal foreign minister also said that his government was ready to
take into consideration any recommendations of the EC as long as
they were presented by 2 November at the latest. He added that the
diversion of the Danube was not irreversible and that even after
the damming of the river the Danube can be diverted to its original
river bed. Meanwhile, Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and EC officials are
scheduled to discuss Gabcikovo in Brussels today. They will
consider the setting up of a tripartite commission that would offer
solutions for the current deadlock. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAKIA COMMEMORATES DEPORTED JEWS. A memorial ceremony was held
on 21 October in the Slovak town of Nitra in remembrance of Slovak
Jews who were deported to death camps during the war. The ceremony
marked the 50th anniversary of the first group of Slovak Jews to be
sent to the camps. In the presence of Slovak Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar, Slovak parliament Chairman Ivan Gasparovic, and
Israel's Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Yoel Scher, a monument was
unveiled to commemorate the estimated 70,000 people who were
deported. Gasparovic told the 300 people who gathered for the
ceremony that there will be no room for racism and anti-Semitism in
the new Slovak state. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAW ON CZECH PRESS AGENCY. The Czech
National Council approved a law on the new Czech Press Agency (CTK)
on 21 October. The law makes provision for the introduction of CTK
as a legal public entity on 15 November and its full privatization
within the next two years. It stipulates that no government
official or Czech parliamentary deputy may become CTK's director or
sit on the 7-member council that will oversee its activities. The
council will be elected by the Czech National Council. Unlike its
federal predecessor, CSTK, CTK will not be obliged to publish
official government statements. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
LIMITED CONVERTIBILITY FOR HUNGARIAN CURRENCY. Radio Budapest
reported on 21 October that the Hungarian government had accepted
the basic outline of a new law on the convertibility of the forint.
After the law is passed by parliament, Hungarian enterprises will
be able to freely convert their forints into foreign currency for
business purposes. This is an important step forward toward the
liberalization of the forint's convertibility and an indication of
Hungary's good foreign trade and balance of payment performance.
(Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
IMF APPROVES CREDIT FOR LITHUANIA. On 21 October the executive
board of directors of the IMF accepted the Lithuanian economic
reform program and approved credits of $82 million in the next
eleven months, Radio Lithuania reported. Part of the credits will
be paid out immediately with additional credits at the end of
February, May, and August. Lithuania will begin paying the annual
interest of 4-6% in 1994 with the deadline for paying the balance
of the loan in 1998. The board of the World Bank is expected to
discuss granting a $60 million import loan to Lithuania on 22
October. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
BICKAUSKAS PERPLEXED OVER RUSSIAN ANNOUNCEMENT. Lithuania's charge
d'affaires in Moscow Egidijus Bickauskas told Baltfax on 20 October
that he was perplexed over a Russian announcement to suspend the
troop withdrawals from the Baltic States. Recalling that Russian
officials had already signed several documents stipulating 31
August 1993 as the completion date for the troop pullouts from
Lithuania, Bickauskas expressed regret that "once again [Russia]
has unilaterally announced plans to break its own commitments" and
noted that such actions shed doubt on the sincerity of statements
of Russian representatives who said they were striving to resolve
these problems. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS DOUBTS RUSSIAN MILITARY WITHDRAWAL FROM LITHUANIA WILL
BE SUSPENDED. On 21 October Lithuanian parliament chairman Vytautas
Landsbergis told reporters that he thought that the statement of
the Russian Defense Ministry on suspending the withdrawal of troops
from the Baltic States was "meant for inner use and to calm down
certain influential group assemblies of officers, by showing a
general concern for their social needs," BNS reports. Noting that
the texts of the agreements on the withdrawal made provision for
postponing the removal of units if preparations for their
settlement were not complete, he said that "as far as he knew units
from Lithuania were not being withdrawn to empty fields," and had
no reason "to believe that the army's withdrawal from Lithuania was
to be suspended or slowed down." (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN TO LEAVE LATVIA FOR KALININGRAD? Radio Riga
reported on 21 October that preparations were being made to send to
Kaliningrad the Russian train carrying troops and weapons that
entered Latvia illegally on 19 October. The Latvian government also
decided not to confiscate the train's cargo in order to show its
good will to Russia and demonstrate its desire for a speedy
resolution of the troop withdrawal issues. Radio Riga said that the
next round of troop withdrawal talks was still expected to start on
23 October in Moscow. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.122.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 22, 1992
DUBROVNIK, CROATIA - The European Community Monitoring Mission team in
Cavtat reported that they were confined to their hotel by the Croatian
Army yesterday morning. In a press release issued by the EC in Zagreb,
they stated that on Wednesday, October 21, they were confined to their
hotel at 8:30 am by the Croatian Army. The EC in Cavtat was able to
confirm Croatian artillery in Cavtat was firing in the direction of
Jasenica on positions of the Serbian Herzegovinian Corps within Croatian
territory. By 9:15 the EC monitors confirmed small arms fire coming
from the direction of Jasenica and assessed that Croatian infantry were
moving foreward to Jasenica. At 11:30 they confirmed incoming fire from
Serbian Herzegovina Corps positions. At 14:00, the area was reported to
be quiet. The ECMM team in Cavtat withdrew from their hotel to Herzeg
-Novi because the situation had become too dangerous. The ECMM reported
the presence of Croatian Army Special Forces in Cavtat in white vehicles
similar to those commonly used by ECMM teams. The EC protested this
practice which could put the lives of the ECMM teams at risk. The EC
also expressedits regret over the activity taking place in the area as
it was against the spirit of the ceasefire established for the Dubrovnik
area. The ceasefire was originally brokered by the EC and has held for
three months until now. The renewed fighting threatens the stability of
the region and the EC said it was dismayed at the presence of Serbian
Herzegovinian Corps troops on Croatian territory and called upon them to
withdraw immediately. The Croatian Ministry of Defense also issued a
statement which refuted claims made by the EC. In their statement, the
Ministry said the Croatian side, in accordance with an agreement reached
in Geneva and Tuesday's meeting with General Kranston, head of the ECMM
for the Dubrovnik region, Croatian forces began to transport some of
their units by sea into the area because 40 meters of road between Plat
and Uvala Ljuta had been destroyed. Repairs to the road had been
prevented by the Serbian forces occupying the area. The Ministry of
Defense denied any activity in the village of Jasenica as well as any
kind of shooting in Cavtat. The statement added that Croatian units did
not remain in Cavtat because Serbian irregular units were attacking the
town and port with artillery. In addition, the statement said the Croa-
tian Army did not use white vehicles; only medical vehicles and vehicles
belonging to the Croatian Interior Ministry had arrived in Cavtat along
with several civilian vehicles which brought food and medicine to the
town, along with one press vehicle that was white in color. Serbian
sources reported an upsurge of fighting in the hills behind Dubrovnik,
in southern Bosnia- Herzegovina. The news agency Tanjug said fighting
began when Croatian forces moved towards the road to the mainly Serb
town of Trebinje...
novine.123.bale.,
Los Angeles Times Editorial, October 22, 1992
"Call It Anything but Peace"
Bosnia-Herzegovina has fallen. The attempt to create a secular,
multiethnic, multi-religous state in one of the constituent republics of
what was Yugoslavia has been crushed by the neo-fascist ambitions of
Serbia and Croatia. On Tuesday Bosnia's President Alija Izetbegovic,
under extreme duress, agreed to a division of his nation into autonomous
zones.
In essence, a secret partition agreement made in Graz, Austria, by
representatives of Croatia and Serbia is about to be implemented. Bosnia's
Muslims -- those who have not yet been expelled or slain in "ethnic
cleansing" -- will inevitably be confined to ghettos within the Serbian and
Croatian zones: Given their scattered distribution, they cannot form a
viable, territorially contiguous state.
In Geneva, amid the politesse of international diplomacy, the
agreement may be hailed as an end to the fighting, but in the hills of
Bosnia, over the coming winter, it will be butchery. The butchers could
have been beaten back.
Bosnia was prepared to fight on if the West, notably the United States,
permitted it to buy weapons. Alas, the Bush Administration insisted on
enforcing the U.N. arms embargo against the unarmed Bosnians as well as
their heavily armed attackers. The failure of a last-ditch attempt by
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic to move acting Secretary of State
Lawrence S. Eagleburger became the coup de grace.
But nations can rise from the dead. Even at this late hour, the Bush
Administration can state unequivocally that it will never grant diplomatic
recognition to a Serbia enlarged by territorial conquest and will withdraw
diplomatic recognition from Croatia if it annexes any portion of Bosnia-
Herzegovina. And if Izetbegovic or other Bosnian leaders set up a
government in exile, it should be recognized as the legitimate government.
Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic has now been undercut both by
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's seizure of much of the governmental
apparatus of federal Yugoslavia and by Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic's
role in the Geneva partition agreement. If Panic should choose to flee
Belgrade and set up a government in exile, that government too could be
recognized as legitimate, at least for a period of transition.
In short, though the West, led by the United States, has failed to
halt an international atrocity, it must not now compound the failure by
calling the atrocity peace.
novine.124.bale.,
An Open Letter to the President of
the United States of America
The Delegation of the
Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
October 15, 1992
The Honorable George Bush
President
The White House
Washington
Dear Mr. President,
On behalf of the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, we, the members of
the delegation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, representatives of the
Parliament, the Presidency and the Government, Croats, Serbs and Muslims,
demand justice for our country. We bring you this message:
We do not ask for American or any other ground troops to defend us. All
we ask for is the recognition of our right to self-defense under the UN
Charter. Negotiations alone will not bring peace. The aggressor has not
fullfiled any of the obligations ensuing from the London Conference.
Time is running out - - especially for those 400.000 people the ICRC
estimates will lose their lives this winter. It is this horrible reality
that the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina must take into account when
assessing its participation in the peace process.
For a long six months Bosnia suffers under savage attacks by the
Belgrade regime and its executioners in Bosnia. In the name of ethnic
purity and undisguised territorial expansion, one hundred thousand
people were killed, over a million expelled from their homes, and those
who could not escape are waiting to die of hunger, cold and disease.
They are incessantly shelled, bombed and slaughtered, and yet denied the
right to defend themselves. They are not asking for anyone to die for
them; they simply ask for their right to be recognized, the right to
meet force with force when everything else has failed to stop the
murder.
Mr. President, we firmly believed that the London Conference sponsored
by the democracies at the highest level would stop the aggression. We
joined the peace efforts unconditionally and have complied with all
requirements set forth by the London Conference. We place our full
confidence in and greatly appreciate the noble efforts by Mr. Vance,
Lord Owen, Mr. Ahtishaari, the United Nations High Commisioner for
Refugees, and others who help us in this hour of need. Let us not forget
those who lost their lives trying to bring in the relief.
However, what followed after the London Conference proved that the
aggressor does not intend to respect any agreement. Artillery attacks,
air raids, mass killings and ethnic cleansing have reached catastrophic
proportions. Some concentration camps were closed to deceive the world
as new ones were immediately opened. About two hundred thousand people
in the region of Banja Luka are threatened by expulsions or summary
executions. A new offensive is underway in northern Bosnia with fresh
troops coming from Serbia . The most recent casualty was Bosanski Brod.
The capital, Sarajevo, is a gigantic death camp where four hundred
thousand people live without food, running water, gas and eletricity.
Day after day they are shelled and burned in their homes or sniped off
while looking for food. Yet we are told to be patient and cooperative,
but if the aggression continues, peace efforts will soon be rendered
meaningless. We cannot cooperate in the destruction of our country.
Mr. President, the evil forces of fascism have erupted once again in
Bosnia and tremors are being felt around the world. A monstrous crime is
being commited while the world tries to look the other way. Of the dead
we shall not speak; silence and grief is left for those who have stayed
behind. But there will be thousands of blind, limbless, parentless
children to haunt us all for decades to come. Human tragedy has no
borders.
Mr. President, to treat the Bosnian tragedy as another humanitarian
problem is not right. This is a man-made catastrophe. To focus simply on
providing aid is to ignore the real problem. After all, people must be
alive to be able to receive aid. The real issue is the slaughter of tens
of thousands of civilians and the inability of the Government of
Bosnia-Herzegovina to defend its citizens. Those who argue that more
arms will bring more fighting fail to realize that now the arms are in
the hands of murderers and that more innocent people will die if they
cannot defend themselves.
The concept of global peace rests on the principle of deterring
aggression. Why should that principle be disregarded in Bosnia? Is
Bosnia the place where all principles must be abandoned? On the
contrary! Bosnia is the seam on the fabric of the humanity. It carried out
the task of bringing civilizations together with an open heart and
dignity. Throughout centuries Bosnia offered refuge to all who needed
it. It guarded the heritage of us all with its own life. In Bosnia, the
human rights of all were respected centuries before the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights come into being. Now Bosnia is being
punished for being open, universal and human - - for trying to restore
human and democratic values after decades of communist rule. In Bosnia
we want to live together, as we did for centuries, regardless of ethnic
background, religion or political affiliations. Thus, to interpret the
aggression as a civil war is an insult to those Serbs, Croats, Muslims
and Jews hiding from terrorists' shells and defending Bosnia together.
Americans should understand that, because they also regard their
diversity as an advantage. American democracy cannot deny the right for
self-defense to a new democracy. America inspired us. America cannot let
us down.
Mr. President, an arms embargo imposed on a country being annihilated by
a military machine is absurd and unjust. Help justice by lifting the
arms embargo against Bosnia. Let us stop the aggression against us. The
world is waiting for the United States of America to take the lead.
Sincerely,
Haris Silajdzic, Foreign Minister;
Muhamed Filipovic, Member of the Parliament;
Mariofil Ljubic, President of the Parliament;
Mirko Pejanovic, Member of the Presidency;
Miro Lazovic, Member of the Parliament.
novine.125.bale.,
These articles have been published in response to Allison Abbot
article published in Nature 358, 360; 1992.
*************************************************************************
NATURE VOL 359 15 OCTOBER 1992
PLIGHT OF BOSNIA AND CROATIA
SIR These are great times for the revival and advancement of
the theory of symmetry of culpability. I refer, of course, to
the war in Croatia and Bosnia, and your leading article
(Nature 358, 439; 1992), and the News story by Alison Abbott
(358, 360; 1992). There are some facts which would greatly
improve the foundations of this theory and accordingly, the
chances for peace in Europe.
Serbs, 12 per cent of the population of the Republic of
Croatia, have occupied 25 per cent of its total territory,
and effectively 'cleansed' it of Croatians, Hungarians,
Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. Serbs, 34 per cent of the
population of Bosnia and Herzegovina have occupied 60 per
cent of the total territory of that state, and are
effectively cleansing it of Croatians and Muslims. The
problem is not agricultural 'land grabbing' (agriculture has
never been a favorite subject for communists), but the
Serbian quest for control of communication lines and
corridors. The loss of these would render both states,
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a joke in terms of
contemporary non-agricultural economy.
These remarkable Serbian achievements are a product of
other initial and consequential symmetries: lighter bombers:
Serbs 600, Croats none; Tanks: Serbs 1800, Croats none; heavy
artillery: Serbs 2000, Croats none; Ordnance: Serbs huge
stockpiles of the former Yugoslav Army and supplies through
Rumania; Croats negligible initially, now carefully dosed
life-line supplies breaking the UN embargo through Slovenia
and Hungary; Major damaged cities: Serbia none; Croatia l0
(with a total population in excess of 400 000, Bosnia 8
(population in excess of 600 000; Ravaged cities: Serbia
none; Croatia 2 (Vukovar and Petrinja). Casualties are
mounting, but for each dead Serb there are 5 dead Croatians
and 20 dead Muslims (most of them civilians, women and
children).
The symmetry in the domain of science should also be
mentioned. Croatian scientists share the Serbian fear that
"prolonged sanctions will destroy" science. Croatia, with 20
per cent of the total population of the former Yugoslavia
contained some 18 per cent of registered scientists (Croatia
did not need this war to apply evaluation by per review, as
Glisin hopes for Serbia, 358, 31; 1992). Croatia was forced
to contribute 28 per cent of the total Yugoslav federal
budget and 40 per cent of foreign hard currency earnings
(1986). Croatian scientists received about l0 per cent of
federal funds (1987) for research and development, yet
produced up to 40 per cent of papers from the former
Yugoslavia cited in the Institute for Scientific Information
Science Citation Index (SCI), and issued the only two
Yugoslav scientific journals recognized by SCI (1985):
Croatica Chemica Acta and Periodicum Biologorum. The cut-off
of US sponsored cooperative projects and those with the
European Communities (EC) is symmetrical again. Croatia has
not been admitted to the EC's PHARE program.
The theory of symmetry of culpability should also take
into account the case of the Interuniversity Center for
Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik, a cooperative venture of
250 universities worldwide and year-round courses. As its
director, Professor Kathleen Wilkes of the University of
Oxford, witnessed, its building took a few well-aimed Serbian
shells and burned down along with its specialized library of
25,000 volumes.
For those unfamiliar with the theory of symmetry of
culpability, it was originated by Neville Chamberlain and
published in Munich in 1938.
Velimir Pravdic
Ruder Boskovic Institute,
PO Box 1016, Bijenicka 54,
41001 Zagreb, Croatia
******************************************************************************
SIR To write about difficulties of Serbian science and researchers and at
the same time not even mention the situation of science in Bosnia, where
dozens of university buildings, research institutions and libraries have been
set ablaze or demolished by Serbian mortar fire, is, to say the least,
hypocritical. How those burnt and demolished building compare with a
$65,000 computer'? How do burnt libraries compare with the Institute of Physics
receiving only 40 of its 180 subscriptions? Do you remember the scenes shown on
television when a crowd of Sarajevans lining up for bread was hit by a Serbian
shell? Do you remember the man lying in the puddle of blood, crying for help
and stretching his hands toward the camera? That was Professor Mahmud Dikic
with whom I worked at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University
of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that attack he lost his legs. How does
that compare with BlTNET electronic mail lines being disconnected'?
I assume that your aim was to inform us about the protests that the
Serbian scientific community is trying to articulate against their government.
The protest could be summarized by saying that, after the international
community imposed sanctions, 70 000 students occupied the university's
main building for 26 days and that all examinations were suspended until
late August. What Abbott failed to say is that this is too little, too
late. She also failed to say that the Serbian scientific community is
not as innocent as she suggests. There was no mention at all of the
role of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts and of its Memorandum
(1986) in laying the ideological framework for the formation of Greater
Serbia and the atrocities that have followed. The international scientific
community used to be very vocal against the Suppression of human rights
in Eastern Europe, but now seems to be untouched by the plight of the
Bosnian people, human rights abuses and genocide. How many other nations
will be put into the Serbian cleansing machine before the world's
scientific community react?
Sead Doric
Institut National d'Optique,
369 Rue Franquet,
Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada GlP 4NB
*****************************************************************************
SIR When black pictures of history are once again emerging in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, where more than 100 detention or death camps for Croats and
Muslims have been established by Serbians, I would have expected Serbian
scientists to be concerned about their colleagues and collaborators in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. But the major worry of Serbians seems to be about shortage
of funding, chemicals and about a Computer that has been paid for and cannot
be imported to Serbia.
Which is the guilty party'? The United Nations (UN) for striking back
with sanctions that will affect not only Serbian researchers but also the
authoritarian communist government of Serbia, or the latter for eliciting
such a response from the rest of the world?
Every scientist in Serbia should understand that silence is sometimes
the same as a lie or crime especially when it is expressed in such a selfish
manner. "As scientists we can only protest we cannot take up guns and kill
people" said Dragan Vuckovic, a Serbian scientist. What does he think about
Bosnian scientist, Croats, Muslims and loyal Serbs? Are they running their
experiments'? No, they are not, they are fighting for their own lives and
the lives of their children or starving to death in the detention camps.
No change is conceivable until human rights are acknowledged in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and until they are willing to help their colleagues to
stop the bloodshed.
The UN must exert a stronger embargo on Serbia, in the hope that in the
near future science would he restarted in a fair and democratic environment.
Ivan Dikic
NYU Medical Center,
550 First Avenue,
New York, New York 10016, USA
novine.126.bale.,
NYT Oct.22,1992 ;excerpts:
JOHN BURNS (from Sarajevo)- According to Bosnian officials, Croatia
has agreed not to challenge Serbian control of the region around Trebinje
in a southern triangle of Bosnia adjancent to Montenegro,Serbia's ally
in the truncated federation of what was once Yugoslavia................
"If Izetbegovic or anybodyelse thinks that we fought as long as we have
to capitulate now,they will not live five minutes," one militia commander
said.He was speaking at a frontline Bosnian position in Stup, a western
suburb of Sarajevo where Croatian troops pulled back in September and
allowed Serbian units to tighten the Sarajevo siege.....................
"We know only too well that fighting on involves enormous hardships and
dangers ,but the alternative would be still worse ,"said Kemal Muftic,
a senior adviser in Mr. Izetbegovic's office . What faces us is genocide,
the extinction of the Muslim people of Bosnia, and the end of 500 years
of history. So we must either confront our enemies now,with all that
entails ,or accept still greater suffering and death"....................
Just 200 days ago, B&H emerged from 1000 years of tumultuous history to
a status many Bosnians had dreamed of since their childhood - that of an
independent state, recognized by the mayor powers of Europe ,with
many of its mixed population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats eager to put
years of communist stagnation as a republic of Yugoslavia behind them....
According to documents possessed by the Bosnian Government ,Mr.Milosevic
and Radovan Karadzic secretly agreed to annex what they reffered to in
their own internal mesagges as a "frame" around the small heartland of
Bosnia.
The mood of desperation in Bosnia was captured two weeks ago,when the
Government commander in Tuzla threatened to create an ecological disaster
by dynamiting railroad cars and trucks full of chloride and chlorine....
In Jajce another commander threatened to pour cyanide into the Vrbas River
The Tuzla commander ,Zeljko Knez ,said that use of chemicals was all that
eas left to the Tuzla defenders after Croatian forces had intercepted and
confiscated arms supplies..................................................
In his tour of Government-held areas ,Mr.Izetbegovic is said to have worked
to undermine Mr.Tudjman's control of Croatian Defese Council forces by
appealing to units with large numbers of Muslim fighters to support the
Government in defiance of Mr.Tudjman's orders. In Mostar,the commander of
the Croatian units ,Jasmin Jaganjac, is a Muslim, and in some areas Muslims
are said to comprise nearly half of the Croatian forces' fighting strenght...
Nor has here been any let-up in a practise sanctioned by Mr.Tudjman ,of
imposing a "war tax" of 30 per cent on all supplies and arms funneled through
Croatian - held areas to Sarajevo .Often ,the supplies ,costing millions
of dollars in cash to black marketeers ,have been seized before reaching
the city.
PAUL LEWIS (Geneva) - The president of the Muslim-dominated Government
of Bosnia and Herzegovina offered a concession in the serach for peace
there today when he said he would send a senior military officer to take
part in talks on ending the hostilities around his capital, Sarajevo, and
opening up the beseiged city to the outside world......................
The aim is to agree on the demilitarization of Sarajevo and to open up
the city so that those who want to leave can do so and relief workers can
take in needed suplies without hindrance or danger.
Up to now, President Izetbegovic has refused to be represented at the talks
unless the Serbian forces ringing Sarajevo agree to fully restore supplies of
water , power and fuel. United nations negotiators said they believed the real
reason for his reluctance to join in is that he wants the 60,000 or so ethnic
Serbs still living in the city to remain there as effective hostages and
because he also fears that many young Muslims might leave, weakening his
own forces and his political base.
......................................................
United nations peacekeeping forces in the region have been asked to
investigate the fighting and advise whether it is safe for the flights
to be resumed.
......................................................
novine.127.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians, Serbs trade prisoners, bodies
Subject: Serbia's Marxists to convene a ruling party congress
Subject: Sarajevo airport suspension lifted
Subject: Sarajevo teachers, students defy war
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians, Serbs trade prisoners, bodies
Date: 21 Oct 92 23:15:33 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- After four days of talks, nearly
300 rounds of artillery shells and more than 100 new casualties, the
Bosnian and Serbian armies finally completed an exchange of prisoners
and bodies Wednesday.
The beginning of the end came at about 2 p.m., when a red Bosnian bus
with Sarajevo license plates pulled into the parking lot at the
headquarters of the U.N. Protection Force with its cargo of 18 Serbs.
A few minutes later, a white bus with the Serbian flag, cyrillic
lettering and 18 mostly Muslim Bosnian civilians pulled up and faced
straight at it.
Next came a truck bearing the remains of eight Serbian soldiers.
Then, after one hour-long wait that gave those on all sides a dose of
pacing and fretting, the final piece of the puzzle, a truck bearing the
remains of 18 Bosnian fighters, pulled through the gate.
Many of those in attendance brought handkerchiefs to their faces, the
heavy stench of death confirming beyond much doubt that all parties to
the deal were now in place.
``I don't have to say anything,'' said Enes Milanovic, standing now
inside the Bosnian bus after completing the swap, a smile showing
through the hand covering his mouth and nose. ``Words are superfluous.''
Milanovic, a Muslim who lived in the Serbian-controlled Grbavica
section of Sarajevo, was one of the living chips in the Bosnian-Serb
deal approved after a final two days of U.N.-mediated talks.
The exchange involved eight bodies of Serbian troops killed about two
weeks ago when Bosnian forces blew up a restaurant along the front line
between Grbavica and neighboring Hrasno, in return for those of 18
Bosnian fighters who died last month in the areas of Stup and Zuc.
The 18 bus passengers brought by the Serbs were the families of seven
Muslim who were sent across the line Sunday to retrieve the eight
bodies, but whom the Bosnians, not accepting the deal, refused to send
back. The 18 passengers brought by the Bosnians were prisoners held on a
variety of war-related crimes.
The first deal failed Sunday with a devastating bang. Serbian forces
in the hills over the city, after setting a 10 a.m. deadline for the
return of the eight bodies, unleashed an artillery barrage at 10:01.
At least 10 people were killed and 130 injured in the ensuing four
hours. UNPROFOR military observers the next day reported counting 291
artillery shells falling on Bosnian territory.
Also among the casualties were the city's main grain mill, forcing U.
N. relief officials to add another 50 tons of flour to their daily
deliveries to the capital.
UNPROFOR officials, who have tried with limited success to mediate
such exchanges in the past, hosted another two days of meetings Monday
and Tuesday before the two sides reported an apparent settlement
Wednesday.
But until all four vehicles finally arrived in the afternoon -- the
final truck bearing the remains of Bosnian soldiers was delayed by muddy
roads and a flat tire -- and both sides confirmed the cargo and quickly
shook a few hands, nobody knew for sure.
``Without shouting at each other, they can talk for about four hours,
'' said UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson.
Milanovic's 52-year-old mother Hatidza, for one, appreciated the
effort. ``I feel,'' she said, now homeless and carrying only two
handbags of possesssions, ``like I'm back on my own land.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia's Marxists to convene a ruling party congress
Date: 22 Oct 92 12:37:46 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The ruling Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS) meets meets Friday in a two-day congress to work out a plan to
retain power.
A total of 880 delegates are to represent the 450,000-strong
membership at the party's second congress, which opens Friday morning at
Belgrade's Sava Conference Center, a party spokesman said.
After a plenary session that is to hear a leadership report on work
accomplished over the past two years, the congress will go into session
behind closed doors. New leadership is to be elected Saturday.
The SPS was formed in July 1990 when the then ruling Serbian
Communist party merged with the communist-led Socialist Alliance.
Appearing confident that they will retain power, the ruling communist
followers of Serbia's hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic reject any
blame for a disastrous economic situation in the country.
Mihajlo Markovic, 69-year-old vice president of the SPS, explained
the plan to win parliamentary and presidential elections later this
year. He said the plan is designed to exploit Milosevic's popularity,
which is still strong in rural areas but declining in urban centers.
With the support from the state-run television network and other
government-controlled media, the communists, now called socialists,
could win elections, as they did two years ago.
The ruling party ``is very likely'' to elect Milosevic its president
at the congress to strengthen the organization, Markovic told United
Press International.
``Then, with Milosevic strengthening our party lists, the SPS has a
much bigger chance to win the elections,'' said Markovic, a veteran
Marxist philosopher and retired Belgrade University professor.
He said Borisav Jovic, the current president of the ruling party,
will step down to make a place for Milosevic, who would then formally
take the helm of the SPS.
Milosevic, a communist activist since the age of 17, resigned as the
leader of the SPS after he was elected Serbian president in December
1990, when the SPS won the first multi-party elections in 50 years.
Speaking of ordinary Serbs suffering under spiralling inflation of
about 3 percent per day, Markovic blamed the United Nations for
``unjustly'' imposing on May 30 strict economic sanctions on Serbia for
its involvement in the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``We shall survive the U.N. sanctions with our own resources,'' he
said.
``Socialists cannot close factories and throw workers out in the
streets. We have decided that nobody will be laid off as long as the
sanctions last,'' Markovic said.
Out of Serbia's 3 million work force, about 800,000 are unemployed
and another 500,000 are on ``forced leave'' as factories and offices
have been forced to shut their doors.
Those who were put on ``forced leave'' receive about 70 percent of
their monthly wages, amounting to abnout $100.
Markovic argued that without the ruling communist-turned-socialist
party the situation would have be even worse.
The Serbian regime claims that the right-wing opposition would have
led the country into a full-fledged war among the six republics of the
now defunct Yugoslav federation.
``Serbia has not been pulled into war, thanks to our party. In
contrast to us, the opposition wanted Serbia to declare war to Croatia,''
he said.
Markovic boasted that war was not waged on Serbia's territory,
disregarding the fact that thousands of Serbs engaged in battles in the
secessionist republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Markovic claimed that ``the SPS advocates peace in Bosnia, the
lifting of U.N. sanctions and political stability as a pre-condition for
economic development.''
He acknowledged these were also goals pursued by President Dobrica
Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic, the two liberal leaders of the
rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and its tiny ally, Montenegro. The two
have been criticized by Milosevic and his supporters as ``traitors'' to
Serbian national interests.
In the past three months, Cosic and Panic have engaged in peacemaking
efforts at international conferences on the former Yugoslavia and have
negotiated with the feuding leaders of the newly independent republics.
``We also want a dialogue (with leaders of other ethnic groups), but
there is a limit beyond which we cannot go,'' Markovic said. ``We cannot
let Serbs outside Serbia be persecuted by local authorities in the newly
independent republics.''
He said Serbia has been giving considerable financial and moral
suppoprt to more than 2 million Serbs who live in Bosnia-Hercegovina and
Croatia.
``We cannot let them down. We support Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina and consider they must be given the right for self-
determination in all enclaves where they are in majority,'' Markovic
said.
Rebel Serb leaders, seeking autonomy for enclaves they control, have
declared ``Serbian states'' in both Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina and
want to merge them with the newly forged, Serbia-dominated Yugoslav
union.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo airport suspension lifted
Date: 22 Oct 92 15:05:43 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Croat-Bosnian fighting flared
Thursday north of Sarajevo and threatened Mostar, Croat-Serb clashes
erupted in southeastern Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbian troops in the
north shelled Bosnian holdout towns.
Also Thursday, U.N. peacekeepers re-opened the Sarajevo airport to
relief flights after a one-day suspension ordered by U.N. relief
officials because of reported fighting around the approach route.
A British plane arrived at 1 p.m. without incident, bringing its
cargo of some 10 tons of U.N. High Commission for Refugees aid for
Sarajevo's half- million trapped residents, U.N. officials said.
The Croat-Bosnian fighting, which broke out in a series of towns
north of Sarajevo, forcing the UNHCR to evacuate its main food supply
warehouse feeding the capital, threatened Thursday to spread to the
allies still defending Mostar against Serbian forces.
Croat forces late Wednesday surrounded the Bosnian military
headquarters in Mostar and occupied police and television facilities,
Sarajevo radio reported Thursday. The Croats also set up street
barricades and ordered a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, although no actual
fighting between the two uneasy allies had been reported, it said.
Muslim Slavs, who make up the majority of Bosnian forces, also were
reported arrested while returning from Croatia, the Bosnian radio
reported.
The fighting persisted in the three affected towns north of the
capital, Travnik, Novi Travnik and Vitez, with artillery fire reported
throughout the night and morning.
At least one civilian died Thursday morning in Novi Travnik and
soldiers fired from a school building into Vitez, site of the abandoned
U.N. humanitarian aid warehouse, the radio said.
Muslim and Croat residents of Vitez pleaded publicly for a second day
for an peaceful resolution to the Croat-Bosnian split, which has been
attributed to growing signs of Croat dominance in their anti-Serb
alliance with the muslim slav-majority Bosnian forces, including new
reports of a Croat-Serb deal to carve up the republic.
Bosnian citizens in the republic's north, where Serbian forces have
been fighting to control a strip of land connecting Serbia with Serbian-
held areas of the northeast, suffered through another day of
devastation, Sarajevo radio said.
At least two people were killed and one was injured Thursday in
Gradacac, again the focus of some of the heaviest attacks of the war,
the radio said, with Serbian artillery, tank and infantry attacks all
along an expanding front line.
Olovo, already with barely a house left undamaged, faced a four-hour
artillery barrage, along with similar onslaughts against Maglaj, Doboj,
Brcko, Bihac, Tuzla and Tesanj, where at least five people were injured
Thursday, it said.
An exception was Jajce, which was relatively peaceful as both sides
observed an agreement to allow reconnections of electricity serving both
Jajce and Banja Luka, the radio said.
Also Thursday, Serbian forces command in Bileca in southeastern
Bosnia-Hercegovina said units of the ``regular Croatian army'' launched
for a second day in a row a ``fierce artillery attack'' on Serbian
positions around the Serbian-held town of Trebinje, 20 miles northeast
of the Croatian medieval city of Dubrovnik on the southern Adriatic
coast.
The Croatian army artillery fired from the strongholds of Brgat and
Zarkovica, outside Dubrovnik, and Serbian forces in the Trebinje area
``energetically responded to prevent the enemy's penetration into the
Serb-held territory,'' the Serbian command in Bileca said, according to
the Serbia-run Tanjug news agency.
Quoting Serbian sources, Tanjug reported from Bileca that Croat and
Muslim Slav forces also opened artillery fire on Serbian positions in
villages around the towns of Stolac and Capljina in southern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, northwest of Dubrovnik.
At least 40 people were killed and 111 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Thursday, including 21 killed
and 38 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
A total of 15 rounds of large artillery were observed falling onto
Serbian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and 33 rounds were seen
reaching Bosnian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that
ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday, U.N. Protection Force officials said in their
daily survey.
At least one person was reported killed and two injured Thursday
morning in sporadic grenade and sniper attacks in the capital.
The UNHCR headquarters in Geneva ordered the suspension of its aid
flights to the city Wednesday because of reported fighting around the
landing strip, although UNPROFOR and UNHCR officials in Sarajevo
questioned the decision.
``I see no reason for it,'' as fighting was no heavier Wednesday than
at any other time during the months-long airlift of humanitarian aid to
Sarajevo, said one top UNPROFOR official, who asked not to be
identified.
Indian Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, overall UNPROFOR commander,
acknowledged Wednesday during a visit to Sarajevo growing signs of
disrespect for U.N.forces in the republic but said he would continue to
ask for the cooperation of the warring parties.
Bosnian military leaders, after a visit by Nambiar, were reported
ready to join U.N.-mediated talks with their Serbian and Croat
counterparts to focus primarily on ways of avoiding civilian involvement
in the conflict.
The Bosnian side was boycotting the talks until water and electricity
were restored in Sarajevo. About 70 percent of the city was being
supplied with electricity Thursday, UNPROFOR said, although a bid to
connect a second transmission line into the city was hampered by heavy
fighting in the area.
Bosnian and Serbian military leaders in Sarajevo also passed a more
direct test of faith in each other, when under U.N. mediation they
successfully completed an exhange of both prisoners and bodies of dead
soldiers.
The deal was approved after two days of talks that followed a round
of heavy shelling of the city Sunday attributed to Bosnian failure to
meet original Serbian demands for the body release.
Several thousand more Sarajevo residents, having gained Serbian and
Bosnians promises of free passage, were making final plans Thursday for
a huge convoy of vehicles scheduled to leave the capital Friday for both
Split and Belgrade.
Also Wednesday, a French UNPROFOR member was shot and wounded by a
sniper firing from Bosnian-controlled territory while the soldier was
escorting humanitarian aid deliveries in a Serbian-controlled section of
Sarajevo.
UNPROFOR and Serbian troops trying to rescue the french soldier were
attacked with machine-gun fire while pulling him to safety, UNPROFOR
said.
One Canadian and one British plane reached the Sarajevo airport on
Wednesday before the UNHCR ordered the halt, UNHCR spokesman Michael
Keats said.
``We are reviewing the security situation at the airport as the whole
area is tense,'' he said in announcing the order. ``There is fighting on
the flight approach.''
Keats said the UNHCR, without the Vitez warehouse to handle land
convoys, was unloading aid supplies at Posusje, only about one-third of
the distance to Sarajevo from the coast.
``As an interim measure, we are sending at least 20 aid trucks from
Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big convoy from Belgrade
to Sarajevo on Saturday,'' he said. ``It'll take two days to arrive.''
UNPROFOR officials said Nambiar and Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, his
deputy and recently appointed chief of UNPROFOR's new republic-wide
operation, were in the capital Wednesday primarily to establish
Morillon's new Sarajevo-area headquarters.
Milan Panic, prime minister of the Serbian-dominated rump Yugoslavia,
during a visit Wednesday to Austria, called for an economic summit of
the former Yugoslav republics to be held in Vienna.
``Once the economic problems are dealt with, political problems will
solve themselves,'' Panic said.
Panic also confirmed that Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic had
approved the idea of dividing Bosnia-hercegovina into nine ``cantons,''
Austrian ORF radio reported.
Izetbegovic planned to return Friday to Sarajevo, Sarajevo radio
reported.
novine.128.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Spassky's cold postpones the 24th game
Subject: Chaos follows battle between former Croat, Muslim allies
Subject: Fighting intensifies among Bosnia-Hercegovina ethnic groups
Subject: U.S. gives U.N. war crimes report in former Yugoslavia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Spassky's cold postpones the 24th game
Date: 22 Oct 92 17:34:44 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The 24th game of the controversial match
between former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and his rival Boris
Spassky was postponed Thursday because of Spassky's acute cold and will
be played Saturday instead.
This is the third time that Spassky has asked to postpone a game
because of his health. The score is 8-4 to Fischer, with 11 draws. The
first player to achieve 10 victories will be the winner of the $5
million match that started Sept. 3, in the posh Montenegrin resort of
Sveti Stefan and was later moved to this Serbian capital.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Chaos follows battle between former Croat, Muslim allies
Date: 22 Oct 92 19:48:33 GMT
NOVI TRAVNIK, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Soldiers along the 5-mile
stretch of road between Bugojno and Novi Travnik were suspicious and
edgy after a three-day battle this week, warily studying the first
vehicles in two days to pass by their makeshift barricades of logs and
rocks.
``Did you see them? How many have they got there?'' asked one soldier
from the Bosnia-Hercegovina army, hoping to gain valuable intelligence
about the strength of his former allies -- the Croats -- who were manning
a checkpoint down the road.
``Do you have any Muslims in the car?'' asks a soldier at a Croat
checkpoint.
The alliance between the two sides, who joined to battle against
Serbian forces, began to deteriorate when Croats followed the lead of
the Serbs and declared their own independent nation -- Herzeg-Bosna -- on
territory of theinternationally recognized republic of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Fierce fighting erupted between the two sides this week after Mate
Boban, leader of the self-proclaimed Croat state, announced that his
country would be expanded to include the city of Travnik, a mixed Croat
and Muslim community 30 miles northwest of Sarajevo.
Three days of intense fighting left the region around the city in
chaos. Soldiers manned makeshift barricades of logs and rocks in a bid
to maintain control over their small patches of territory. Little
communication existed between neighboring towns and villages, fostering
an atmosphere of uncertainty and suspicion.
Soldiers carrying everything from AK-47 rifles to hunting guns
emerged from bushes along the dirt track to watch warily as the first
cars passed their checkpoints in two days. No one appeared to be in
control of the forces along the hilly forested terrain between Bugojno
and Novi Travnik.
In a village two miles from Novi Travnik, a convoy carrying about 350
people had been trapped on the closed road as the battle raged nearby.
Most of them were refugees from central Bosnia-Hercegovina trying to get
to Novi Travnik.
Safe passage to Novi Travnik had finally been negotiated Wednesday
for the refugees by the local Muslim forces, but shelling began as the
group set out. Residents of the area quickly ran into makeshift shelters
to wait out the barrage.
``We didn't expect to run into this before we left. We knew there
were problems with Serbs but not this,'' said a Croat Franciscan priest
on leave from his mission in Uganda who joined the convoy to try and
visit his three sisters and one brother near Travnik. He refused to give
his name.
``I'm scared,'' said 13-year-old Ina Bosic, a refugee trying to go
back to her home in the town of Zenica as she clutched a stuffed
elephant doll. After five days of living in buses, the refugees were
finally forced to turn back down the road to Bogonjo.
Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers said the immediate cause of the fighting
was the seizure of 80 tons of Turkish petrol by Croat forces near Novi
Travnik and the killing of a Muslim Slav soldier by Croat troops.
Up to 50 people were killed during the three days of clashes that
followed, said Perro Celina, a doctor at the hospital in Bugonjo south
of Novi Travnik, where mostly Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers were being
treated.
``There have been clashes between Muslims and Croats before but these
are defintely the worst,'' Celina said while working at the hospital,
located in the basement of the town's hotel.
``I saw some bodies. I can't say how many. Some were in uniform and
some were civilian,'' said Zalko Saralic, 26, a Muslim Slav soldier in
the Bosnia-Hercegovina army. He had been shot in the shoulder during the
battle.
Reports from state-run Croatian radio blamed Muslim extremists for
the fighting and reported five dead and 20 wounded.
``The...(Croat forces) will use all means necessary to defend the
region of Herceg-Bosnia from both Serb agressors and Muslim extremists,''
the radio quoted Croatian Defense Council representatives as saying.
The lull in fighting allowed Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers to take
stock of their grim situation, surrounded on one side by the Serbian
republic and on the other by Croatian forces. Bosnia depends upon goods
passing through Croatian-held territory for its survival. Now goods
don't seem to be moving.
At checkpoints along the road into central Bosnia, Croatian forces
were prohibiting Muslim deliveries into the region. About 40 large
flatbed trucks from numerous Muslim humanitarian aid organizations were
stuck at various checkpoints along the route. No trucks with Croatian
insignias were spotted.
``They say there is too much fighting down the road and they won't
let us through but they are letting Croats in,'' said one Muslim Red
Cross worker who had been stuck at the checkpoint for 36 hours.
About 30 trucks with Croatian insignias and Croatian Defense Council
emblems on them were spotted driving along the same road to central
Bosnia.
Sarajevo has rejected the creation of Herceg-Bosna, declaring it
unconstitutional. The Croatian Defense Council has ignored the
declaration and ordered all Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers to surrender
their weapons by Oct. 18, Bosnian soldiers say. The land-grab by their
allies has left them disillusioned.
``Just like the Serbs want to create their own Bosnia-Hercegovina,
the Croats want to create their own Herceg-Bosna,'' one Bosnian army
soldier said.
``They took our fuel and food until our army had nothing left,'' said
a wounded Muslim soldier in the hospital who refused to give his name.
The Bosnian government has repeatedly asked for the international
arms embargo to be lifted for the Muslim-led Bosnia-Hercegovina army but
the United Nations says that would only further inflame the conflict.
Soldiers say they need aid quickly.
``I know the West doesn't want to help the Muslims because they are
afraid of an Islamic state, but that's ridiculous because we are
Europeans,'' said one Muslim soldier, whose rifle was marked with the
slogan: ``An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.''
``It's from the Koran and the Bible,'' he said of the saying. ``And
it's the way you have to fight here.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting intensifies among Bosnia-Hercegovina ethnic groups
Date: 22 Oct 92 20:23:34 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Intense fighting erupted
Thursday among the warring ethnic groups in Bosnia-Hercegovina, with
Croats and Muslims clashing in the north, Croats and Serbs battling in
the southeast and Serbs using artillery on towns under control of the
predominantly Muslim government.
Despite the fighting, U.N. peacekeepers reopened the Sarajevo airport
to relief flights after a one-day suspension prompted by reports of
fighting, and military leaders of all three ethnic groups agreed to
their first joint meeting.
``I hope that tomorrow can be an historic date in the history of this
country,'' French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of U.N. peacekeepers
in the republic, said of the planned meeting. ``It can be if the
representatives of the militaries can begin to hear each other and
understand each other.''
The talks were planned as a way of getting the Bosnian, Serbian and
Croatian leaders to develop and approve ways of avoiding civilian
involvement in the conflict, and Morillon said he hoped they could
succeed to the point of reaching a full cessation of fighting.
Late Thursday, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, who has been out
of the capital for more than three weeks, arrived back in Sarajevo amid
a swirl of rumors over his political future.
Various Bosnian reports have hinted of Izetbegovic's possible
decision not to seek re-election in December and even darker hints that
he might be forced out early in a power struggle.
The fighting between Muslims and Croats, which broke out this week in
a series of towns north of Sarajevo, forced the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees to evacuate its main food supply warehouse feeding the
capital. Continued fighting threatened Thursday to spread to the Muslim
and Croats working together to defend the town of Mostar against Serbian
forces.
Croat forces late Wednesday surrounded the Bosnian military
headquarters in Mostar and occupied police and television facilities,
Sarajevo radio reported Thursday. The Croats also set up street
barricades and ordered a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, although no actual
fighting between the two uneasy allies had been reported, it said.
Muslim Slavs, who make up the majority of Bosnian forces, also were
reported arrested while returning from Croatia, the Bosnian radio
reported.
The fighting also persisted Thursday in the three affected towns
north of the capital, Travnik, Novi Travnik and Vitez, with artillery
fire reported throughout the night and morning.
At least one civilian died Thursday in Novi Travnik and soldiers
fired from a school building into Vitez, site of the abandoned U.N.
humanitarian aid warehouse, the radio said.
Muslim and Croat residents of Vitez pleaded publicly for a second day
for an peaceful resolution to the Croat-Bosnian split, which has been
attributed to growing signs of Croat dominance in their anti-Serb
alliance with the Muslim Slav-majority Bosnian forces, including new
reports of a Croat-Serb deal to carve up the republic.
Morillon said he believed, however, the situation in Vitez could soon
calm down enough to allow the UNHCR to return to its warehouse. The head
of the U.N. Protection Force's (UNPROFOR) Bosnian operations said the
fighting there was due mostly to a clash of personalities, and he said
late Thursday it was resolved by the removal of the Bosnian military
chief in the town.
Bosnian citizens in the republic's north, where Serbian forces have
been fighting to control a strip of land connecting Serbia with Serbian-
held areas of the northeast, suffered through another day of
devastation, Sarajevo radio said.
At least two people were killed and one was injured Thursday in
Gradacac, again the focus of some of the heaviest attacks of the war,
the radio said, with Serbian artillery, tank and infantry attacks all
along an expanding front line.
Olovo, already with barely a house left undamaged, faced a four-hour
artillery barrage, along with similar onslaughts against Maglaj, Doboj,
Brcko, Bihac, Tuzla and Tesanj, where at least five people were injured
Thursday, it said.
An exception was Jajce, which was relatively peaceful as both sides
observed an agreement to allow reconnections of electricity serving both
Jajce and Banja Luka, the radio said.
Also Thursday, Serbian forces command in Bileca in southeastern
Bosnia-Hercegovina said units of the ``regular Croatian army'' launched
for a second day in a row a ``fierce artillery attack'' on Serbian
positions around the Serbian-held town of Trebinje, 20 miles northeast
of the Croatian medieval city of Dubrovnik on the southern Adriatic
coast.
The Croatian army artillery fired from the strongholds of Brgat and
Zarkovica, outside Dubrovnik, and Serbian forces in the Trebinje area
``energetically responded to prevent the enemy's penetration into the
Serb-held territory,'' the Serbian command in Bileca said, according to
the Serbia-run Tanjug news agency.
Quoting Serbian sources, Tanjug reported from Bileca that Croat and
Muslim Slav forces also opened artillery fire on Serbian positions in
villages around the towns of Stolac and Capljina in southern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, northwest of Dubrovnik.
At least 40 people were killed and 111 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Thursday, including 21 killed
and 38 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
A total of 15 rounds of large artillery fire were observed falling
onto Serbian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and 33 rounds were seen
reaching Bosnian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that
ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday, UNPROFOR officials said in their daily
survey.
Morillon said the military leaders meeting Friday would be asked to
work out details of a plan for jointly staffed checkpoints along the
road to Sarajevo that would greatly reduce interference with deliveries
of humanitarian aid.
He said new teams of UNPROFOR troops now arriving at points
throughout the republic would be asked to take similar steps in their
areas, although he declined to give exact timetables on how long that
would take.
The UNHCR relief operation for Sarajevo itself remained seriously
handicapped Thursday, with the road route cut off by the fighting in
Vitez and around Mostar, and with 11 planes reaching the Sarajevo
airport after a 24-hour suspension due to reports of fighting near the
runway.
UNHCR headquarters in Geneva ordered the temporary suspension of its
aid flights to the city Wednesday because of the reported fighting,
although UNPROFOR and UNHCR officials in Sarajevo questioned the
decision.
``I see no reason for it,'' as fighting was no heavier Wednesday than
at any other time during the month-long airlift of humanitarian aid to
Sarajevo, said one top UNPROFOR official, who asked not to be
identified.
No trucks reached the city Thursday and none were expected Friday, as
road convoys diverted from Vitez were unloading at Posusje, only about
one-third of the distance to Sarajevo from the coast.
``As an interim measure, we are sending at least 20 aid trucks from
Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big convoy from Belgrade
to Sarajevo on Saturday,'' UNHCR spokesman Michael Keats said. ``It'll
take two days to arrive.''
Also Thursday, organizers of a huge road convoy of people hoping to
flee Sarajevo, due to leave Friday for the Croatian port city of Split
and the Serbian capital Belgrade, was canceled once again.
Bosnian Red Cross officials organizing the convoy said they decided
to postpone again for safety reasons, although both UNHCR and UNPROFOR
said they were not asked for assurances of protection and said it would
have been reckless to proceed without it.
``I'm very concerned with this idea,'' Morillon said.
He said UNPROFOR would try to cooperate with such a convoy if the
UNHCR gave its endorsement, but both he and UNHCR spokesman Larry
Hollingsworth said they were reluctant to help large-scale evacuations
of the city.
``My intention is not to help empty this city,'' Morillon said. ``On
the contrary, I will try to help this city survive and rebuild.''
``Our policy is to contain people and not add to the refugee problem,
'' Hollingsworth said. ``Our policy is that people should not
voluntarily become refugees.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. gives U.N. war crimes report in former Yugoslavia
Date: 22 Oct 92 19:41:44 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The United States submitted to the U.N. War Crimes
Commission a compendium of human rights abuses in Bosnia-Hercegovina
that includes such atrocities as mass castrations of young men and human
organ pilfering by a Serbian physician, the State Department said
Thursday.
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the submission, the
administration's second since the commission was established by U.N.
resolution last month, will be used to prosecute war crimes committed in
the former Yugoslavia.
He said the reports were extracted from interviews with refugees,
witnesses to atrocities, intelligence sources and reports by
journalists.
The document describes ``numerous, very abhorent incidents, including
willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of civilians in detention
camps, wanton devastation and destruction of property and the mass
forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians,'' Boucher said.
``A lot of the things in there make your blood boil and your stomach
turn.''
Alija Lujinovic, a 53-year-old Muslim engineer from Brcko who was
captured by Serbians May 3, told State Department investigators that he
saw a stack of 15 dead and naked 18 to 30 year old men ``with their
genitals torn out,'' the report says.
Lujinovic is quoted as saying he witnessed a Serbian physician ``slit
the throats of young, healthy people, cut out their organs, pack them
into plastic bags and load the organs into a refrigerator truck.''
A 33-year-old Bosnian Muslim woman from Sarajevo told State
Department investigators that she was raped in front of her 12-year-old
daughter and 9-year-old son at the Manjaca detention camp by two Serbian
interrogators named ``Todor and Srbo,'' the report said. Todor and Srbo
then raped her daughter twice.
Although the report contains hundreds of examples of atrocities
committed against Bosnian Muslims by Serbians, who are attempting to
annex the former Yugoslav republic and purge it of all non-Serbs, no
side involved in the mayhem is free of blame, Boucher said.
``Various Serb groups and factions are responsible for the
preponderance of the incidents, but they're not the only ones,'' he
said. ``There have been these kind of abuses on all sides.''
All members of the United Nations have been asked under the
resolution to submit to the War Crimes Commission reports of atrocities
to be catalogued and used for prosecution by a tribunal, which has not
been established.
The United States, Boucher said, is the only nation that has so far
complied with the request.
novine.129.bale.,
The New York Times
Thursday, October 22, 1992, page A10
Bosnian, in Shift, Says He'll Send an Officer to Talks on Sarajevo
by PAUL LEWIS
Special to The New York Times
GENEVA, Oct. 21 --The President of the Muslim-dominated Government
of Bosnia and Herzegovina offered a concession in the search for
peace there today when he said he would send a senior military
officer to take part in talks on ending the hostilities around his
capital, Sarajevo, and opening up the besieged city to the outside
world.
The Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic, made the announcement
before returning home after two and a half days of talks here with
the Presidents of Croatia and Yugoslavia, which consists of Serbia
and Montenegro, as well as with the two mediators in the Balkans
crisis, Cyrus R. Vance of the United Nations and Lord Owen repre-
senting the European Community.
The two mediators are trying to set up a military working group
that would be headed by Gen. Phillippe Morillon of France, the
commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sarajevo, and
would include senior commanders from the rival Serbian, Croatian
end Muslim forces fighting one another there.
The aim is to agree on the demilitarization of Sarajevo and to open
up the
city so that those who want to leave can do so and relief workers
can take in needed supplies without hindrance or danger.
'Corridors' Into the Capital
Up to now, President Izetbegovic has refused to be represented at
the talks unless the Serbian forces ringing Sarajevo agree to fully
restore supplies of water, power and fuel. United Nations
negotiators said they believed the real reason for his reluctance
to join in is that he wants the 60,000 or so ethnic Serbs still
living in the city to remain
there as effective hostages and because he also fears that many
young Muslims might leave, weakening his
own forces and his political base.
In his talks with Mr. Vance and Lord Owen this morning and earlier
in the week, officials say, Mr. Izetbegovic did not clearly state
whether he was now prepared to allow people of military age to
leave the city. At present all those between 18 and 65 years of age
are forbidden by the Bosnian Government to leave Sarajevo, even if
they could find a way past the Serbian guns.
The officials said Mr. Izetbegovic supported the "demilitarization"
of Sarajevo and surrounding areas, and talked of negotiating
"corridors" into the capital, though it was not clear whether these
would be for bringing in relief supplies, letting people leave or
for both purposes, as the mediators want.
At present only a trickle of food, medicine and other relief
supplies passes through the lines, and that came to a halt today
when the United Nations military advisers suspended their airlift
into Sarajevo because of intense fighting between Croats and
Muslims to the west of the city where the planes begin their
descent.
United Nations peacekeeping forces in the region have been asked to
investigate the fighting and advise whether it is safe for the
flights to be resumed.
" It's one more nail in the coffin of the people we're Trying to
help," said Ron Redman, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee
commission, which coordinates all relief work in the former
Yugoslavian federation.
=================================================================
The New York Times
Thursday, October 22, 1992 page A1, cont. A10.
Serbs and Croats Now Join In Devouring Bosnia's Land
By JOHN F. BURNS
Special to The New York Times
SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oct. 21--After months of
merciless artillery bombardment, this mostly mountainous republic
has been reduced to a handful of desperate cities and towns
controlled by the Government, with its people increasingly ac-
cepting that their struggle for survival is lost.
Outside Sarajevo, Serbian forces have seized at least two-thirds of
the country. Croatian troops control most of the rest.
But what deepens the pessimism is the realization that the Croatian
forces have turned their hacks on their one time Bosnian allies and
are now joining with the Serbs to carve up Bosnian territory for
themselves.
Bosnia Being Partitioned
Indeed these two sides are now mopping up and consolidating their
gains in areas that nationalist leaders in their respective
homelands have coveted for a century.
Since April, the Serbian nationalists have unleashed murderous
fusillades on Sarajevo that have made casualties of at least 10
percent of the 400,000 residents. The Serbian strategy has been to
force the city to yield without a battle because of the pressure of
hunger, shelling and winter cold.
The Serbian forces have long enjoyed the logistical support of what
remains of Yugoslavia, which is dominated by the republic of
Serbia. But of equal significance, the Croatian Defense Council,
which has been leading the Croatian drive, has received weapons,
troops and leadership from Croatia's army, based in Zagreb.
"The Croats have proclaimed a Croatian state within the state of
Bosnia and Herzegovina," said Emir Fazilbegovic, a member of the
Muslim Council in Mostar, 85 miles southwest of the Capital.
"Muslims now see no difference between the policies of the Serbian
and Croatian leadership."
A significant sign of cooperation between Serbs and Croats in
carving up Bosnia occurred earlier this month when Franjo Tudjman,
the Croatian president, ordered Croatian forces under the control
of the Bosnian wing of Croatia's governing party to pull out of
Bosanski Brod, a refinery town along the Sava River border between
Croatia and Bosnia.
The pullout left Serbian forces with only two remaining hurdles to
completing a corridor between Belgrade in the east and
Serbian-controlled areas of Croatia in the west.
Gains for Croatia
And while international attention has been centered on the Serbian
offensives, Croatian forces have seized control of a broad chunk of
Bosnia west and south of Sarajevo. From the Croatian headquarters
in Mostar, forces of the Croatian Defense Council, nominally allied
to the Bosnian army but in practice following Mr.Tudjman's orders,
have cemented control of western Herzegovina, where more than 90
per cent of the population are Croats.
>From there, they have pushed north and east, capturing towns and
villages where Croats and Muslims are about equally numerous.
In areas of eastern Herzegovina, where Serbs are more numerous,
more signs of a Serbian and Croatian accord to partition Bosnia are
showing up.
According to Bosnian officials, Croatia has agreed not to challenge
Serbian control of the region around Trebinje, in a southern
triangle of Bosnia adjacent to Montenegro, Serbia's ally in the
truncated federation of what was once Yugoslavia.
Croatian Dissident Assassinated
In August, these accounts say, Croatia arranged for Croatian
Defense Council troops to ambush and assassinate Blaz Kraljevic,
commander of a fiercely anti-Serbian Croatian military faction
known as the Croatian Armed Forces, when Mr. Kraljevic's units
challenged Serbian units around Trebinje.
For months, Mr. Tudjman, the Croatian leader, encouraged the
Bosnian Government to hope that Croatia would join the battle
against Serbian forces, particularly around Sarajevo.
But pledges given to the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija
Izetbegovic, in visits to Zagreb were not fulfilled, and Mr.
Tudjman has recently dropped the pretense of being Mr. Izet-
begovic's ally.
A Shift in Alliances
Instead the Croatian leader has been speaking as if his alliance is
with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader, and
Government-controlled newspapers in Zagreb have been attacking the
Izetbegovic Government as "a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalists."
In Sarajevo, and in the handful of other towns under Government
control, the collusion between Serbia and Croatia in partitioning
Bosnia has fostered an increasing militancy among hard-line Muslims
particularly in the private militia groups that form a large part
of Bosnian fighting strength.
Threat of Assassination
Privately, some of these Muslim militia commanders have threatened
to assassinate Mr. Izetbegovic or any other Bosnian official who
accepts a peace settlement at the Geneva talks that stops short of
rolling back the gains that Serbian and Croatian forces have made.
"If Izetbegovic or anybody else thinks that we have fought as long
as we have to capitulate now, they will not live five minutes," one
militia commander said. He was speaking at a frontline Bosnian
position in Stup, a western suburb of Sarajevo where Croatian
troops pulled back in September and allowed Serbian units to
tighten the Sarajevo siege.
The Bosnian Government's hopes for survival had once rested on
Western military intervention, the possibility of an effective
military alliance with Croatian forces, or perhaps a coup in Bel-
grade that might have toppled Mr. Milosevic's nationalist
government.
Mr Izetbegovic has turned recently to a clandestine tour of the few
patches of territory his Government still controls, usually to
proclaim that the battle for a sovereign, unified Bosnia will
continue.
And although those in power here accept that Serbia and Croatia
have effectively annexed most of the country, and that the
Muslim-led Bosnian forces can only hope to hang on to the little
they still hold, still say they are a long way from giving up.
"We know only too well that fighting on involves enormous hardships
and dangers, but the alternative would be still worse," said Kemal
Muftic, a senior adviser in Mr.Izetbegovic's office. "What faces us
is genocide, the extinction of the Muslim people of Bosnia, and the
end of 500 years of history. So we must either confront our enemies
now, with all that entails, or accept still greater suffering and
death."
Appeal for Outside Aid
For months, senior officials here have been speaking in apocalyptic
terms, partly out of a desire to prick the conscience of the United
States and its European allies, which have said that they have no
intention of committing troops here in support of the Bosnian
Government.
But by almost every measure -casualty counts, refugees, cities and
towns emptied of their populations or substantially destroyed,
reports from the battlefronts of new setbacks and defeats--the
situation facing the government and those who depend on it could
scarcely be worse.
All figures here tend to be sketchy, since the Government has no
telephone connections outside Sarajevo, and the reports it does
receive, by messenger traveling through the mountains and by
short-wave radio links, are taken mostly from those areas it still
controls. These are augmented by sketchy accounts from tens of
thousands of Muslim refugees who survived Serbian "ethnic
cleansing" offensives only to end up living with a few miserable
bundles of belongings in tent camps and school gymnasiums.
>From these sources, the Health Ministry in Sarajevo has estimated
that 127,000 people are dead or missing, of whom 16,000 have been
confirmed as having been killed. Hospitals and clinics are said to
have treated 129,000 people who have been wounded: In Sarajevo
alone, more than 3,700 people have been killed, 30,000 wounded, and
7,150 have been listed as missing.
As for property damage, the Health Ministry has said that 80 per
cent of all the hospitals and clinics in the country have been
heavily damaged or destroyed, at a replacement cost of at least $2
billion.
Recently, the worst news has come from the battlefront. In hospital
wards in Sarajevo, men, women and children with debilitating wounds
lie listening to radios that blare scratchy accounts recorded from
short-wave radio links with towns like Gradacac and Jajce and
Bihac, Government-held outposts that have been hanging on in the
face of relentless Serbian offensives.
For weeks, there have been nothing but reverses, each one
lightening the pocket around the Government forces and the mostly
Muslim populations of the besieged towns.
A Dream Stillborn
Just 200 days ago, on April 6, Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged from
1,000 years of tumultuous history to a status many Bosnians had
dreamed of since childhood - that of an independent state,
recognized by the major powers of Europe, with many of its mixed
population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats eager to put years of
Communist stagnation as a republic of Yugoslavia behind them.
Now, the dream has been shattered by a war of a scale and
malevolence not seen in Europe since 1945.
According to documents possessed by the Bosnian Government, Mr.
Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the 47 year-old psychiatrist who
leads the Serbian nationalists in Bosnia, secretly agreed to annex
what they referred to in their own internal messages as a "frame"
around the small heartland of Bosnia.
The mood of desperation in Bosnia was captured two weeks ago when
the Government commander in Tuzla, center of Bosnia's chemical
industry threatened to create an ecological disaster by dynamiting
railroad cars and trucks full of chloride and chlorine.
Threat to Poison River
In Jajce, a besieged town 60 miles northwest of Sarajevo, another
commander threatened to pour cyanide into the Vrbas River, sending
it downstream to the junction with the Sava.
The Tuzla commander, Zeljko Knez said that use of the chemicals was
all that was left to the Tuzla defenders after Croatian forces had
intercepted and confiscated arms supplies.
"We have been reduced to the point where we can no longer mount an
adequate defense," he said.
In his tour of Government-held areas, Mr. Izetbegovic is said to
have worked to undermine Mr. Tudjman's control of Croatian Defense
Council forces by appealing to units with large numbers of Muslim
fighters to support the Government in defiance of Mr Tudjman's
orders. In Mostar, the commander of the Croatian units, Jasmin
Jaganac, is a Muslim, and in some areas Muslims are said to
comprise nearly half of the Croatian forces' fighting strength.
Croatia Controls Supplies
But the Croatian units' arms supplies and finance come through Cro-
atia, and so far there has been no sign of Croatian units, some of
them only 20 miles from Sarajevo, helping to break the Serbian
siege.
Nor has there been any let up in a practice sanctioned by Mr.
Tudjman, of imposing a "war tax" of 30 per cent on all supplies and
arms funneled through Croatian-held areas to Sarajevo. Often the
supplies, costing millions of dollars in cash to black marketeers,
have been seized before reaching the city.
Before the latest round of the Geneva talks on the future of the
Balkans, which began on Monday, Mr. Tudjman said that he expected
an agreement establishing a formal cease-fire between Croatian and
Serbian forces in Bosnia. In other interviews, he has suggested
that the "Muslims", meaning the Bosnian Government, may have to
accept that they have been reduced to a rump of central Bosnia,
where they can establish what the Croatian leader has called "a
small Muslim and Islamic state," separate from other Bosnian
territories that could be annexed to Croatia and Serbia.
novine.130.bale.,
Serbia, Croatia May Be Carving Up Bosnia, Diplomats Say (Zagreb)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
ZAGREB, Croatia _ In a strategic shift that could
have catastrophic consequences for civilians, ethnic Croat
forces in Bosnia have cut food supplies to their ostensible
Muslim allies as part of a broad military assault, senior
diplomats and aid experts said.
Diplomats closely involved in negotiations to
settle the conflict and international aid officials with
monitors on the ground said Serbia and Croatia appear to have
reached an agreement to carve up Bosnia.
``It appears that the parties have agreed to carve
out their territor ies. That will makes things a lot worse
for the people who have lost,'' said the top representative
of an international humanitarian aid organization in Zagreb.
The experts said the Croat assault will force
Muslims out of towns su ch as Jajce and Travnik where they
have lived for centuries, and herd them into a small region
in central Bosnia, centering on the cities of Sarajevo,
Zenica and Tuzla.
``This is serious,'' a senior Western diplomat
said Thursday night in Geneva, Switzerland. The Croats ``are
trying to push the Muslims back into the
Tuzla-Zenica-Sarajevo triangle. They have been thinking this
for a long time, but now they are coming out more openly for
it. It's the clearest-cut evidence. This is their `ethnic
cleansing.' ''
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the former Polish prime
minister acting as a huma n rights investigator for the
United Nations, warned Thursday that ``international
indifference'' to the plight of the Bosnians may soon lead to
``a great tragedy.''
``Many people won't survive not only the winter,
but also the fall,'' said Mazowiecki, who toured Sarajevo and
a Muslim refugee camp in northern Bosnia looking into human
rights violations.
Mazowiecki also announced that his delegation had
uncovered an unmark ed mass grave in the east Croatian town
of Vukovar, which Serb forces conquered in November 1991. He
said U.N. forces are now guarding the site along with five
other suspected mass graves, and the United Nations will send
special forensic teams to exhume and examine the remains to
determine the origin of the victims and the manner in which
they died.
Officially, Serbia and Croatia deny any intention
to carve up Bosnia. But a spokeswoman for Croatia's President
Franjo Tudjman, in an interview with Newsday, endorsed the
militant anti-Muslim stance of his ethnic allies in Bosnia
including a demand to replace the leaders of the general staff.
Diplomatic and other sources said the pattern of
attacks this week in central Bosnia is a big step toward the
final carving up of the republic and the eventual takeover of
those territories by neighboring Serbia and Croatia. They
noted that there was at least one exception, namely in the
north-central region centering on the city of Tuzla, where
Croats continued to fight alongside Muslims against the Serbs.
The State Department, still studying the reports
of the fighting, res tated its support for the territorial
integrity of Bosnia. ``We've opposed its partition. We've
made that very clear to all parties involved,'' spokesman
Richard Boucher said in Washington.
One State Department official said that ``there is
evidence of collus ion between the Croats and the Serbians,
but it's not yet conclusive.'' Another said, ``We've been
hearing reports for some time that the Croatians may seek a
partnership with the Serbs, and we've been trying to prevent
it.''
At the United Nations in New York, Venezuela
Ambassador Diego Arria, currently a member of the Security
Council, called for the council to convene to discuss reports
that Serbians and Croatians were dividing Bosnia according to
a secret deal.
``They have carved up the territory in a very
public way,'' Arria sai d of the Croatian and Serbian
forces. ``The whole world has been able to watch, and there
doesn't seem to be enough collective will to put a stop to
this.''
The Bosnian Croats announced military gains across
a broad front Thur sday. Their ``Croatian Defense Council,''
or HVO, claimed it had forced Muslim forces out of the city
of Novi Travnik, and Zagreb radio reported that the HVO now
controlled many of the principal towns on the roads used to
move relief supplies to Sarajevo and other predominantly
Muslim towns in Bosnia.
Despite Holocaust Memory, World Slow to Respond to Serb Atrocities
By Nina Bernstein
(c) 1992, Newsday
The outcry last August rang with memories of the
Holocaust and drew o n the defining guilt of our time: The
world's failure to stop the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews
and others.
But since public outrage erupted over news that a
Serbian campaign of ``ethnic cleansing'' included thousands
of killings in concentration camps, further U.S. protest has
been stalled by divisions and political inhibitions that
critics say are only too evocative of the 1930s and '40s.
``There's been a lull all around _ in our own
government's response, in the international community and,
unfortunately, in the Jewish community as well, and I think
it's shameful,'' declared Henry Siegman, head of the American
Jewish Congress and a leader among 19 Jewish organizations
that protested the violence against Bosnian Muslims in August.
``What is the point of all of these (Holocaust)
commemorations if, wh en we are stared in the face with a
repetition, we haven't got the moral energy to fight it?''
said Siegman, 61, himself a Holocaust survivor.
To some, like Siegman, the evocation of the
Holocaust is an inescapab le and compelling goad to action
against Serbian ``ethnic cleansing,'' a campaign of expulsion
in which execution, torture, rape and terror have been used
as tools to carve out an ``ethnically pure'' Serbian region
in two-thirds of Bosnia.
Others, while decrying the violence, strongly
reject any such compari son as demeaning the memory of the
Holocaust and distorting atrocities that fall short of Adolf
Hitler's methodical campaign to annihilate all Europe's Jews.
The debate itself has been a drain on efforts to sustain or
step up protest, critics say.
Siegman's frustration was echoed in a dozen
interviews with leaders o f religious and humanitarian
groups, congressional staff members and others concerned
about violent ``ethnic cleansing'' in the former Yugoslavia.
Several observed parallels between present obstacles to
effective public protest and the factors that muted U.S.
response to the unfolding Holocaust in the 1930s and '40s.
They include wide public acceptance of the U.S.
administration's argu ments against military intervention;
State Department delays in disclosing or corroborating
atrocities that could increase public pressure for
intervention; distraction by other issues, including a dismal
economy; and political reluctance to advocate an open door
for a new group of refugees at a time when many Americans are
jobless.
Notwithstanding the response of the United
Nations, which used charte r provisions inspired by the
lessons of World War II to launch a war-crimes investigation,
critics point to a climate of public passivity.
The result can be seen in a series of abortive
attempts to follow up the August outcry, despite the urgent
plight of 500,000 non-Serbian Bosnians trapped and targeted
by a wave of ``ethnic cleansing'' as winter falls.
Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and
literary voice of th e Nazi Holocaust, announced in August
that he would accept an invitation to visit camps in the
former Yugoslavia himself. The trip, which might have
refocused media attention on thousands of endangered camp
inmates that no country has offered to accept, has not taken
place.
Wiesel said last week that it had been prevented
by ``technical and political difficulties.'' Pressed to
explain, he said that he had been unable to put together a
delegation of influential people in the absence of Western
government support for the journey.
``I've rarely been as frustrated,'' Wiesel said.
``At the base, peopl e are getting more and more
disinterested. It's too far, they're less and less concerned,
and therefore those in power feel ... they can get away with
inaction in impunity.''
Attempts last month to hold congressional hearings
on whether ``ethni c cleansing'' fit the international
definition of genocide were also unsuccessful. The Helsinki
Commission twice tentatively scheduled a hearing on the
issue, but finally abandoned the effort, sources said,
because the availability of witnesses conflicted with
election campaign schedules.
``The interest seems to have died down,'' a
frustrated staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee
said recently. ``Everyone said `never again' after the
Holocaust, and now there's a situation that's very similar to
it and ... everybody's treading water,'' he declared.
One of the first institutions to speak out was the
Roman Catholic Chu rch, in part because of its links with
Croatian Catholics. ``The Serbians ... are conducting a
campaign of nearly genocidal proportions against civilians,''
a fact-finding delegation to Bosnia headed by Newark, N.J.,
Archbishop Theodore McCarrick reported in July. But church
leaders have not revised a consensus that the economic and
political climate here make it unwise to lobby for opening
U.S. immigration to Bosnian refugees, according to Brother
Austin David, director of programs for the Catholic Near East
Welfare Association, a papal agency covering the Balkans.
``Because of the economic situation, I don't think
there's a lot of s ympathy in this country,'' David said.
Jewish organizations have been gripped by events
in Bosnia, but deep disagreements over what policies to
advocate have hampered lobbying efforts, according to Phil
Baum, who led two delegations to the State Department for the
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, an
umbrella group.
``The problem is, you're expressing your
impatience without saying ex actly what you're
recommending,'' Baum said of the meeting last Friday with
Thomas Niles, assistant secretary of state for European
affairs. ``It's a very serious disability.''
Baum said that no real consensus had been reached
in a lengthy confer ence call to prepare for the meeting.
Niles reiterated the administration's position
that the United States is doing all it prudently can and that
some progress has been made in opening camps to international
inspection and delivering food relief, said Baum, who is
director of international affairs for the American Jewish
Congress. The Congress has called for limited air strikes and
arms for the Bosnians, among other measures, but because Baum
represented the umbrella organization at the meeting, he
couldn't advocate that view.
Widespread caution about what kind of action to
take has persisted in the face of the belated State
Department confirmation given by spokesman Richard Boucher
Sept. 28 that 3,000 Muslim men, women and children detained
in a camp in the Bosnian town of Brcko were slaughtered by
the Serbian militia last spring and many of the bodies
cremated in an animal-fat rendering plant. It has withstood a
growing body of evidence gathered by journalists and
international officials that systematic killings, rapes,
torture and deportation are being used to eliminate
non-Serbian Bosnians from most of Bosnia.
Despite Boucher's confirmation, George Bogdanich,
director of the Serbian-American Media Center and a spokesman
for the Serbian side, said Wednesday his organization's
contention that the State Department has never confirmed the
killings at Brcko. He argued that protest had died down
because ``we have yet to see any credible evidence of
systematic killings, and abuses are widespread on all
sides.'' a
Caution also has been fostered by a visceral
rejection by many Jews o f terms like ``concentration camp''
and ``death camp'' that drew what they considered
unacceptable comparisons to the Holocaust.
``In describing them as death camps and describing
it as a holocaust it demeans the memory of the Holocaust and
trivializes the very real atrocities going on today, because
you lose credibility,'' said Elan Steinberg, executive
director of the World Jewish Congress. Like others, he
stressed the difference between Hitler's ``Final Solution''
and what he called ``the horrors of warfare in a very complex
political situation.''
The debate over Holocaust terminology exasperates
George Kenney, who resigned his post as head of the State
Department's Yugoslav desk to protest U.S. government
inaction. Kenney detailed how the administration ignored or
minimized dozens of reports of systematic atrocities against
non-Serb Bosnians in order to avoid public pressure for
intervention.
``I've heard people argue about whether the term
genocide should be applied,'' Kenney said. ``People can call
it whatever the hell they want as long as they recognize
what's going on. You're having the whole Bosnian culture
wiped out, multicultural democratic government wiped out, the
killing of tens of thousands and the displacing of a million.''
novine.131.bale.,
U.N. Announces Week-Long Truce; More Croat-Muslim Fighting
Eds: New throughout to UPDATE with U.N. announcing week-long truce
to allow relief shipments, Sarajevo peace talks open, U.N. envoy
says abuse worsened in recent months as ethnic cleansing completed.
ADDS photo numbers. No pickup.
AP Photos SAR1, GNV1, BEL3
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - U.N. officials said today
that warring factions have agreed to a one-week truce next month to
allow food, medicine and clothing to reach 1 million children
facing a winter of deprivation.
Representatives of Bosnia's Muslim, Serb and Croat factions met
today in Sarajevo for the first time since June to discuss ending
the 6-month siege of Bosnia's capital.
But Croat and Muslim militiamen were reported fighting for a
fourth straight day in central Bosnia, further straining their
shaky alliance against the Serbs. U.N. officials said leaders of
the two factions were trying to keep the feud from spreading.
Sarajevo radio said Serb fighters again violated a U.N. ban on
military flights by using helicopters in northern Bosnia to attack
troops loyal to the Muslim-led government. The leader of Bosnia's
Serbs had promised to abide by the order.
Local commanders, apparently ignoring the orders of their
leaders, have thwarted previous truce accords and agreements on
getting essential supplies to people victimized by the war over
Bosnia's secession from Yugoslavia.
The U.N. Children's Fund said all ethnic factions agreed to a
cease-fire throughout the former Yugoslav federation during the
first week of November. The truce would allow relief workers to
reach beseiged areas in Bosnia and elsewhere by land.
``We want to reach up to 1 million children with the basic
necessities to face the harsh winter,'' said Edith Simmons, UNICEF
spokeswoman in Sarajevo.
The group plans to bring in 300 tons of blankets, clothes for
200,000 children, up to 800 tons of high-protein biscuits,
medicine, vitamins, vaccines, and school books, UNICEF officials
said.
Most relief supplies for Bosnia now come sporadically through an
international airlift into Sarajevo, but other besieged cities are
almost impossible to reach because of fighting.
The U.N. peacekeepers plan to fan out to some of those areas.
Indian Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. troops in former
Yugoslav states, said in Zagreb, Croatia, that 1,600 more soldiers
should arrive by mid-November. That would give him 8,000 troops.
In other developments:
-A U.N. envoy said human rights abuses in Bosnia worsened the
last two months as ``ethnic cleansing'' of regions by rival
factions was completed. Tadeusz Mazowiecki said in Geneva that most
of the abuses were committed against Muslims. He also called for an
investigation of suspected mass graves in Croatia, where Croats and
Serbs fought over Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia last year. He
declined to release details.
-Serbia's governing party of former Communists began a
closed-door congress at which opponents of President Slobodan
Milosevic's hard-line policies were expected to be purged. His
support for Serb insurgents in Bosnia led the U.N. Security Council
to impose trade and diplomatic sanctions on Yugoslavia, which now
includes only Serbia and Montenegro.
The war in Bosnia broke out after ethnic Serbs rebelled against
the Feb. 29 vote by the republic's majority Muslims and Croats to
secede. More than 14,000 people have died.
About 10,000 people died in Croatia last year after that
republic broke away, but both sides have generally observed a
cease-fire since early January.
The U.N.-mediated talks on ending the Serbs' siege of Sarajevo
had been stalled by a Muslim boycott over attacks on utility crews
trying to restore water and electricity to the city of 400,000.
Services were restored to about 70 percent of the city Thursday
after a month of outages.
``The fact alone that everyone is here and talking is a major
success,'' said French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, commander of U.N.
peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Sarajevo enjoyed a rare day of relative peace today. Pedestrians
clogged streets deemed safe from sniper fire on a lovely fall day.
But the fighting between Muslims and Croats north of the city
caused the Red Cross to cancel plans to evacuate 6,000 women,
children, elderly and handicapped people from Sarajevo.
Sarajevo radio and the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported
battles today around Novi Travnik, about 35 miles north of the
capital. Sarajevo radio said dozens of people were wounded.
Muslim and Croat fighters have clashed in several towns of
central Bosnia since Tuesday. Croat troops also fought Muslims in
Mostar, capital of the republic's Herzegovina region in the west.
The nominal alliance between Muslims and Croats has frayed as
Croat militiamen have taken control of much of Bosnian territory
not held by the Serbs. The Serbs control about 70 percent of
Bosnia.
Many Muslims fear the Croats and Serbs are planning to partition
Bosnia into ethnic enclaves, particularly after Croats gave up the
northern government stronghold of Bosanski Brod to the Serbs
earlier this month.
novine.132.bale.,
Reports Describe Atrocities In Former Yugoslavia
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ethnic hatreds of disintegrated Yugoslavia
are producing levels of savagery uncommon even in war, with
aggressors decapitating and dismembering prisoners, shooting women
in the back, raping children and torturing clerics.
Thousands more are being expelled from their homes, confined to
camps with little heat or food, and terrorized by fears of
systematic execution.
Such were the conclusions of two reports, one by the State
Department and the other by the London-based human rights group
Amnesty International, issued Thursday on atrocities in the former
Yugoslav republic of Bosnia.
The State Department list, citing ``credible reports'' from U.S.
Foreign Service personnel, journalists and relief workers, was the
second it has turned over to the United Nations, which is setting
up a commission to investigate war crimes in Yugoslavia.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the ``abhorrent
incidents'' include ``willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse
of civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction
of property, and the mass forcible expulsion and deportation of
civilians.
``I was reading it this morning, and, frankly, a lot of the
things in there make your blood boil and your stomach turn,'' he
said.
Among the incidents with the most victims:
Serb irregulars near the Bosnian town of Brcko were said to have
executed 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims last spring at a brick factory and
a pig farm.
An additional 200 men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb
police on Aug. 21 on a mountain road north of Travnik.
On July 20, about 100 Muslim women in the town of Biscani were
shot in the back. Their bodies lay in the road for four days until
Serb trucks collected them.
The Amnesty International report detailed an alleged massacre of
Muslim villagers in Zaklopaca, 45 miles northwest of Sarajevo, on
May 16, when as many as 105 people were killed.
Witnesses said Serbs wearing uniforms of the Yugoslav People's
Army carried out the executions.
``Probably no one will ever know the full extent of the human
rights violations which have taken place, but it is clear that they
have been horrific,'' Amnesty International said.
The State Department report detailed more than 30 incidents,
almost all perpetrated by Serbs against Muslims in Bosnia.
One exception was evidence that Croats attacked a bus convoy on
Aug. 27, killing 53 Serbian women and children and leaving about 50
wounded. In another, a Serbian man seized by Muslims was made to
crawl on the asphalt and bark like a dog before being executed.
Among the other incidents:
-A Muslim locksmith reported that on July 24, Serb guards with
automatic weapons systematically killed as many as 160 men at the
Keraterm camp in northwestern Bosnia.
-A Muslim refugee woman said that last June she saw a Serbian
soldier use an ax to hack off the arms and legs of two prisoners.
-Another refugee told of seeing a soldier drag a man out of the
Luka camp outside Brcko and return with a blood-soaked knife in one
hand and the man's head in the other.
-A 52-year-old Bosnian Muslim cleric said he witnessed torture
in the Omarska camp, including the cutting off of prisoners' hands
and genitals as punishments.
-Serb guards slit the throat of a Muslim cleric who refused to
cross himself.
-Guards raped a seven-year-old girl in front of her mother and
other women at the Manjaca camp. The girl died soon after.
-A refugee woman in another camp claimed she was burned with a
cattle prod and raped in front of her children, and her 12-year-old
daughter was raped.
Many of the abuses, Boucher said, were related to the ``ethnic
cleansing'' drive of Serbs intent on expelling Muslims from areas
of Bosnia that come under Serbian domination. Thousands have been
forced into detention camps, where many of the atrocities are
alleged to have occurred.
novine.133.bale.,
Sarajevo Sets Journalistic Trend: Reporters in Hard Shell
Eds: Also moved for PMs
With AM-Yugoslavia, Bjt
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - BBC journalist Malcolm
Brabant found himself stuck behind a stalled bus when he suddenly
heard a loud explosion and saw a blinding flash.
He lurched forward. The rifle round intended for him was stopped
cold by multiple layers of hardened glass in his customized Land
Rover's side window.
``Thank God it works, that's all I can say,'' Brabant said.
Television networks and news services are equipping their staff
with bulletproof jackets and armored cars for the war in former
Yugoslavia, a battlefield on which at least 28 journalists have
been killed.
Some reporters fear they are deliberately targeted in the bitter
civil war in Bosnia, where more than 14,000 people have died since
fighting broke out in February.
Since August, at least eight television networks and news
services, including The Associated Press, have equipped employees
with cars or small trucks designed to withstand bullets, shrapnel
and even land mines.
Journalists have long worn flak jackets, bulletproof vests and
combat helmets when covering particularly perilous stories. In time
of war, they also sometimes traveled with the military in protected
vehicles.
But the acquisition of armored cars by major news organizations
themselves is something new, veteran reporters say.
``In Beirut, it never crossed my mind as far as I can recall,''
said the BBC's Bob Simpson. ``I think I was just stupid.''
The trend reflects the unique, largely unavoidable risks of
Sarajevo - where the population is subject to mortars, artillery
shelling and sniper fire in almost any street in the city.
The armored cars are especially needed because of the frequent
gunfire on the road between Sarajevo's center and the airport, a
route that cannot be avoided by journalists entering or leaving the
city.
A CNN staffer was seriously wounded on the way to the airport in
July. On Aug. 13, just-arrived ABC producer David Kaplan, 45, was
killed by a bullet that penetrated the unarmored car he was riding
in from the airport.
``Attacks can come from anywhere,'' said Christian Millet of
Agence France-Presse.
``Elsewhere, when a journalist was shot at, it was - broadly
speaking - an accident,'' he said. ``Here everybody is a target.
... If they see you are a journalist they shoot. They either don't
care or they actually want to shoot journalists.''
Foreign journalists in Sarajevo routinely wear flak jackets or
bulletproof vests - often inscribed with the wearer's name, news
organization and blood type.
Photographers and camera operators whose work takes them into
the most dangerous areas usually put on battle helmets made of
Kevlar, the lightweight, bulletproof plastic used by many NATO
armies.
Flak vests have been stolen from journalists by armed gunmen.
``It saved my life,'' said Morten Hvaal, an AP photographer, who
displays a flak jacket with eight tear marks from bullets that
struck him June 24 when he was riding in an ambulance riddled by
bullets in the Dobrinja district. He suffered for four cracked
ribs.
The steel-plating around the passenger compartments and gas
tanks make the armored cars heavy and hard to navigate, and they
still are not foolproof against every threat.
But the armor adds enormously to peace of mind, journalists say.
``It does help you face things,'' said Brabant. ``I used to feel
almost physically sick in a soft car when the sniper is shooting
fairly close. ... Now I feel a lot more relaxed.''
novine.134.bale.,
The New York Times Friday, October 23
JOHN F. BURNS, from Sarajevo - In a step hailed by the UN military
commander here as "the first signal of hope" for the relief of 400 000
civilians trapped since April, repair crews drawn from both sides in the
Sarajevo siege have worked together to restore electrical power to 70
percent of the city and running water to a still wider area.
The repairs, begun three weeks ago, started to bring electricity
and water back to the city sporadically and in widely scattered areas
last week. But in the last 48 hours, as major transmission lines damaged
in the fighting have been repaired, utilities denied to hospitals,
private homes and many other places for weeks, and in some cases
months, have been restored.
................................................................
General Morillon said he would meet on Friday with officers from
all three fighting forces engaged in the Bosnian war - Serbs, Croats,
and the Muslim-led Bosnian Government - to push for a cease-fire.
UN commanders took particular encouragement from the fact that
the repairs to power lines were carried out by crews drawn equally
from Serbian engineers and workers living outside the siege lines and
Muslim counterparts living in Sarajevo.
...............................................................
PAUL LEWIS, from Belgrade - The Yugoslav Prime Minister reiterated
his call for an and to the UN trade embargo against his country today,
saying it weakened him in his political struglle against the forces of
reactionary Serbian nationalism.
.................................................................
But MR. Panic's appeal, made in an interview aboard his plane while
flying back from talks in Geneva, came a day after the UN and 12
EuropeanCommunity countries said sanctions must remain so long as
Milosevic, the President of the Serbian Republic and Mr.Panic's archrival,
refused to denounce violence by Serbs in B&H.
The statement said the trade embargo would remain until all human
rights abuses in B&H ceased, naming the Bosnian Serbs as "the principal
offenders.
FRANK J. PRIAL, from UN, Oct.22. - The US turned over to the UN
today a compilation of data it has gathered from a variety of sources
recounting the killing and torture of thousands of men, women, and
children, most of them Muslims, by Serbian irregular forces in B&H.
It is the seckond such report submitted to the UN by the US since
August, when the Security Council called on all UN members to present
evidence of breaches of the Geneva Convention to new war-crime
commission. The first American report was submitted in September.
The new document draws together what it calls "credible reports"
from American Embassies and Consulates and interviews with refugees
and journalists. Those reports, it says, document "numerous abhhorent
incidents, including wilfull killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of
civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction of
property and mass forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians."
Among the incidents reported are the killing of more than 100
men and boys by Serbian soldiers in the village of Bjelaj in late
September; the massacre of 200 men and boys by Bosnian Serbs near
Varjanta on Aug.21, and the killing of 100 Muslim women in Biscani
on July 20. The report further recounts dozens of rapes and cases
of abuse of civilians in detention centers.
While nothing yhe vaule of the information it has compiled,
the State Department said: "The international community needs to
conduct investigations within yhe territory of the former Yugoslavia
to assemble a more complete picture. Further, there is need for
forensic evidence regarding the various allegations of mass atrocities."
In another report released today, a joint team of UN inspectors
and representatives of Physicians for Human Rights, a private group,
said that they had discovered evidence of what might be the mass
grave of 174 Croatian hospital patients apparently killed by Serbs
in November.
According to Dr. H. Jack Geiger, president of the physician's
group and a professor at the City University of New York Medical
School, a survivor's story led them to a site near the town of Vukovar
where they found the remains of four skeletons "amid many indications
that other bodies may be buried there."
Dr. Geiger, who returned from Yugoslavia today, said his team
immediately called on the UN Protection Forces in the area to secure
the site until a full-scale forensic team could be assembled and a
thorough search made.
novine.135.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 205, October 23, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN ATTACKS PARLIAMENT FOR REFUSING TO POSTPONE CONGRESS. On
22 October, Russian President Boris Yeltsin criticized
parliament's refusal to postpone December's session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, Interfax reported. Yeltsin said he
would not "dramatize" the Supreme Soviet's decision, but he added
that he was "displeased" with it. On 21 October, the parliament
decided that the congress would open on 1 December, as scheduled,
rather than postponing it until March. Yeltsin had requested the
delay, saying that more time was needed to complete work on a new
constitution, which would be discussed at the congress. The draft
constitution stipulates that the congress must be abolished. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUTSKOI CALLS FOR COALITION GOVERNMENT. Speaking at a meeting of
the People's Party of Free Russia on 22 October, Russian Vice
President Aleksandr Rutskoi called on the government to share
power in a coalition with the Civic Union, which is supported by
heavy industry and favors a slower pace of reform. (Rutskoi is a
founding member of the Civic Union.) In his speech, Rutskoi called
for the ouster of six unnamed, high-level government officials,
according to Rossiiskaya gazeta and Moskovsky komsomolets. Rutskoi
was quoted as saying that under the current government's
leadership, Russia had become "a political and economic trash
can." The same day, AFP quoted Yeltsin's press secretary,
Vyacheslav Kostikov, as saying Yeltsin was unlikely "to offer any
sacrifices" to the Civic Union. Yeltsin has already made several
governmental appointments due to pressure from the "industrial
lobby." (Vera Tolz & Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOZYREV WARNS PARLIAMENT. "There is the danger that our debate on
foreign policy, which we welcome in every possible way, sometimes
goes beyond the framework of searching for the best ways to
[guarantee] the interests of the country," Russian Foreign
Minister Andrei Kozyrev said in his address before the Russian
parliament on 22 October. He took aim at those who operate "under
the guise of slogans" such as "a third way," "Eurasianism," or
"great power patriotism." In his remarks, which were aired on
Russian TV, Kozyrev also warned that such behavior was not
consistent with Russia's choice for democracy. (Suzanne Crow,
RFE/RL Inc.)
KOZYREV ON GREAT POWER STATUS, CIS. In the same address, Kozyrev
rejected the "panicky" and "defeatist mood" circulating in the
Russian parliament, which concluded that Russia had become "a
banana republic." He assured members of parliament that his
meetings at the United Nations had confirmed that Russia is still
regarded as a great power. Kozyrev offered assurances that the
member-states of the CIS were a priority of Russian foreign policy
and highlighted the trend toward integration for which some CIS
members have lent support. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
ECONOMIC AGREEMENTS SIGNED BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE. Acting
Russian Prime Minister Egor Gaidar and the newly appointed
Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma signed three agreements on
economic cooperation on 22 October, ITAR-TASS reported. The
agreements stipulated that the signatories will exchange trade
missions, introduce most favored treatment in mutual trading, and
cooperate in construction projects in third countries. Gaidar told
the agency that the talks also touched on the problems of payments
and credits arising from Ukraine's plans to introduce its own
currency and other issues. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
AGREEMENT ON GAS DELIVERIES TO EUROPE. Russian Deputy Prime
Minister Viktor Chernmyrdin told Interfax on 22 October that an
agreement was also reached between the Russian and Ukrainian prime
ministers on gas supplies to Europe. It was agreed that,
"regardless of the internal political situation," the obligations
of energy suppliers to Western Europe must be met. Chernomyrdin
said that Ukraine owed Russia some twenty-five to thirty billion
rubles for gas deliveries. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
INTERENTERPRISE DEBTS DOWN. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Georgii
Khizha told parliament on 22 October that the total volume of
interenterprise debts in the former Soviet Union had declined from
3.4 trillion rubles to 648 billion rubles by the end of September,
Interfax reported. He said that the netting-out of debts had been
virtually completed. Enterprises had requested 760 billion rubles
in new credits, but had been given 300 billion rubles. Acting
Russian Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko was cited as
saying that the netting-out had not resolved the financial
problems of enterprises because wholesale prices had risen by a
factor of 16 since 1 January, while their "turnover resources" had
risen by a mere 150%. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
EBRD REPORT ON RUSSIAN ECONOMY. In its latest quarterly review,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says
that a rise in popular discontent is likely in Russia during the
coming months, Reuters reported on 22 October. The Bank also
states that without a clear return to monetary and fiscal
discipline, inflation in Russia could turn into hyperinflation
during the final months of 1992. It notes further that the Russian
budget deficit is heading towards the equivalent of 17% of GNP,
that is, more than three times the 5% level agreed with the IMF in
early July. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
PRESIDENT OF EBRD FORECASTS MASS UNEMPLOYMENT IN CIS. In an
apocalyptic speech on the problems of the CIS, Jacques Attali,
President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
warned of mass dismissals and plant closures in 1993, western
press agencies reported on 22 October. His predictions are based
on an International Labor Organization (ILO) study presented in
Moscow this week. This study contests the idea held by many
Western economists that enterprises are still hanging onto
employees, and it claims that many unemployed are not receiving
unemployment benefits or employment services. The ILO has
expressed concern at the lack of preparation for mass
unemployment, and is planning to advise Russia on ways of creating
new industrial jobs. The ILO forecasts are based on the assumption
that economic reform will impose hard budget constraints on
enterprises, which is not yet the case. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUBLE EXCHANGE RATE UNCHANGED IN MOSCOW. The ruble exchange rate
at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange on 22 October remained
unchanged at 368 rubles to the US dollar, Interfax reported. The
volume traded was $39.3 million. At the St. Petersburg currency
auction on 21 October, the ruble had dropped to 375 rubles to the
dollar. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
SETTLING TROOPS IN THE MOSCOW REGION. Problems in redeploying
troops from Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and other regions
were discussed on 22 October at a meeting of the Moscow oblast
government, ITAR-TASS reported. Plans call for 26 formations,
units, and military institutions to be relocated in the oblast,
primarily in the Naro-Fominsk, Odintsovsk, and Solnechnogorsk
regions, and in the city of Dubna. Newly arriving officers will
occupy temporary housing, with several thousand apartments
scheduled to be constructed in 1993. Colonel General Leontii
Kuznetsov, commander of the Moscow Military District, told
ITAR-TASS that regional administrators have been cooperative in
all regions, with the exception of Dubna, where deputies are
protesting the deployment of troops and weaponry. Kuznetsov also
said there were few problems housing conscripts because most units
were only 50% manned. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK ON CRIMEAN TATARS. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk
has suggested forming a trilateral commission to deal with the
practical problems of resettling the Crimean Tatars in the Crimea,
Interfax reported on 22 October. The members of the commission
would include representatives of Ukraine, the Crimea, and the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis. The Mejlis was recently ruled to be
unconstitutional by the Crimean parliament. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.)
US TO HELP BELARUS GET RID OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Belarus Deputy
Minister of Defense Aleksandr Tushinskiy and US Under Secretary of
Defense Frank Wisner initialed a series of nuclear agreements in
Washington on 22 October. According to Pentagon spokesman Bob
Hall, these included an umbrella agreement providing the legal
framework for US assistance and two implementing agreements. One
calls for up to $5 million in US aid to equip and train Belarus
personnel to deal with any emergency that might arise during the
removal of ex-Soviet nuclear weapons from the Republic. The second
is designed to help Belarus establish export control systems to
prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Hall said that
up to $1 million is available for this purpose. The money will be
drawn from the $400 million which the US Congress has authorized
to aid the former Soviet Union. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS FORCE LEVELS; COLLECTIVE SECURITY. Belarus Defense
Minister Pavel Kozlovsky told reporters in Minsk on 21 October
that the CFE agreement permitted Belarus to retain 1,800 tanks,
2,000 armored vehicles, and 130 combat aircraft, Interfax reported
the next day. Over the next 40 months, he said, the manpower of
the armed forces could not exceed 100,000. His remarks followed a
closed session of the parliament at which the CFE treaty was
ratified. According to Belinform-TASS on 21 October, Deputies also
discussed participation by Belarus in the CIS Collective Security
Treaty signed in Tashkent, but were unable to reach a consensus.
They decided to return to the issue at a later date. (Stephen
Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
BUFFER ZONE IN TAJIKISTAN? ITAR-TASS reported on 22 October that
its Dushanbe correspondent has learned of plans to establish a
buffer zone between the Tajik capital and Kulyab Oblast, the main
center of support for deposed President Rakhmon Nabiev in the
southern part of the country. The buffer zone, proposed by acting
President Akbarsho Iskandarov to keep pro- and anti-government
fighters apart, is to be occupied by Russian soldiers. The Russian
division stationed in Tajikistan is already guarding the Nurek
power plant, which supplies electricity to Dushanbe and was seized
by fighters from Kulyab during the summer. The correspondent noted
that fighting continues between pro-government forces in
Kurgan-Tyube Oblast and anti-government forces from Kulyab;
despite high losses both sides are determined to continue. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
HELICOPTER HIJACKERS TRADED CARPETS FOR ARMS. The commander of a
unit of Russian border guards in Tajikistan told ITAR-TASS on 21
October that a helicopter hijacked from Tajikistan to Afghanistan
on 19 October had returned the following day with a load of
weapons and had landed undisturbed, unloading the weapons obtained
in Afghanistan. According to an Interfax report, the hijackers
traded Tajik carpets for the weapons. The border guards were
prevented from approaching the helicopter when it returned;
apparently local representatives of the Tajik National Security
Committee took charge of the weapons. A protest by Russian border
troops to local authorities was ignored. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MILITARY TEST SITES CLOSED IN KAZAKHSTAN. KazTAG reported on 21
October that Sagat Tugelbaev, head of the Atyrau Oblast
administration, has ordered that nuclear missile test sites in the
oblast be closed down. The report indicated that officials from
the Russian Federation, who had come to Atyrau (formerly Gurev) to
meet with oblast officials and a special commission headed by
Kazakhstan's defense minister, had argued hotly against the
closure. Troop commanders at the sites have been ordered to clean
them up. There have been press reports and inquiries about the
military test sites in western Kazakhstan for more than a year. It
appears that in the Atyrau case, Alma-Ata is permitting local
interest to take precedence over CIS agreements. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN GROUP'S APARTMENT CONFISCATED IN ALMA-ATA. The
largely-Russian independent trade-union organization Birlesu has
had an apartment confiscated for use by Kazakhs, Birlesu's
information agency complained on 20 October. The apartment,
according to the report, is owned by the group, which wanted to
use it as a center representing the AFL-CIO in Kazakhstan. The
Union of Homeless has told Kazakhs that they may occupy the
apartments of Russians who have left the country; although the
apartment in question did not fall into this category, it was
apparently seen by the Kazakh organization as Russian housing that
was not currently in use. Birlesu complained that neither the
mayor's office nor the state prosecutor was willing to do anything
about the forcible takeover. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
TURKMENISTAN TO REMAIN IN RUBLE ZONE. Nazar Suyunov,
Turkmenistan's deputy prime minister responsible for economic
issues, signed an agreement on a unified CIS currency system,
ITAR-TASS reported on 22 October. Turkmenistan had not subscribed
to the agreement during the Bishkek summit "for technical
reasons," according to the report. Suyunov's signature
demonstrates that Turkmenistan intends to remain within the "ruble
zone," although the same day Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov
said on Russian TV that Turkmenistan intends to introduce its own
currency, in consultation with Russia and other states, because a
national currency is a necessary attribute of national
independence. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MOSCOW BOMBER A "DNIESTER" SUPPORTER. The main perpetrator of the
incident involving the throwing of an army hand grenade on 20
October near a MacDonald's restaurant in Moscow, which injured
eight people, is Valerii Zakharenkov, a former leader of Moscow
youth gangs, who has been convicted twice of rape and robbery.
Disclosing these details upon apprehending him, the police added
that Zakharenkov had recently moved to the "Dniester republic" and
received a residence permit from the latter's authorities, and
that he accused the Russian authorities of not doing enough to
help Russians in that part of Moldova, Reuters and TASS reported
on 20 October. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MASS GRAVE FOUND AT VUKOVAR? The BBC and AFP on 22 October
reported that UN human rights inspectors said they believed they
had found at least one mass grave near Vukovar. The team was
headed by special envoy and former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki and included a forensic pathologist. Mazowiecki asked
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to send UN troops to
protect the site until more forensic experts could arrive. The
eastern Slavonian city was a symbol of Croatian resistance to
virtually constant Serbian shelling until it fell in November
1991. AFP quoted Croatian officials as saying that 3,000 Vukovar
residents are listed as missing, including 300 hospital patients.
The BBC also noted that the US had sent the UN its second report
since September on probable human rights violations in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, chiefly involving attacks by Serbs against
Muslims. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International media on 22 October said that the UN
had decided to resume relief flights to Sarajevo after a 24-hour
hiatus. Responsible authorities had meanwhile concluded that
fighting between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia did not pose
a danger to the flights. Reuters added that the Croats appeared to
be consolidating their hold on a string of towns northwest of
Sarajevo on the overland route used by UN convoys from Zagreb.
Fighting continued between Serbs and Croats at Trebinje in
Herzegovina near Dubrovnik, a scene of massacres of Serbs by
Croats during World War II. Ethnic strife returned there with a
vengeance in the current conflict, which some observers have
called a resumption of the World War II violence after a 46-year
break. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
SERB-ALBANIAN TALKS YIELD NO PROGRESS. No progress was reported in
talks between education ministry officials of Serbia, the federal
rump Yugoslavia, and the self-proclaimed Kosovo government, which
resumed in Belgrade on 22 October. The talks center on reopening
Albanian-language schools in Kosovo province, where Albanians make
up more than 90% of the population. Serbia closed the schools in
1990. The talks opened on 14 October in Pristina. The Albanians
want the restoration of Albanian-language curriculum to be based
on a broad policy that applies to all educational levels, from
primary to university. The Serbs want a step-by-step review
dealing with each level separately. In another development, Borba
reports on 20 October that Milan Panic, Prime Minister of rump
Yugoslavia, asked Kosovo leader Ibrahim Rugova to select three
capable Albanians to serve in Panic's federal cabinet. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC-MILOSEVIC SHOWDOWN IMMINENT. Serbian and international media
report on 22 October that a showdown between Milan Panic and
Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic is imminent in the wake of
the 19 October takeover of the federal interior ministry building
by Serbian republican police. But both sides are dismissing the
possibility of a coup as "absurd" and "self-defeating." Coup
rumors spread after Belgrade TV on 21 October reported in a lead
story on Milosevic's visit to the federal military's Technical
Institute. Belgrade's independent radio B-92 suggested the TV
report was a signal to Panic that Milosevic has the army's
backing. Meanwhile Serbia's ruling Socialist Party announced that
Milosevic will seek reelection as Serbia's President despite the
fact that he is doing poorly in recent opinion polls. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT WANTS OMON LEADER RETURNED TO RUSSIA. Baltfax
reported on 22 October that the Russian Supreme Soviet has asked
Latvia "to return [to Russia] its citizen Sergei Parfenov in view
of the clear lack of evidence of his guilt," although Parfenov's
trial has not yet ended. Parfenov is being tried in Riga on
charges of abuse of power while a leader of OMON forces in Latvia
in 1991. He was extradited to Latvia by the Russian State
Prosecutor's Office. In 1991 and 1992 members of OMON attacked
Latvia's Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as the civilian
population; scores of individuals were injured and several persons
were killed. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
TALKS ON DANUBE DIVERSION BREAK DOWN. According to several news
agency reports, talks to resolve the long-standing conflict
between Czechoslovakia and Hungary over the proposed diversion of
the Danube river broke down in Brussels on 22 October. The
Hungarian negotiator said the talks, which are mediated by the
European Community, broke down because the Czechoslovak side did
not accept the conditions that had been clearly specified by the
EC commission earlier. Czechoslovakia plans to divert the river on
3 November. Despite the breakdown in Brussels, environmental
committees of the two countries' parliaments held their first
talks in Budapest yesterday. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAW ON INTELLIGENCE SERVICE. The Czech
National Council passed a law on the creation of the Czech
Security and Information Service (BIS) on 22 October. The BIS will
succeed the Federal Security and Information Service (FBIS) after
the disintegration of Czechoslovakia. The activities of the new
intelligence service will be monitored by a special commission
elected by the parliament. The law also stipulates that BIS
employees may not be members of a political party. Opposition
deputies walked out in protest before the vote on the law. They
charged that the draft provided insufficient control over the use
of "intelligence devices." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH AND SLOVAK MINISTERS GUARANTEE PROPERTY RIGHTS. The
privatization ministers of the Czech and Slovak republics, Jiri
Skalicky and Lubomir Dolgos assured shareholders in privatized
companies on 22 October that their shares will be safe after the
breakup of Czechoslovakia, CSTK reported. Skalicky told
journalists in Prague that property rights will not be infringed
upon. Dolgos said the rights of Czechs who invested in Slovak
companies will be guaranteed, although they will effectively own
shares in a foreign company after 1 January 1993. The two
ministers also announced that the republics will pursue separate
privatization programs after the disintegration of Czechoslovakia.
(Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN CHIEF PROSECUTOR ORDERS INVESTIGATION. MTI reported on
22 October that the Chief Prosecutor has ordered an investigation
into alleged war crimes committed in connection with the 1956
Hungarian Revolution. The investigation was requested by three
Hungarian Democratic Forum deputies. By the deputies' definition,
war crimes committed during or after the 1956 revolution include:
initiating Soviet aggression against the legitimate Hungarian
government in October 1956, inspiring the Soviet occupation of the
country, participating in acts of revenge against freedom
fighters, and hindering the restoration of peace in Eastern
Europe. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMAN REFUSES TO JOIN COALITION GOVERNMENT. National Salvation
Front (NSF) leader and former prime minister Petre Roman has ruled
out joining a coalition government led by the rival Democratic
National Salvation Front, the party behind President Ion Iliescu.
In an interview with Reuters, Roman said on 22 October that the
solution would likely be a minority government with an acceptable
program supported by both his party and the Democratic Convention,
an alliance of the main opposition forces. In a separate statement
broadcast by Radio Bucharest, the NSF insisted that a "social
pact" cabinet could not be formed without broad political
negotiations. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
FORMER DISSIDENT TO BE ROMANIA'S PRIME MINISTER? Former Romanian
dissident Mihai Botez returned to Bucharest from the United States
on 22 October. The 51-year-old Botez left Romania in 1987 after a
decade of dissent against late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Quoting
unnamed sources in Bucharest, Reuter said that Romania's President
Ion Iliescu had asked Botez, a mathematician and futurologist, to
become the non-partisan prime minister of a coalition government.
Inconclusive elections on 27 September produced a hung parliament
in Romania. In what Romanian media describe as a "Panic complex,"
(a reference to Milan Panic, prime minister of rump Yugoslavia),
some observers believe that Botez might be the person to lead the
country out of the current crisis. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
MACDEONIAN PRESIDENT, DEFENSE MINISTER, VISIT BULGARIA. On 22
October the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov,
paid a brief surprise visit to Sofia. Gligorov said he had come
mainly to see the staging of a play written by a Macedonian
playwright, but that it was also a "good occasion to exchange
opinions" with Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev. According to
BTA, the two discussed regional and bilateral problems. At the
same time a Macedonian military delegation, led by Defense
Minister Vlado Popovski, visited Sofia. The Bulgarian Defense
Ministry released a statement saying that the Macedonians, in the
process of creating their own army, were interested in military
expert assistance. The talks were also reported to have covered
trade in military equipment, although both sides committed
themselves to respect international treaties and domestic
legislation. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN MINISTERS DEFEND GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE. At a plenary
session of the National Assembly on 22 October, leading members of
the present Bulgarian cabinet came forward to defend their
policies and, on some occasions, to regret their mistakes. Whereas
Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov and Finance Minister Ivan Kostov
mainly blamed the opposition for the recent political turmoil,
Deputy Premier and Minister of Education and Science Nikolay
Vasilev said the government had not sought wide public support for
its actions. The confidence vote requested by the government was
postponed until next week. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA PRESSES FOR DEBT CONCESSIONS. Polish Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka urged Western creditors and the International Monetary
Fund to exercise greater leniency in setting targets for the
Polish economy. In an interview with Reuter on 22 October,
Suchocka said that foreign debt payments will soon consume
one-third of export income if no compromise is reached. The IMF
should agree to an increase in the budget deficit to exceed the
original 5%-of-GDP ceiling, she added. Suchocka travels to Rome
for a two-day private visit on 23 October. She is to be received
twice by the Pope and meet with the Italian prime minister and
foreign minister. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN COURT SUSPENSION OF NEWSPAPER. On 19 October a Riga court
ordered the suspension of the registration certificate of the
Latvian citizen's movement's newspaper Pilsonis. The order means
that the newspaper can no longer be published. Charges against
Pilsonis were brought by the Latvian State Prosecutor Janis
Skrastins and supported by Minister of Justice Viktors Skudra, BNS
reported on 20 October. The newspaper was known to have published
controversial reports and critical assessments of the policies and
actions of the government. It is not clear if the publishers will
appeal decision. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS RESUME. LatvianRussian troop withdrawal
talks resumed on 23 October in Moscow. The Latvian side wants to
discuss the detailed proposal on ways to remove all troops by 1993
that it presented at the last round of talks in September. The
Russian side appears determined to keep 1994 as the deadline for
the pullout, Baltic media report. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIAN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION DROPS. Industrial production in
Lithuania in the last nine months has dropped 47.5% compared to
the same period last year, BNS reported on 20 October. Oil
refining production decreased 66%, batteries - 72%, paper - 61%,
sugar - 56%, bicycles - 53%, laundry detergents - 51%, and canned
fish - 50%. Exports for hard currency in the nine months, however,
rose from 2.9% to 9.4% of total production. Compared to August,
September production of grain rose 87%, chemical fibers and yarn -
67%, woolen fabrics - 56%, knitwear 42%, refrigerators and
stockings - 26%. Production costs in September were 18 times
greater than in September 1991 and 1.8 times greater than in
August 1992. Consumer prices in the same periods increased 6 and
1.3 times. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
WORLD BANK LOANS TO LITHUANIA AND LATVIA. On 22 October the World
Bank approved loans of $60 million to Lithuania and $45 million to
Latvia, a RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reports. The loans
will be used to buy medicines, feed grain, and energy. Japan's
import-export bank has also promised to provide additional
co-financing of $100 million to the three Baltic republics. In an
unrelated measure, Reuters reported that Sweden was donating one
coastguard vessel each to Latvia and Lithuania to monitor fishing,
for customs and border control, and for environmental protection.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO END VISA REQUIREMENT. On 21 October
Lithuanian deputy foreign minister Valdemaras Katkus and his
Czechoslovak counterpart Jaroslav Suchanek exchanged official
notes on establishing visa-free travel between the two countries
beginning on 19 November, Radio Lithuania reports. During his
visit to Czechoslovakia Katkus also held meetings with Czech
deputy foreign minister Sasa Vondra and Slovak foreign minister
Vladimir Kniazko. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.136.bale.,
A Hospital Crib Is His Home, the Staff His Only Family
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ From a dingy crib in
the pediatrics ward of Kosevo Hospital, 20-month-old Darko
Plecic casts brown eyes on a stranger and whimpers a
wordless plea to be picked up.
Once in the visitor's arms, the tot with a wire-brush
tuft of chestnut hair snuggles and clings like a frightened
monkey.
So rarely does anyone come to see him that a young girl
looks up curiously: ``Darko, who's visiting you?''
Although Darko is basically healthy, his entire world
for seven months has been the inside of this frequently
shelled hospital, filled with the maimed and dying, often
lit only by candlelight because electricity shortages.
Darko is among at least 10 children here whose parents
have been separated from them in the fighting and who have
nowhere to go because of the war tearing apart Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
``We're his unofficial parents. The staff here is the
only family he has,'' said Dr. Adnan Hadzimuratovic.
Darko's parents sent him to the capital last March 17
from Visegrad, 50 miles east of Sarajevo, for treatment of
an intestinal disorder.
Then war came. Now no one at the hospital knows whether
Darko's parents are alive.
``Can anyone in America understand that in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, there are dozens of `concentration camps' cut
off from one another?'' said Dr. Lutvo Hodzic, the
pediatrics director.
``One of these camps is called Sarajevo, and another is
Visegrad,'' he said. ``So we have no idea what is going on
with his parents because we are surrounded by a fascist
army, and so are they.''
Sarajevo and other Muslim-dominated Bosnian cities have
been besieged by Serbian rebels in a six-month war that has
killed over 14,000 people.
Darko spends most of his time on a cot with sheets that
are washed infrequently because of a lack of running water.
He wears borrowed clothes. Rags substitute for diapers.
The harried staff spares him as much time as possible,
but fears his emotional growth will suffer as he spends
month after month a prisoner of his crib.
``He was everyone's favorite. When Darko started to cry,
we all raced to pick him up,'' said Hadzimuratovic. ``But he
started not to grow as quickly as he should. We moved him to
pediatrics because we thought the food there might be
better.''
``He was our mascot,'' said head nurse Fatima Zaimovic.
``The other children come and go, and he stayed with us.''
Most of the other children are victims of shelling and
sniping. Some have lost legs and must learn to walk with
crutches. Others grimace in pain as nurses clean their deep
shrapnel wounds.
Despite their own suffering, many spend time with Darko.
``He learned to walk here, with the other children
helping,'' said physical therapist Sabina Raic.
``I played dolls with him. We didn't have cars,'' said
11-year-old Mustafa Osmanovic, another child cut off from
his parents.
Darko might be better off in a foster home, Raic said,
but ``nobody asked to take him.'' The city orphanage, which
lacks heat, has been turned over to refugees.
Parents often beg the hospital to keep their children as
long as possible. ``Here they have three meals a day and
it's probably less dangerous,'' Raic said.
But Hodzic, the pediatrics chief, said shortages are
starting to affect the hospital.
``It's not only that Darko is hungry and thirsty to be
touched,'' he said. ``You should see him when I offer him a
piece of bread. He is jumping in his bed for joy. He can't
wait to get it in his mouth.''
Hodzic said hundreds of children like Darko could die if
the international community doesn't start sending more food
instead of ``empty declarations.''
``Yesterday the main judge of the main court in Bosnia-
Herzegovina came to me and cried like a baby, begging for
one liter of milk for his three grandchildren,'' he said.
``Can you imagine something like that in your country?''
novine.137.bale.,
Czechs Mourn Short-Lived Dream of Fairy Tale Revolution (Prague)
By Tyler Marshall and Iva Drapalova
Special to the Los Angeles Times
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia _ Amid the grass and autumn
leaves of the capi tal's Vysehrad Cemetery, a part of Europe
came full circle Saturday.
It was here nearly three years ago, with communism
teetering on the b rink of collapse throughout Eastern
Europe, that thousands of young Czechoslovaks gathered before
marching to the center of Prague to demand their nation's
freedom.
That night was in many ways the apex of an
extraordinary European autumn _ the start of a fairy tale
revolution where no one died, the good guys won, and an
enlightened philosopher-poet named Vaclav Havel emerged to
lead his people to democracy.
As events Saturday underscored, the Czechoslovaks
did not live happil y ever after.
On a remarkably similar chilly autumn day, several
thousand people gathered near the gates of the same cemetery
Saturday to mark a very different event: the dissolution of
their country.
The mood was melancholy. More in sadness than in
anger, Czechoslovakia has effectively come apart.
``The framework of our nation has disintegrated,''
Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus told the somber crowd. ``It
is now up to us to build an independent Czech state on its
ruins.''
Although events here contain none of the horror of
the civil war ripping apart the nearby republics of the old
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia's demise carries equally
disturbing implications for those who dream of a unified,
peaceful Europe.
If this state can fall apart despite its rich
cultural heritage, a proven industrial potential and long
democratic traditions, Europeans ask themselves, then what
hope is there for the less stable, struggling nations of
southeastern Europe and what used to be the Soviet Union?
``Czechoslovakia could have been an example for
Europe and the whole world that different peoples can live
together,'' said Karel Schwarzenberk, who ran Havel's
presidential office until Havel resigned last summer. ``That
we can't (live together) is a sad fact.''
Czechoslovakia's fate as an independent federal
state was all but sealed by the Czech decision not to
challenge a Slovak declaration of independence last July.
Officially, Saturday's rally was called to
celebrate the ``restoration'' of the Czech state _ a logical
consequence of the breakup.
With the date of the federation's formal breakup
set for Jan. 1, therally was an attempt to instill a degree
of Czech identity and affirm Czech independence. In fact, it
seemed more a public mourning of the death of Czechoslovakia.
The re-emergence of Slovakian nationalism came as
part of a broader political assertiveness by ethnic and
national groups throughout the former Soviet Bloc after the
collapse of communism.
Emotions were fueled further as Slovaks watched
the overwhelming majority of foreign investment during the
past two years flow into the Czech lands.
Tough post-revolution economic policies designed
by Klaus also hit Slovakia's obsolete, Soviet-designed heavy
industry disproportionately hard.
After an initial attempt last summer to meet
Slovak demands for independence within a loose confederation
with the Czech lands, Klaus has since insisted on a clean
break.
``On both sides, people aren't sure this is the
right way,'' said Martin Palous, a leader of the 1989
revolution who later became deputy foreign minister. ``The
biggest problem for professional politicians is to convince
people there are no alternatives.''
Saturday's rally showed that for many, the split
has already occurred.
Before leaving, those present held candles high
and sang Czechoslovakia's national anthem _ a slow, soulful
Czech melody that is followed by strains of brisk Slovak
music. The Slovak portion was missing.
Anti-Yeltsin Hard-Liners Stage Huge Show of Strength (Moscow)
By Carey Goldberg
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW _ With President Boris N. Yeltsin already
on the defensive, Russia's hard-line opposition staged its
most coordinated show of strength yet Saturday, holding
protest rallies in 60 cities across the country and gathering
its disparate leaders into a new National Salvation Front.
Yeltsin summoned his Cabinet for urgent talks on
``the state of the country,'' official Russian news agencies
reported, sparking widespread speculation that he was
deciding which ministers would have to be sacrificed to
public discontent.
There was no word from the Cabinet meeting
Saturday night, but some national media even predicted that
the Russian president could soon jettison the entire Cabinet,
a group of bright young economists whom he has accused of
caring too much about theory and not enough about people.
Tens of thousands of protesters, organized mainly
by labor unions, demonstrated in cities from Vladivostok to
St. Petersburg Saturday to demand the Cabinet's resignation
and an end to its attempts to push Russia toward a
market-driven economy.
``We absolutely must get rid of this illegitimate
government that came to power without people's support,''
unemployed architect Nadezhda Yuyukina said as she stood
among about 5,000 other largely elderly demonstrators in the
freezing cold of Moscow's October Square. ``They must go away
in disgrace. What we have now is chaos.''
About 2,000 delegates, gathered at the founding
congress of the National Salvation Front, applauded as
organizer Ilya Konstantinov told them that the new group
must ``struggle for power, and struggle for power in the
nearest future.''
The new front ``must be capable of changing the
course of history in our country,'' Konstantinov, a member of
Parliament, said.
The upsurge in opposition activity came just days
after Yeltsin lost his bid to postpone a session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, the country's highest
legislative body, that is expected to take him to task for
failures in his reform program. He rebuked lawmakers
afterward for ``sliding too far to the right'' and said that
he would not forget their disrespect.
But he was nonetheless clearly on the defensive,
and the prestigious Nezavisimaya Gazeta, or Independent
Newspaper, headlined its Saturday edition: ``Yeltsin will
have to change his team very soon _ fully or partially, that
is the question.''
Critical remarks that Yeltsin made in a recent
speech to Parliament have focused attention on Foreign Trade
Minister Pyotr Aven and Economics Minister Andrei Nechayev,
both of whom were singled out for censure. Most scenarios
hold that Yeltsin will replace them with choices that will
please conservatives in a preemptive move before the Dec. 1
congress.
That would not be enough to satisfy leaders of the
National Salvation Front. In speech after speech, they
condemned the poverty and injustice that they said Yeltsin's
reforms have brought Russia and demanded that the entire
Cabinet resign.
The Front must not resort to violence, they said,
but if Yeltsin refuses to change his policies, it must bring
about his resignation and a premature round of new elections
to the presidency and Parliament.
``We must act within the law, but act more
decisively than ever,'' Konstantinov said, ``because full
collapse ... is only a few months away.''
Alexander Prokhanov, editor of the nationalist
newspaper Den, or Day, said that life in Russia was now good
``only for rats and lies.''
``The Democrats in the city governments do nothing
but drink and steal,'' he said. ``Our writers die of hunger.
Our icons are stolen from our museums. Our girls are taught
to be prostitutes and our boys taught to be speculators.''
Yeltsin's nationalist opposition has tried
repeatedly to organize itself into a coordinated bloc and
failed, and although front leaders have gathered together an
impressive array of politicians and ideologues, it was not
clear that they would do any better.
Already, cracks could be seen between the
``right-wing'' or nationalist opposition and the
``left-wing'' or old-style Communist opposition, with
left-wing leaders pointedly staying away from the Front's
congress and running their own rallies instead.
And despite the opposition's growing strength,
Russian commentators continued to put their money on Yeltsin,
having seen him pull through many a bad situation using pure
political skill.
``In ancient Sparta, there were two kinds of
czars _ one for peace and one for war,'' analyst Nikolai
Svanidze said on Russian Television's nightly news. ``Boris
Yeltsin would have been a warring czar. In situations of
sharp conflict, he demonstrates his best qualities, making
quick and definite decisions.''
``Right now, that's the kind of situation we're
in,'' Svanidze said.
Pentagon Warned Bush Not to Send Weak Message to Hussein (Washn)
By Douglas Frantz
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ Senior Pentagon officials tried
unsuccessfully to prevent President Bush from sending a
message to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a few days before the
invasion of Kuwait because they feared it was too weak to
halt Iraqi aggression, former administration officials said
Sunday.
The attempt to block the president's message came
as the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency were
increasingly convinced that Iraqi troops were preparing an
invasion of Kuwait, according to former officials and sources.
However, the State Department and White House
blocked the Pentagon attempt and Bush sent a cautious
communique to Hussein on July 28, 1990, just five days before
the invasion. Bush asked Hussein to avoid military action but
he did not name Kuwait and couched the request in terms of a
continued desire for friendship.
``By the 24th (of July), when the Iraqi troops
were moving, there was no question about how serious this
was,'' Henry S. Rowen, then the assistant secretary of
defense for international affairs, said in an interview.
``The particular instruction was unnecessarily weak in our
view.''
The disclosure of the Pentagon objection to Bush's
message, first reported in the New York Times, fuels the
debate over whether the Bush administration was stern enough
in dealing with Hussein in the days leading up to the invasion.
White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater
attributed the flap over the message to Hussein to a heated
presidential campaign in which Bush appears to be narrowing
the gap that Democratic nominee Bill Clinton enjoys.
He said that a lot of people are trying ``to
embarrass the president by saying: `I told him to do this and
he didn't want to do it. I advised him to be tough and be
weak or be strong.' It's crazy.''
Bush was first urged to send a strong warning to
Hussein in an administration options paper in May 1990. The
Iraqi leader was threatening to use his army to settle a
dispute with Kuwait over oil prices and the border between
the two countries.
The White House rejected the proposal, preferring
the assurances of its Arab allies that Hussein would not
resort to force and that he should be dealt with
diplomatically.
By late July, the Department of Defense was
concerned as 35,000 Iraqi troops moved to the border with
Kuwait. Sources said that reconnaissance satellites spotted
the Iraqis laying secure communications lines near the
border, evidence that they were serious about an invasion.
``Those of us at Defense were deeply concerned
about the Iraqi troop buildup and we thought they were going
to go,'' said Marvin C. Feuerwerger, a Middle East strategist
at the Department of Defense at the time and now an analyst
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
On July 25, Hussein had met with U.S. Ambassador
April Glaspie and discussed his dispute with Kuwait and
U.S.-Iraq relations.
A personal response to Hussein from Bush was
drafted at the White House and State Department. The draft
was shown to Pentagon officials on July 27 and Rowen said
that they feared its cautious tone did not indicate a U.S.
willingness to defend Kuwait with military forces.
``We voiced objections to the State Department and
thought we had a hold on it,'' said Rowen, now a professor at
Stanford University and senior fellow at the conservative
Hoover Institution. ``It needed to be much tougher.''
By late July, CIA officials were alarmed by Iraq's
buildup on the Kuwaiti border. Infrared photography from a
spy satellite showed Iraqi troops hauling ammunition, fuel
and water to forces along the northern border with Kuwait,
according to ``Eclipse,'' a new book on the CIA by Mark Perry.
On the morning of July 28, according to the book,
CIA Director William H. Webster led a contingent of agency
officials to the White House to brief Bush. The satellite
photographs were presented to Bush, along with the CIA's
assessment that Hussein might attack Kuwait.
But later that day, the three-paragraph message
was sent to Hussein. Five days later, on Aug. 2, Iraq invaded
Kuwait.
A senior Bush administration official involved in
drafting the message to Hussein said that Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Kuwait were urging Bush not to respond harshly. He
pointed out that Hussein had told Glaspie that he intended to
negotiate a resolution to his differences with Kuwait.
``The sense at that point was not to roil the
waters just when they w ere getting calm,'' said the official.
Congressional Democrats have accused Bush of being
too soft on Iraq in a number of areas, including continuing
U.S. credits for loans in the face of strong evidence of
Iraqi abuse. The administration has defended extending the
aid in part by citing a May 21, 1990, report by the
Department of Agriculture which found little evidence of
serious Iraqi abuses in the program.
An internal Department of Justice document
obtained by the Los Angeles Times provides the harshest
criticism yet of the report. The May 21, 1990, memo by a
federal prosecutor in Atlanta warned that the report was
inaccurate and could constitute misleading Congress if it
were released.
Prosecutor Gale McKenzie, who was leading the
investigation into the abuses in connection with a massive
bank fraud, urged the department to try to block the report's
release. But it was released anyway.
Baker Intervened for Iraq, Documents Show (Washn)
By R. Jeffrey Smith
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON _ Then-Secretary of State James A.
Baker III personally intervened to extend U.S. loan
guarantees to Iraq three years ago, contravening explicit,
detailed warnings from a federal prosecutor that Iraqi
officials were implicated in criminal wrongdoing on past loan
guarantees, according to government documents.
Baker, who now is White House chief of staff, took
the action at a time the State Department was anxious to
obtain Iraqi support for a U.S. plan, worked out with Egypt,
for a new dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians on peace
in the Middle East, the documents indicate.
The prosecutor's warnings included details of
``criminal complicity'' in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
(BNL) scandal by Iraqi officials who participated in
negotiations with the Bush administration for $1 billion in
loan guarantees, which were granted in November 1989.
The prosecutor, however, did not secure indictment
of the Iraqis until the end of the Persian Gulf War in
February 1991. By then, the United States had released $500
million of the loan guarantees, which Iraq is now considered
unlikely to repay.
The documents, released Saturday by the Senate
Agriculture Committee, shed new light on events surrounding
the 1989 loan guarantee decision, the most generous of the
Bush administration's myriad efforts to curry favor with
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the gulf war.
They raise new questions whether Baker's
insistence on the loan guarantee program prompted other
goverment officials, including senior officials at the
Agriculture Department, to ignore or deliberately
misrepresent the prosecutor's warnings of Iraqi wrongdoing.
``This is just another example of how the Bush
administration ignored the warning signs in its blind pursuit
of closer ties with Saddam Hussein,'' Senate Agriculture
Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said.
The documents reveal that Baker responded angrily
when the Agriculture Department cited the reports of Iraqi
wrongdoing in briefly suspending negotiations on new loan
guarantees in October 1989. At an Oct. 13 meeting, Baker told
staff members that was ``a step in the wrong direction'' and
ordered them to ``get it back onto the table,'' according to
notes taken at the meeting.
State Department legal adviser Abraham D. Sofaer
subsequently dispatched one of his deputies, Michael K.
Young, to lobby the Agriculture Department for a reversal of
its decision, while then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence
S. Eagleburger lobbied senior Treasury Department officials
who also opposed granting new guarantees.
Undersecretary of State Robert M. Kimmitt also
lobbied various officials at Baker's request, according to
the documents. On Nov. 9, after an interagency decision to
approve the $1 billion in loan guarantees, Kimmitt told Baker
he could ``break the good news to Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz, since he raised the issue with you, and you promised to
take a personal interest in it.''
``This decision by the administration reflects the
importance we attach to our relationship with Iraq,'' Baker
told Aziz in a confidential telex the same day. Baker added
that ``it would be useful if you could weigh in with (the
Palestinians) and ... urge them to give a positive response
to Egypt's suggestions'' about Middle East peace.
The memos make clear how unsettling the
revelations from the BNL probe were to the officials charged
with keeping the loan guarantee program on track. The
investigation of the Italian-owned bank began in late July
1989, when two employees from BNL's Atlanta branch told
authorities of a massive, unreported effort to help Iraq
finance billions of dollars' worth of food and arms purchases.
Within two weeks, federal agents raided the
Atlanta branch and learned that more than $1 billion of BNL's
illegal loans to Iraq had been guaranteed by the Agriculture
Department's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). They also
discovered that senior Iraqi officials were deeply involved
in kickbacks, bribes and other illicit BNL loans that did not
involve the CCC.
novine.138.bale.,
The New York Times Sunday, October 25
CONVERSATIONS / Emir Kusturica
A Bosnian Movie Maker Laments
The Death of the Yugoslav Nation
He is a desplaced person; a Bosnian who cannot return to
Bosnia, a Slav of Muslim origin who never practiced Islam, a
Yugoslav patriot whose Yugoslav culture has been demolished.
Emir Kusturica, the director from Sarajevo whose films
have won major international awards, is living the title of
his last movie, "Time of the Gypsies." as he alternates
residences between a room in Morningside Heights in Manhattan
and an apartmant in Paris, he wonderes whether anything
remains of his family memorabilia in his place of birth the
shattered capital of B&H.
Talk pours out of him like the water of the swift-flowing
rivers of his homeland; he spoke recently for a stretchof
three hours in an Upper West Side cafe near Columbia
University , where, with breaks for filming he teaches film
studies.
He said that for several years after Tito died in 1980,
Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful
novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in
basketball.
"I never wanted an independant Bosnia," he said of his
homeland, the breakaway Yugoslav republic now engulfed by
war."I wanted Yugoslavia. That is my country."
"The problem is that people needed to identify more
strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of
leading the country,"Mr.Kus- turica said. "Instead, religion
got in the way through nationalism -the same as 500 years
ago - as the main generator of emotions .At a certain moment,
Yugoslavia stopped being rational, and then you end up going
to war".
At the beginning of October, Mr. Kusturica ,37 years old,
returned briefly to a fragment of the former Yugoslavia, the
Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi. He went there to
bury his father, who had died of a heart attack at age 70 in
an apartment the son had leased after getting him out of the
war zone.
"This war killed him too," he said."My father got hit by
invisible lightning. I compare the death of my father and the
death of the country."
While on the Adriatic coast, the director encountered
Bosnian Serbs on furlough from the front lines of fighting in
the republic. one of them related an experience that to Mr.
Kusturica epitomized the absurdity of the Balkan war.
"I spoke to a Serbian warrior who told me of coming home
to his belongings and money," Mr.Kusturica said. "They
actually scraped the wallpaper off his walls." He said the
pillagers apparently presumed that the dwelling belonged not
to a Serb but to a Muslim.
"Scratching off wallpaper, that is the symbol of this
war,"Mr.Kus- turica said. "The essence of this war is plunder
on all sides. In May, Muslim militiamen looted my father's
apartment in Sarajevo. They even took my film prizes."
Mr. Kusturica said his personal heritage reflects the
essential Bosnian experience of domination by the Ottoman
Turks from the 15th century until early this century.
"I am a living illustration of Bosnian mixing and
converting," he said. "My greandparents lived in eastern
Hercegovina. Very poor. The Turks came and brought Islam.
There were three brothers in the family. One was Ortodox
Christian. The other two took Islam to survive.
Bosnians, in Mr. Kusturica's view , are not very
religious, and though he read the Bible and the Koran "for
personal educati on," he described himself as having "a nice
pagan, tolerant point of view." This, he said, corresponds to
the "certain paganism which appears in paintings, in movies,
in books" that is characteristic of Bosnian culture, although
Bosnia was also a nexus of Catolic, Ortodox andIslamic faiths
and a center of Jewish culture as well.
Mr.Kusturica's films have almost by definition been
transcultural-the oddball Sarajevo love story ,"Do you
remember Dolly Bell?" (Gold lion 1981) ;the growing up in
Sarajevo story,"When Father Was Away on Business" (Golden
Palm 1985); and "Time of Gypsies" (Rosellini award for
directing 1989) His Sarajevo films got him into a lot of
trouble with Bosnian Muslims "because I showed that Muslims
could be silly , too."
He has just completed his first English-speaking film, a
view of American society called "Arizona Dream", which is
scheduled for release early next year, and he soon will start
work on a version of "Crime and Punishment" set in Brighton
Beach.
A conversation with Emir Kusturica comes back again and
again to Ivo Andric , the Bosnian writer who won the Nobel
prise for Literature in 1961 for his epic "Bridge on the
Drina".The late author's 100th birthday on Oct.10 went
unmarked in the lands of the former Yugoslavia.
Since Mr.Andric's death in 1975, Mr. Kusturica has wanted
to make a film based on the novel, which chronicles Bosnian
history using the Turkish bridge of stone at Visegrad and the
role it plays in the lives of people living along the
river."I should make this film", he said. "But they would
kill me."
"It is like the Bible," he said. "Andric was a Serb with a
Croat name, Ivo. He was one of the very few people who
understood Bosnian Muslims. He tells what it means when
people's minds are poisoned. But I know people in Sarajevo
who think Andric was a criminal. "One of those ,he said, is
Alija Izetbegovic, the President of B&H, who is a
Muslimfundamentalist.
He said that when a Muslim blew up the Andric statue at
the Visegrad bridge, the Izetbegovic Government hailed the
bomber as a hero. "You can't lead the country thinking Andric
was an awful writer and a bed person," he said.
At 6 feet 3 inches and 185 pounds , Mr.Kusturica has tha
look of an athlete. He was once offered a contract by a
soccer team, he said "I was a big fighter when I was younger
,"he recalled ."In bars I was ready to explode and fight.
"The last fight I had was in Sarajevo,"he said."May 1990,a
literary club was to be opened ,with a chair dedicated to
Andric.I was invited to speak. I was going to read an Andric
story on hatred in Bosnia. Before I came to it, a drunk poet,
not a good poet ,started screaming, 'You traitors ,Serbs, go
to Belgrade!' A second, a third time. He was destroying the
evening. I just lost it. I pulled him out. I hit him. I came
back breathing hard while I was reciting Andric, that Andric
warning against hatred. Next day those small Titoists who
became democrats all of sudden started attacking me as a Serb.
"That was the time I said ,'So long' "
Was the creation of Yugoslavia - mixing nations
,religions and languages under one Government - a mistake? "I
don't think so. No Yugoslavia means no Andric."
Could he return to Sarajevo?
"I don't think so. They told me they're going to kill me
if I came."
By David Binder
novine.139.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 206, 26 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
ANTI-GOVERNMENT FORCES REACH DUSHANBE. In the morning of 24
October, forces from Kulyab Oblast who support deposed Tajik
President Rakhmon Nabiev entered Dushanbe and seized the
presidential palace, the Supreme Soviet building and the radio and
TV centers, Interfax and other news agencies reported. The former
speaker of the Tajik parliament, Safarali Kenzhaev, broadcast a
statement accusing the anti-Communist coalition of democratic,
nationalist and Islamic groups of seeking to force Muslim
fundamentalism on Tajikistan and of having started the civil war
that has raged in the country since June. Kenzhaev, who was forced
out of office in May in a compromise between Nabiev and the
opposition coalition, announced that the Kulyab "National Front"
intended to restore the government that had been in office before
opposition figures were added in May. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FIGHTING IN DUSHANBE. Fighting continued in Dushanbe on 24 and 25
October, according to Interfax and other agencies in the Tajik
capital. Hundreds of people were reported to have been killed.
According to some reports, government supporters, hastily
reinforced by pro-government fighters from outside Dushanbe,
succeeded in recapturing some of the buildings occupied by the
forces from Kulyab. On 25 October a ceasefire was agreed to.
Russian forces stationed in Tajikistan were ordered to remain
neutral; their commander persuaded Kenzhaev and acting President
Akbarsho Iskandarov to meet. The two agreed on convening an
emergency session of the Tajik legislature to discuss the forced
resignation of Nabiev and to try to end the civil war. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY ON TAJIKISTAN. On 24 October, the Russian
Foreign Ministry issued an official statement on developments in
Tajikistan. "A real threat of a further escalation of the conflict
and of expansion of the civil war persists. This is fraught with
disastrous consequences for the territorial integrity of Tajikistan
and the security of the entire Central Asian region. The destiny
of Russian citizens and the Russian-speaking population in that
country is a matter of particular concern for the leadership of the
Russian Federation." The statement also explained that Russian
troops, while neutral, had been instructed to guarantee the
security of certain installations, ITAR-TASS reported on 25
October. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOZYREV THREATENS "IRRESPONSIBLE ELEMENTS." Russian Foreign
Minister Andrei Kozyrev said in an interview with ITAR-TASS
published on 25 October that the Russian Federation's Security
Council and the Russian parliament should hold special sessions to
discuss the security of Russians and Russian-speakers in
Tajikistan. The point of such meetings would be a "coordinated
strategy of legislative and executive power which would leave
irresponsible elements, wherever they may be, in no doubt that the
entire might of the Russian state is poised to defend human rights,
including the rights of Russians and of the Russian-speaking
population." (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REPORTS OF CHANGES IN RUSSIAN CABINET. Amid a flurry of reports
that cabinet changes were imminent, a cabinet meeting, and a
one-on-one meeting between Yeltsin and Gaidar took place on 24
October, according to Russian and Western agencies. No official
announcement of changes has been reported. During a visit to
Tolyatti on 25 October, Gaidar denied that a government shakeup was
imminent. He did not completely exclude changes, but said that
radical changes would not be made before the session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, scheduled for 1 December. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ANTI-GOVERNMENT DEMONSTRATIONS. Weekend anti-government
demonstrations took place in various Russian cities on 24 and 25
October, Western news agencies reported on 26 October.
Approximately 10,000 demonstrators gathered in the center of Moscow
to demand the resignation of President Yeltsin. Similar
demonstrations were reported in St. Petersburg, the Far East, and
Siberia. In Moscow, leading hardliners, such as General Albert
Makashov, Colonel Viktor Alksnis, the Communist deputy leader
Sergei Baburin, and the writer Aleksandr Prokhanov, founded a
"National Salvation Front," which declared as its goal the removal
of the president and his cabinet by "constitutional means." The
front advocated new elections for all constitutional bodies in
early 1993. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN'S AIDES SAID TO ADVOCATE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. On 23
and 24 October, "Vesti" cited unidentified "circles close to
Russian President [Yeltsin]" as advocating the introduction of what
was termed "direct presidential rule" in Russia. One result of this
move would be the "dissolution of parliament," according to
"Vesti." On 24 October, Russian TV broadcast a special meeting of
the leaders of the Russian Democratic Reform Movement, whose
chairman, the former mayor of Moscow, Gavrill Popov, asserted that
the introduction of direct presidential rule would be only "a
temporary retreat from democracy." The idea to disband parliament
arose in response to the refusal of Russian legislators to postpone
the next Congress of People's Deputies, whose membership includes
many ex-communists who are critical of Yeltsin's reform program.
(Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV'S HEALTH SUFFERS; HIS GUARD AT ODDS WITH POLICE.
Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov has been hospitalized
suffering after suffering a sudden increase in blood pressure at a
parliamentary session on 22 October, Rossiiskaya gazeta reported on
23 October. Before the session, Khasbulatov had told journalists
that he did not expect to die a natural death, and complained that
the former KGB was keeping him under constant surveillance. Some
officials have accused Khasbulatov of planning a coup. More
information is coming to light about the speaker's 5,000-strong
parliamentary guard, three members of which exchanged shots last
week with Moscow police, who were intervening in defense of a taxi
driver who was being threatened by a relative of Khasbulatov.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GRACHEV: MILITARY SUPPORTS PRESIDENT. Russian Defense Minister
Pavel Grachev released a statement on 23 October in which he
reaffirmed that the military supported the lawfully elected Russian
President, according to ITAR-TASS. Grachev rather ambiguously
warned politicians who criticized the government and President that
they were not aware of the consequences, both political and
potentially violent, of their actions. The statement came after a
22 October Defense Ministry Collegium meeting, in which the members
unanimously disagreed with the sentiments of the open letter
published in Pravda on 21 October by conservative deputies.
According to an Izvestiya account of 24 October, the officers were
upset over the increasingly confrontational approach taken by the
Russian Supreme Soviet and conservative groups. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ADVISERS TO RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RESIGN. Three advisers to the
Russian Defense Minister have resigned, according to an Interfax
report of 24 October. The advisers, A. Yevstigneev, G. Melkov, and
V.Sadovnik, reportedly were protesting Grachev's statement of
support for Yeltsin. According to the "Shield" union, the advisers
felt it inappropriate to support the person of the President,
rather than the Constitution, and were concerned that Grachev was
interfering in a political matter. They called for the armed
forces to remain neutral. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed,
however, that the advisers had been dismissed on 21 October for
failing to fulfill their duties. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT ORGANIZER CLAIMS OFFICERS' BACKING. The
Chairman of the Russian Officers' Union, Stanislav Terekhov,
claimed that 99% of Russian officers support the goals of the new
National Salvation Front, and dismissed Grachev's declaration of
support for Yeltsin. While admitting that the officers may support
Yeltsin more than the Gaidar government, he brushed off Grachev's
comments as coming from a "well-fed corrupted military" in contrast
to the hardships faced by regular officers. Terekhov's union
claims only 10,000 members, and no evidence was provided to support
his statements. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RYZHOV TO SECURITY COUNCIL? On 24 October, Interfax reported that
Yuri Ryzhov, the Russian Ambassador to France, had been summoned to
Moscow to attend a conference on 27 October. According to
Interfax, reform-oriented groups are urging that Ryzhov be placed
on the Russian Security Council in order to counterbalance the
conservative Council Secretary, Yurii Skokov. Before becoming
Ambassador, Ryzhov was director of the Moscow Aviation Institute.
He was also a member of the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies
where he advocated radical military reform. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA CAN REPORTEDLY KEEP MISSILE RADAR IN LATVIA. Sergei Zotov,
the leader of the Russian delegation to the talks with Latvia on
the withdrawal of Russian military forces, said that Latvia has
agreed to allow Russia to continue using the missile-warning radars
at Skrunda (120 kilometers west of Riga) after the departure of
Russian troops from Latvia. Zotov's remarks were reported by the
Baltic News Service. The Skrunda complex formed a vital link in the
Soviet Union's anti-ballistic missile defenses. A "Hen House"
radar used for missile warning and space tracking is located there,
and a new, large phased-array radar similar to the one built near
Krasnoyarsk has been under construction there for years. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULK OF RUSSIAN BALTIC FLEET TO KALININGRAD. Admiral Feliks
Gromov, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, was quoted by
Mayak Radio on 23 October as saying that the bulk of the former
Soviet Baltic Fleet would be transferred from the Baltic states to
the naval base at Baltiisk, in Kaliningrad Oblast--the 15,000
square kilometer Russian enclave cut off from the rest of Russia by
Lithuania and Belarus. A small part of the forces would be
transferred to locations in northwestern Russia and to the
Kronstadt naval base near St. Petersburg. Baltiisk has long been
the headquarters for the Baltic Fleet and the homeport for some of
the largest ships of the fleet. However, most of the warships have
been based in Estonia and Latvia, particularly at Liepaja. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION FORCES TO UNITE? Representatives of several
opposition groups held a news conference on 23 October in Kiev at
which they announced their intention to form a united bloc,
DR-Press reported. The press conference was attended by
representatives from New Ukraine, the Congress of National
Democratic Forces, the Union of Ukrainian Students, and the
All-Ukrainian Association of Solidarity with Toilers. "Rukh" was
reportedly not represented because of Vyacheslav Chornovil's
participation at a local conference in Lviv. The participants
called attention to the danger of a "red putsch" in Ukraine.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
INTRODUCTION OF NEW UKRAINIAN CURRENCY. On 25 October, Andrei
Nechayev, citing Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, said that
Ukraine will delay the introduction of the accounting unit, the
karbovanets, until next year, while the introduction of the
Ukrainian national currency, the grivna, will be delayed
"indefinitely," Interfax reported. The deputy head of the
Ukrainian National Bank told Reuters on 25 October that Ukraine
will introduce the karbovanets by the end of 1992. He confirmed
that Ukraine must delay the introduction of a convertible national
currency until it has built up foreign currency reserves, and
suggested that "it would be good if our Western partners could
support us with a stabilization fund worth $1-1.5 billion." (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE PROTESTS BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENT. Ukrainian Defense
Minister Constantin Morozov on 24 October described the recent
appointment of Vice Admiral Petr Svyatashov to be chief of staff of
the Black Sea Fleet as a "one-sided action" breaching the Yalta
agreements on the future of the fleet. According to Interfax,
Ukraine has barred the admiral from assuming his new duties.
Svyatashov was appointed by Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev.
In August, Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk agreed
to place the disputed Black Sea Fleet under joint control for a
three-year interim period. The leaders of Russia and Ukraine were
to share authority over the fleet and jointly appoint its
commanders. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAKHICHEVAN "COUP ATTEMPT" FAILS. A group of some 200 armed
supporters of the ruling Azerbaijan Popular Front (AzPF) occupied
the Interior Ministry and TV center in Nakhichevan for five hours
on 24 October before being dislodged by police, ITAR-TASS and
Interfax reported. Some 35,000 people assembled in front of the
occupied buildings to protest what Nakhichevan Parliament Chairman
Geidar Aliev, in an interview given to Radio Liberty, termed a coup
attempt by the Baku government. An Azerbaijan Popular Front
spokesman in Baku denied Aliev's claims. Relations between Aliev
and the AzPF deteriorated when the Nakhichevan parliament rejected
Baku's proposed candidate for the post of Nakhichevan Interior
Minister. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVA APPEALS TO U.N. The office of the U.N. Secretary General
Boutros Ghali on 25 October distributed as a U.N. document a
message addressed to Ghali by Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicolae
Tiu, protesting Russia's "interference in the internal affairs" of
Moldova and other independent states "on the pretext of defending
the rights of ethnic Russians." Russia's policy, Tiu wrote, poses
"the threat of destabilization" to Moldova and other states. The
message renewed Moldova's appeal to the U.N. to send military
observers to monitor the implementation of the Moldovan-Russian
convention on settling the conflict in eastern Moldova and also to
attend as observers the Moldovan-Russian negotiations on the
withdrawal of Russia's 14th Army from Moldova, the Moldovan media
reported. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
POSTCOMMUNIST PARTY TOPS VOTE IN LITHUANIAN ELECTIONS. In the
elections to the Lithuanian Seimas held on 25 October, the
successor to the Lithuanian Communist Party appears to have
captured the largest share of the vote, Radio Lithuania reports.
According to initial reports by the German-French polling firm
INFAS, the postcommunist Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP)
captured about 40% of the vote and is likely win 35 of the 70 seats
awarded in the proportional system. The Sajudis coalition is set to
win 18 seats, the Christian-Democratic Party (in coalition with the
Democratic Party and Union of Political Prisoners) - 10 seats, the
Social-Democratic Party - 5, and the Union of Poles - 2 seats. The
numbers may change as the "Young Lithuania" coalition, now with
3.9% of the vote, may pass the 4% barrier when all the votes are
counted. At a press conference on 26 October, election commission
chairman Vaclovas Litvinas said that preliminary results from the
71 single-mandate districts so far show 14 winners, 10 of whom are
members of the LDLP. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.).
CONSTITUTION APPROVED IN LITHUANIAN REFERENDUM. Election
commission chairman Litvinas added that preliminary results
indicated that the referendum on the new Lithuanian Constitution
had been approved by about 53% of eligible voters and had thus
passed. Radio Lithuania reports that about 85% of those taking part
in the elections supported the referendum. Voter turnout was over
70%. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAKIA BEGINS DAMMING THE DANUBE. On 24 October
Czechoslovak authorities started damming the Danube riverbed at
Cunovo with the aim of diverting some of the river's water to the
canal leading to the hydroelectric power plant at Gabcikovo, CSTK
reported. The work started despite protests by the Hungarian
government that the diversion of the Danube unilaterally changes
the Slovak-Hungarian border and will cause widespread ecological
damage. On 23 October Hungary officially invoked the CSCE
emergency procedure designed to resolve international conflicts.
Hungary also turned to the International Court of Justice in the
Hague. The European Community's executive arm reported on 23
October that it had failed to resolve the conflict in talks with
Hungarian and Czechoslovak officials. Also on 23 October, Slovak
Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar accused Hungary of using the issue
for political purposes. Michal Kovac, chairman of the Federal
Assembly, said that Hungary is using the issue "to stop the march
of Slovakia toward sovereignty." On 24 October, Hungary asked
United Nations Secretary-General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali to "help
find means for a peaceful settlement of the debate," MTI reported.
The Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on 24
October in which it said that the dam dispute is "being needlessly
dramatized." (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PRESIDENT JEERED AT 1956 COMMEMORATION. A hostile crowd
consisting mostly of skinheads prevented President Arpad Goncz from
delivering an address commemorating the 36th anniversary of the
1956 revolution, MTI reported on October 23. Before Goncz could
start speaking, the crowd began to boo and shouted "Down with
Goncz," and "Resign." The crowd also called out its support for the
government and for Istvan Csurka, the controversial Hungarian
Democratic Forum deputy chairman, Western news agencies report. The
Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of the Interior expressed
regret over the incident and denied opposition charges that the
government and the coalition parties bore responsibility for it.
The Ministry of the Interior categorically rejected charges that it
had supported or organized the incident. Budapest deputy police
chief Janos Lazar argued that the police could not have intervened
because under Hungarian law it is not a crime to shout Nazi slogans
or wear Nazi symbols. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
END-GAME APPROACHING FOR BOSNIAN MUSLIMS? International media on
24-25 October reported that Serbian forces in northern Bosnia were
moving in on Gradacac, a largely Muslim town defended by Croats and
Muslims. Meanwhile in central Bosnia, fighting between Croats and
Muslims spread from the Travnik-Vitez area northwest of Sarajevo to
Prozor, which is almost due west of the capital. The 25 October
Washington Post quoted a local Croatian commander as saying that
"this was a war, not a misunderstanding," and the Post charged that
Croatian troops "were hunting Muslims" as the anti-Serb marriage of
convenience between the two nationalities increasingly seemed to
have broken down. Reuters on 25 October reported a rise on
Croat-Muslim tensions in Mostar. Muslims fear that the Croats and
Serbs have already agreed on a plan to partition Bosnia-Herzegovina
between them, leaving the Muslims with a tiny, landlocked state at
best. According to this theory, the current Croat attacks on
Muslims are an effort to consolidate their positions. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MILOSEVIC AGAIN ELECTED AS SOCIALIST PARTY PRESIDENT. Radio Serbia
reported on 24 October that Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic
was elected as president of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS, formerly the communist party) during the party's two-day
congress. Of the 934 delegates, 915 voted for Milosevic, who was
the only candidate. Milosevic was SPS president when the party was
founded over two years ago, but resigned soon after being elected
president of the republic in December 1990. Serbia's constitution
does not permit the President of the republic to hold the
chairmanship of any political party. Before the party congress,
Milosevic said that if re-elected he would not resign as Serbia's
president, but would turn his party duties over to general
secretary Milomir Minic. He told the congress that the crisis in
the country was not the result of developments in Serbia alone, but
was largely due to international factors. (Milan Andrejevich,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
PANIC'S 100 DAYS. On 25 October, Prime Minister of the federal
rump Yugoslav government Milan Panic said Milosevic's re-election
reminded him of "the best communist traditions." Panic added that
if the people still vote for Milosevic and the SPS in December
"they deserve what they get." On 24 October Panic held a news
conference to distribute a list of 46 achievements from his first
100 days in office. These included his own election, his meetings
in Kosovo with ethnic Albanian leaders, and the arrest of
paramilitary leaders accused of atrocities in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. His major aims--peace in Bosnia and the lifting of UN
sanctions--remain unfulfilled. He announced that elections to the
federal Chamber of Citizens will be held on 20 December, with
elections to the Chamber of Republics to follow within 30 days.
Both houses will then elect a President and Prime Minister. Panic
is not a candidate for either house, but expressed confidence that
the federal assembly would reelect him as prime minister, Radio
Serbia reported. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUCHOCKA RETURNS FROM ROME. Speaking to journalists in Warsaw after
returning from a two-day private visit to Rome, Polish Prime
Minister Hanna Suchocka said that Pope John Paul II had expressed
confidence that Poland will be a stabilizing factor in Eastern
Europe. Suchocka had a 40-minute private audience with the Pope on
23 October. She also met with Italian prime minister Giuliano
Amato. Suchocka told reporters that her talks with Amato had
helped to ease Italy's qualms about allowing Poland to use the $10
billion stabilization fund provided by Western countries for
banking reform. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH ECONOMY SHOWS IMPROVEMENT. At a joint press conference in
Warsaw on 23 October, Poland's Main Statistical Office and Central
Planning Board presented a cautiously optimistic economic
prognosis. Industrial production has risen steadily since April.
Production for the first three quarters of 1992 was 1.2% higher
than at the same point in 1991; by the end of 1992, it could exceed
the 1991 tallies by 2%. This growth was attributed to the creeping
devaluation of the zloty, which promotes exports; increased demand
for better quality domestic products; and a 10.5% leap in labor
productivity. Exports are so far 11.8% higher than in the
comparable period of 1991, and Poland posted a third-quarter trade
surplus of over $1 billion. Despite these positive trends,
national income is still expected to be 2% below 1991 figures, and
investment, 3%. The budget deficit is expected to amount to 8.1%
of GDP by year's end; unemployment is to rise to 14.7%; and real
wages are to drop by 5%. Yearly inflation is forecast at 47% for
1992. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH DEFENSE REFORM MOVES FORWARD. Defense Minister Janusz
Onyszkiewicz signed an order on 22 October that restricts the
ministry to the civilian role of political oversight over the armed
forces and puts the general staff in charge of strictly military
matters. This measure, eliminating the dual function performed by
the ministry under communism, is designed to make the armed forces
immune to political interference. The defense ministry now has
three departments: training; strategy; and military infrastructure.
Military intelligence and military courts answer directly to the
defense minister. President Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka addressed a meeting of the officer corps on 22 October.
Walesa restated his opposition to legislated lustration of the army
and criticized draft evasion. While pledging to increase defense
spending as soon as possible, Suchocka expressed doubt that new
funds would be available in 1993. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU AIDE SUGGESTS OPPOSITION MAY BE INVITED TO FORM CABINET.
Romania's Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase, a top aide to President
Ion Iliescu, suggested on 24 October that the opposition Democratic
Convention might be asked to form the next government if the
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF) declined to do it.
Nastase told Rompres that the DNSF, the party that backed Iliescu's
re-election, did not want to rule "at any price" without support
from reformist parties. The DNSF emerged from the 27 September
elections as the strongest party but failed to win a majority.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION PLEDGES TO SUPPORT DNSF MINORITY GOVERNMENT.
On 25 October four groups belonging to the centrist Democratic
Convention (DC) issued jointly with the National Salvation Front
(NSF) a statement pledging support for a minority government led by
their rival, the Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF), on the
condition that that party continues political and economic reforms.
The four DC members are the National Peasant Party--Christian
Democratic, the Liberal Alliance, the Party of Civic Alliance, and
the Romanian Social-Democratic Party. The statement says that the
move is designed to obviate the need for the DNSF to court
extremist political groups, which could "push the country to the
brink of disaster." (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS INCONCLUSIVE. A two-day round of
Latvian-Russian talks on the withdrawal of Russian troops from
Latvia ended inconclusively on 24 October. Russian delegation
leader Sergei Zotov told Interfax on 24 October that a wide range
of problems had been resolved, suggesting that the Latvian side had
acquiesced to most of the Russian demands, including Russian
oversight of the Skrunda radar station even after the troops
depart. Although a report by the Latvian side is not yet
available, the protocol signed by both sides indicates that no
breakthrough was achieved on any of the major issues; for example,
no accord was reached on the Skrunda radar. Moreover, the Latvian
side wants the troops out by 1993, while the Russian side "does not
rule out the possibility of pulling out its troops in 1994" if
other conditions are met. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF LATVIA HOLDS FIFTH CONGRESS. At its fifth
congress on 24-25 October in Riga, the People's Front of Latvia
adopted new statutes that define the front as a political
organization that will field candidates for national and local
offices. The People's Front faction in the Supreme Council was
criticized for not upholding the PFL program; delegates demanded
that the faction no longer use the PFL name. Uldis Augskalns was
elected as the new PFL chairman on the second ballot; he defeated
Andrejs Rucs. Previous chairman Romualdas Razukas did not run,
Radio Riga reported on 25 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN AGRARIAN PARTIES FINALLY TO UNITE? At a meeting of the
ruling bodies of BANU-United and BANU-Nikola Petkov on 25 October,
both parties approved a protocol confirming that they are to merge,
BTA reports. Formal unification will take place at a joint
congress, scheduled for 7 and 8 November, which is also to adopt a
new party platform and statutes. At the meeting agrarian leaders
claimed 95% of the local chapters are already in the process of
merging and that this time there is "no going back." During the
past three years there have been repeated efforts to reconcile the
vehemently anticommunist BANU--Nikola Petkov with its sister party
BANU--United, the successor of a communist satellite organization.
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.140.bale.,
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A coalition of
Bosnian and Croat defenders Monday claimed to have beaten
back a Serbian offensive against the central Bosnian town of
Jajce, forcing the Serbs to flee so fast they left their
weapons.
Also Monday, military leaders of the republic's three main
warring factions were gathering again in Sarajevo amid a rash
of local conflicts to open talks on ways of easing the
Bosnian war and preparing for a cease-fire.
Serbian forces reportedly entered Jajce during a heavy
artillery assault Sunday. Sarajevo radio said the allied
Croat and Muslim Slav- majority Bosnian forces fully repulsed
the invasion by Monday morning.
``The aggressor fled in panic, leaving behind weapons and
armored vehicles,'' said the radio, which relays official
Bosnian reports.
Bosnian-Croat skirmishes also were slowing Monday in towns
around Sarajevo, and leaders of the two ethnic factions in
Konjic formally agreed not to fight each other and to keep
the Serbs as their common enemy, Sarajevo radio reported.
The hotly-contested northern town of Gradacac came under
another night and morning of heavy Serbian artillery fire, it
said, but otherwise towns were relatively quiet along the
contested line between Serbia and the large region of
Serbian-controlled northwest Bosnia- Hercegovina.
Monday's meeting of the republic's Bosnian, Croat and Serb
military chiefs followed their unprecedented gathering Friday
at Sarajevo airport, where they planned to continue a regular
series of U.N.- mediated talks on ways of implementing
political agreements on ending the six-month-old Bosnian
conflict.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was
relatively quiet overnight and into Monday, although Serbian
forces in hills overlooking the capital unleashed a loud
artillery barrage in the morning on the Dobrinja apartment
complex near the airport.
U.N. Protection Force military observers counted 148
rounds of large artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled
areas around Sarajevo during the 24- hour period that ended
at 5 p.m. Sunday and 41 rounds reaching Serbian- controlled
territory.
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across
the republic in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.
Sunday, including two killed and 27 injured in Sarajevo,
Bosnian health officials said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat
members of the multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said Sunday
he had not been informed of and would not recognize his
reported removal by the Croatian democratic community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted Saturday to replace Kljujic with
party activist Miro Lasic in protest with Kljujic's refusal
to support a peace settlement in which the republic would be
divided along ethnic lines.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the
capital for his first time since war broke out more than six
months ago, criticized western governments for not providing
more support to the Bosnian people and said he was appealing
next to Gulf Arab states.
French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of UNPROFOR's
Bosnian operations, planned to chair Monday's meeting of the
rival military leaders in Sarajevo before visiting Serb
leaders in the suburb of Ilidza and then returning downtown
to officially open his new headquarters.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid
reached the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no
supplies were brought in by truck.
The U.N. relief effort by road into Sarajevo remained
hampered both by the loss of the Vitez warehouse and the
shutdown due to fighting of the main highway through Mostar.
Also Sunday, Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment
to block the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized
convoys of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a
setback to efforts to reopen the main land link between
Europe and the Middle East.
The Belgrade journalists convoy was seen off by Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the
reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of efforts to
normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat war.
Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation
of Serbia and Montenegro, was in Italy on Monday for talks
with Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other
officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the
first a western head of state has held with Cosic since the
communist-turned- nationalist and popular author was chosen
as president of the truncated Yugoslav union formed in April.
Cosic's trip was apparently aimed at promoting efforts by
him and his chief ally, Panic, to end the rump federation's
international isolation, which was deepened by the imposition
in may of U.N. economic sanctions.
novine.141.bale.,
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Bosnia's war flared
on three fronts Sunday as Serbs, Croats and Muslims fought
for pieces of the disintegrating republic before peace
efforts intensify this week.
Bosnia's Muslim-led government, abandoned by its former
Croat allies as Serb rebels made more military gains, sent
700 reinforcements to central Bosnia, where Croat-Muslim
clashes have raged for days, Bosnian radio reported.
Croat militia leader Mate Boban moved to cripple
government forces further by calling on Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman to block any arms deliveries to Bosnian troops
through Croatia, Croatian television reported.
"Weapons coming from foreign countries for the Muslims are
presumed to be coming through Croatia," Boban said.
Fights between Serbs and Croats continued near Bosnia's
southern border with Croatia. Serb rebel leader Radovan
Karadzic threatened to relaunch warplanes, grounded by a U.N.
flight ban, to repel Croatian attacks, the Bosnian Serbs'
news agency, SRNA, reported.
Bosnia's war began after Serbs rebelled against majority
Muslims and Croats who voted for secession from Yugoslavia in
February. More than 14,000 people have died in the fighting.
When the fighting started, the Croats and Muslims formed
an alliance. But as it has collapsed, Serbs and Croats
increasingly have aligned their positions on partitioning
Bosnia along ethnic lines.
This development isolates Bosnia's government as
international mediators prepare to present a draft
constitution this week in Geneva as a basis for a peace deal.
Serbs and Croats, whose militias have seized virtually all
of Bosnia, want the document to enshrine the republic's
partition along ethnic lines.
Muslims oppose that idea, fearing Serbs and Croats will
annex large regions to Serbia and Croatia, disenfranchising
Muslims, Bosnia's most populous group.
Although Serbs and Croats seem to agree on splitting
Bosnia, they are still fighting over who gets what.
Fierce Serb-Croat clashes entered their fifth day Sunday
on a 42-mile front around Trebinje, a Serb stronghold in
eastern Herzegovina bordering Croatia.
The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency said the Croats,
backed by a "hurricane" of artillery, tanks and rockets, were
advancing "regardless of human cost." It gave no casualty
figures.
In response, SRNA said Karadzic was seeking permission
from Geneva mediators to deploy his air force's 50 warplanes
there "because Serbian land ... is attacked by a foreign
country -- the republic of Croatia."
Croatian troops reportedly launched a major offensive on
Trebinje after the Yugoslav army withdrew earlier this month
from the nearby Prevlaka peninsula. Yugoslav President
Dobrica Cosic, who negotiated the Yugoslav pullout, protested
the attack in a letter to mediators at the Geneva conference.
Meanwhile, the Bosnian government sent 700 extra troops to
halt Croat-Muslim fighting around Prozor, 30 miles west of
Sarajevo, radio reported.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Bosnia's Muslim
led-government was further isolated Saturday as its former
Croat allies chose a radical separatist leader and Serb
rebels reported military gains.
Ejup Ganic, a senior Bosnian government official, said his
republic was being "attacked from both sides" and indicated
the Croat-Muslim clashes were being steered by the Croatian
government of President Franjo Tudjman.
The Bosnian arm of Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union
chose radical Croat leader Mate Boban as its new leader in a
meeting at Posusje, near the Croatian border, according to
Croatian TV reporter Marinko Cavar.
Boban's militia, once allied with the Muslims, has taken
most of the one-third of Bosnia not already held by Serb
rebels, and has clashed with Bosnian government troops in
recent days, opening a second front in the war.
Earlier this year, Boban's forces declared the semi-state
of Herceg-Bosna in western Herzegovina bordering Croatia,
where Croatian flags now fly and the Croatian dinar is
accepted as legal tender.
The Serbs also have announced their own state.
The Democratic Union, while nominally declaring support
for a sovereign Bosnia, also announced that Croat communities
in the former Yugoslav republic would now "associate with
Herceg-Bosna," Cavar said.
In Belgrade meanwhile, Yugoslavia's President Dobrica
Cosic announced that early federal elections would be held
Dec. 20 in the country now comprising only Serbia and tiny
Montenegro. The election could weaken hardline Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic.
Early elections are among the conditions set by the United
Nations for lifting tough economic sanctions against
Yugoslavia, imposed May 30 to punish it for provoking war in
Croatia and Bosnia.
But in a show of support for Milosevic, his Socialist
Party, formerly the Communists, elected him party president
by a 915-2 vote, the Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency
reported.
According to Tanjug, Bosnian Serb forces were closing in
on Gradacac, a government-held town in northern Bosnia. After
several days of fighting, Serbs had reached a hospital and
industrial zone on the town's edges, Tanjug reported.
If Gradacac falls, the rebel Serbs could move on Tuzla,
the government's last major northern stronghold after
Bosanski Brod fell earlier this month.
On the second front emerging in Bosnia's brutal civil war,
which has already claimed more than 14,000 lives,
Croat-Muslim fighting spread despite orders for calm on both
sides.
Croatian radio reported that Sefer Halilovic, Bosnia's
army chief, and leaders of the Croatian Defense Council, the
main Bosnian Croat militia, issued orders to cease hostilities.
The main Serbian opposition parties, which say federal
election rules favor the Socialists, plan to meet Monday to
consider whether to participate in the election, the Belgrade
daily Borba reported. They boycotted elections in May, the
first since the six-republic federation disintegrated in
1991.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (OCT. 25) UPI - Serbian
forces Sunday stormed the central Bosnian town of Jajce,
while formerly allied Croat and Bosnian forces appeared
headed for a clash in the western Sarajevo suburb of Prozor,
officials and news reports said.
Also Sunday, in a new political skirmish, a Croat member
of the republic's multi-ethnic ruling presidency said he
would defy Croat nationalists who ordered his dismissal.
And Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment to block
the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized convoys
of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a setback to
efforts to reopen the main land link between Europe and the
Middle East.
The SRNA news agency of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic quoted radio in the Serb-held northwest city of
Banja Luka as saying Serbian forces entered Jajce amid heavy
street fighting.
SRNA said Serbian military sources had no comment on the
Banja Luka report, while Sarajevo radio, which relays
official Bosnian information, reported more intense fighting
and shelling around Jajce but said it could not confirm the
report.
The Croatian Defense Council has been the main defender
through months of heavy Serbian tacks on Jajce, the town
where Marshal Tito and his communist partisans declared the
founding of the former Yugoslavia in 1941.
New Croat-Bosnian fighting died down Sunday in towns
surrounding Sarajevo but worsened in the western suburb of
Prozor, where hundreds of both Croat and Bosnian
reinforcements were headed amid reports of heavy shelling,
Sarajevo radio said.
Serbian forces also made new threats in the republic's far
south, with Karadzic complaining of Croat attacks on Trebinje
and warning he would again use warplanes in spite of a
U.N.-ordered ban if they continued, Belgrade radio reported.
The Serbs also complained that Croats were violating terms
of a cease-fire on the Prevlaka peninsula near Dubrovnik by
flying their flag there, it said.
And the northwest Bosnian town of Gradacac, the focus of
heavy Serbian attacks since Croatian defenders withdrew from
nearby Bosanski Brod two weeks ago, suffered another day of
heavy artillery attacks, the radio said.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was
relatively quiet, although at least two people were killed
and four injured in artillery attacks on the capital, it said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat
members of the multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said had not
been informed of and would not recognize his reported removal
by the Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted Saturday to replace Kljujic with
party activist Miro Lasic in a show of displeasure with
Kljujic's refusal to support a peace settlement in which the
republic would be divided along ethnic lines.
Kljujic, in an interview Sunday with United Press
International, rejected as "catastrophic" plans for
ethnically based separation advanced both by nationalist
Serbs and Croats and said he would not leave office.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the
capital for his first time since war broke out more than six
months ago, criticized western governments for not providing
more support to the Bosnian people and said he would appeal
next to Gulf Arab states.
Silajdzic, speaking to reporters while wrapped in an
overcoat inside an office of the artillery-shattered
presidency complex, said the fate of thousands of people now
facing sub-zero temperatures without heat or even homes
depended on the republic's ability to defend itself militarily.
"If they do not do anything, and I mean especially the
Western governments, to alleviate this situation, there will
be enough limbless, blind, parentless children to haunt their
civilizations for years to come," Silajdzic said. Silajdzic
said he was headed next to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates to ask for financial aid from them and possibly
their neighbors.
He said his government would use any money it receives to
buy food, medicines, home building materials and "arms,
wherever we can buy it."
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across
the republic in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.
Sunday, including two killed and 27 injured in Sarajevo,
Bosnian health officials said.
UNPROFOR military observers counted 53 rounds of large
artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled areas around
Sarajevo during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m.
Saturday and no rounds reaching Serbian- controlled territory.
But some 10 rounds of artillery fell around 11:45 a.m.
Sunday near the U.N. checkpoint on the main access road to
the Sarajevo airport, prompting UNPROFOR troops to retreat
from the area for about 15 minutes.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid
reached the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no
supplies were brought in by truck. The U.N. relief effort by
road into Sarajevo remained hampered both by the loss of the
Vitez warehouse and the shutdown due to fighting of the main
highway through Mostar.
The Belgrade journalists' convoy was seen off by Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the
reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of efforts to
normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat war.
But Serbian militiamen under the command of Dusko Vitez,
the self- proclaimed mayor of the Serb-controlled eastern
Croatian town of Okucani, where the journalists were to meet,
set up barricades of combine harvesters and tractors on the
roadway, 5 miles from each side of the town.
"There will be no reopening until we get our own customs
officers collecting taxes on our stretch of the highway and
our own police controlling the traffic, " Vitez told the 50
reporters who travelled from Belgrade.
"Of course, we can easily break through their (Serbian)
barricades," said Gen. Carlos Maria Zabala, commander of U.N.
Sector West, in which Okucani is located. "But, I do not
think it would help improve the situation."
Also Sunday, Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav
federation of Serbia and Montenegro, departed Sunday on an
unofficial two-day visit to Italy for talks with Italian
President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the
first a Western head of state has held with Cosic since the
communist-turned- nationalist and popular author was chosen
as president of the truncated Yugoslav union forged on April
27.
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA (OCT. 25) UPI - Serbian
forces struck hard Saturday against the northern Bosnian town
of Gradacac, raining artillery on civilian areas, while U.N.
peace-keepers in the capital were both thanked and shot at.
Bosnian troops in Gradacac, along the fiercely contested
northern line connecting Serbia with Serb-held territories of
northwest Bosnia-Hercegovina, pushed back Serbian tank and
infantry offensives amid heavy artillery attacks on civilian
areas, Sarajevo radio reported.
Defense forces in Gradacac also said they found the
mutilated bodies of seven civilians attacked in apparent
retaliation after Bosnian forces destroyed an armored Serbian
supply train and confiscated large supplies of arms and
ammunition, Bosnian radio said.
In Sarajevo, which like much of the rest of the republic
enjoyed another relatively quiet day, the Bosnian presidency
met for the first time since last week's high-level peace
talks in Geneva.
A spokesman for the multi-ethnic presidency said
afterward, however, there was relatively little discussion of
the main settlements proposed in Geneva, all of which involve
some degree of disintegration of the republic.
And the city's U.N. peace-keeping force, on the the 47th
anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, was both
feted and fired upon.
Several of Sarajevo's leading artists ventured inside a
bomb-scarred U.N. Protection Force cafeteria to treat scores
of gun-toting UNPROFOR troops to hand-clapping birthday
celebration and modern and folk music.
The party, decorated by Christmas garland and evergreen
boughs tucked into sandbags lining the taped-over windows,
was punctuated by a brief dance between the city's UNPROFOR
chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek, and renowned
Yugoslav opera star Gertruda Munitic.
"Thank you for everything, thank you for everything you
have done," Sarajevo choreographer and ballet dancer Gordana
Magaj told the U.N. staff and soldiers.
But at virtually the same time, less than a mile away, a
French UNPROFOR soldier was shot while guarding a delivery of
humanitarian aid. The soldier, who suffered only a minor leg
wound, was hit by a sniper only three days after a similar
attack on a French soldier also escorting aid deliveries.
"There's no doubt that this was a deliberate attack by a
sniper," UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said of the midday
attack on the soldier standing next to a clearly marked U.N.
vehicle at the Vojnicko Polje housing complex.
The area is controlled mostly by Bosnian forces, although
Magnusson said he could not place blame on one side. "We know
where it came from, but not who did it," he said. The shot
Wednesday at a French soldier came from Bosnian territory.
The Bosnian military claimed a small military victory east
of the capital, saying its forces captured the village of
Praca and were headed toward Podgrab, only 10 miles east of
the main Bonian Serb headquarters at Pale, Sarajevo radio
said Saturday.
In Belgrade, President Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav
union of Serbia and Montenegro called early federal
parliamentary elections for Dec. 20, setting the stage for a
political showdown that could determine the course of efforts
to restore stability to the strife-torn Balkans.
novine.142.bale.,
Bosnia's Muslims Finding No Country Wants to Rescue Them (Trnopolje)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
TRNOPOLJE, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ The outdoor
privies overflow with human waste, and inside the cold and
dirty elementary school building across the muddy schoolyard
there is no running water. The refugees have only straw,
cardboard and thin blankets to sleep on.
``Perfect conditions for an epidemic,'' commented
Dr. Jack Geiger, a professor of community medicine at the
City University of New York, on a visit last week.
But for 3,500 Muslims who pack the squalid former
concentration camp, Trnopolje is the last hope of escaping
from the bloodletting in northern Bosnia. That civilians
would seek refuge at the place where witnesses say hundreds
were murdered and raped by Serbs last summer testifies to
their desperation.
They flocked here in hopes they might follow the
1,571 survivors of two death camps who were transported from
Trnopolje to Croatia at the beginning of October. But coming
here was a miscalculation. For today, there is no exit from
Bosnia.
``The world really doesn't care. Nobody wants the
Muslims,'' said an official of the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees, who spoke on condition of
anonymity. ``It is very reminiscent of World War II. Nobody
wanted the Jews or even to make a fuss about `the Final
Solution' because then they would have to take them in as
refugees.''
The Trnopolje refugees share the plight of the
Bosnian nation, which, having been recognized by the United
States and European nations last spring, now appears to have
been abandoned to its fate.
After raising an outcry in August over atrocities
in Serbian camps, Western nations will not open their doors
even to survivors of the camps. As a result, the Swiss-based
International Red Cross suspended plans to liberate Monday as
many as 10,000 still being held.
``We are bitterly disappointed that the failure of
the international community to open its doors is preventing
the victims of the horrific events in former Yugoslavia from
finding a temporary new home,'' Jose Maria Mendeluce, of the
U.N. refugee commission said Sunday.
``This is a shame for the international
community,'' Roland Siedler,a Red Cross spokesman, said.
With no certainty about rescuing the former
detainees, aid officials have all but abandoned hope of doing
anything soon for the expellees who crowd Trnopolje even
though the officials agree they are refugees by any
definition of the word. Instead, in a remarkable departure
from their usual reserve, they say the humanitarian crisis in
Bosnia is at the point where it can be solved only through
the use of outside force.
``They have never seen suffering on this scale
when no one seemed to care,'' said Geiger, who visited
northern Bosnia with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the U.N. special
investigator on human rights.
Meanwhile, the Serbs, blamed by the international
community for initiating the violence, exude confidence even
as they step up the terror tactics that comprise ``ethnic
cleansing'' against the 150,000 non-Serbs still living in
northern Bosnia.
Radomir Kosic, a Banja Luka official who hosted
Mazowiecki on his tour, caustically remarked to reporters
accompanying Mazowiecki to Trnopolje last week that Muslim
civilians came here ``thinking they would have a free ticket
to paradise.''
Actually, the reasons were mundane. ``Our houses
have been destroyedand pillaged. My friends have been killed.
We had to get out,'' Erna Muric, a 21-year-old woman from
Prijedor, said. Others said that non-Serbs were no longer
allowed to use public transportation for the seven-mile trip
into Prijedor, although women are allowed to walk the
distance in order to forage for food.
Others came because they were ``cleansed'' from
homes they had built after years of working abroad. ``I was
an honest worker. I fed my family until I was forced out of
my house,'' Hasan Dzonlagic, 29, said. ``Now they (the Serbs)
live in my house. They drive my car. All I have left is the
head on my shoulders. But what use is that because I have
nothing else?''
The camp director, Pero Curguz, confirmed that
Serbs from the town of Bugojno in Croatian-controlled Bosnia
had moved into Dzonlagic's house and those of other refugees
here, including some from Trnopolje itself.
The school is too small to house all who seek
refuge, and one group of about 180 are living in a barnlike
building of about 18 by 25 feet. About 100 of them huddle in
small family groups on the concrete ground floor and about 80
are in a loft. They have one primitive heater downstairs, and
only blankets and cardboard on the ground floor and the
upstairs floorboards to stop the draft. Rain drips through
gaps in the tile roof, and there is no place for all to
stretch out at night.
Many have passports with valid visas for West
European countries, while others have invitations complete
with written guarantees of support. But they have no way to
leave Bosnia.
One man said he was from Macedonia. ``I have a
house here, but also a house in Macedonia. I don't need to go
to Western Europe. I just want to go home to Macedonia. Can
you tell me how I can get home?''
Travel by refugees in convoys into central Bosnia,
which had been treacherous, now has become too dangerous even
for those desperate to get out. This is the outcome of a
strategic realignment in which the relatively well-armed
Bosnian Croats, who had been allied with the predominantly
Muslim government, now have begun attacking government forces
across a broad front.
``The bottleneck has been effectively stoppered,''
commented a U.N. refugee official in Banja Luka. If the
refugees were able to reach Travnik in central Bosnia, they
might be forced at gunpoint by Serbs or Croats to flee still
further into a small predominantly Muslim area, only to
arrive in a safe haven where there is little or no food. The
reason: Croats are blocking all food shipments.
The problem for the international agencies is that
they lack any means to stop the process of ``ethnic
cleansing,'' have no mandate to remove the victims from the
area, and have nowhere to take them.
``In my notebook, I have page after page of
atrocities,'' the head of one humanitarian aid office in
Banja Luka said. ``There are house-to-house searches,
bombings, murders. All we can say is `we hear your pain.
There is nothing we can do to help you.' ''
Pierre Gassmann, head of the Zagreb office of the
Red Cross, attacked the ``hypocritical stance of the
international community'' for assuming that the dispatch of
food aid and winter insulation will enable people to remain
in their homes and that ``the mere presence'' of the
international agencies ``will protect them against the
criminal intents of the people who want to ethnically
cleanse.''
Too many Western countries act like France, he
said, whose media-conscious health minister, Bernard
Kouchner, makes it a point ``to be there (on the spot), to be
seen to be there, to be aggressive, then to go back home and
do zilch about the problem.''
He said the U.N. refugee agency and the Red Cross
are incapable of protecting civilian targets.
``We have come to the conclusion we cannot help
people where they are. We have to deal with a context in
which there is zero respect for the (humanitarian) values we
carry. We have no means to coerce. The only people capable of
bringing any change in behavior is the international
community.''
In the absence of that coercion, no one sees a
bright future for the Muslims of Bosnia, or even survival.
``This is anarchic genocide,'' Geiger said. ``It lacks German
efficiency, but the result is the same.''
U.S. Agrees to Allow 1,000 Bosnia Refugees Into Country (Washn)
By Norman Kempster
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ The Bush administration yielded to
appeals from international relief organizations Monday and
agreed to permit the immigration of up to 1,000 Bosnian
refugees, all former internment camp prisoners and their
immediate families.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who
announced the new policy, said that the refugees would be
admitted under a program that would allow them to apply
eventually for U.S. citizenship.
The number is less than 10 percent of the
internment camp prisoners that the International Committee of
the Red Cross expects to be released soon. And the policy
will do nothing for about 2 million persons displaced by the
fighting who were not interned.
Meanwhile, the administration held a special State
Department press conference in which Clyde Snow, an American
forensic anthropologist working as a consultant to the U.N.
Human Rights Commission, described the discovery of a mass
grave said to be holding the remains of patients from a
Croatian hospital who were murdered by a unit of the Serb-led
Yugoslav National Army.
Although Snow said that as much as three months of
additional investigation would be required to identify the
victims and determine how they died, he said the physical
evidence seemed to corroborate the accounts of witnesses who
said that 179 hospital patients, mostly wounded Croatian
soldiers, were beaten and killed by Yugoslav Army units and
Serb militia forces.
The decision regarding Bosnian refugees reversed
an administration policy of refusing to accept most refugees
because moving them out of the region would make it much more
difficult for them to return to their homes and would,
indirectly, enhance the policy of ``ethnic cleansing'' _ a
term used to describe the warfare being waged by the Serbs
against other groups in the former Yugoslavia.
Previously, the United States agreed to take 100
Bosnians needing urgent medical care but refused to take
others, despite requests from the Red Cross, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees and other relief organizations.
Boucher said that the administration continued to
reject any sort of general resettlement of refugees from the
bitter ethnic warfare to avoid playing into the hands of the
``ethnic cleansers.''
``The goal is to see that people can return to
their homes,'' he said. ``For the crisis as a whole, there
are more than 2 million refugees and displaced persons, and
our priority has been the material assistance to get people
through the winter.''
However, he said, the administration decided to
make an exception for former prisoners because ``humanitarian
concerns have to weigh heavily ... these former detainees
have already suffered very much.''
He said that Washington had contributed $6 million
to pay for food and other relief supplies for refugees who
remain in the area. He said the relief organizations
estimated that the money would support up to 10,000 persons
this winter.
The Red Cross, which is trying to negotiate the
release of internment camp prisoners, has agreed to the
demands of the Bosnian Serb militias that released prisoners
be sent out of the region to prevent them from rejoining the
war. About 1,600 released prisoners are being held in camps
in Croatia awaiting resettlement, Boucher said.
Boucher said that the Red Cross and the U.N.
refugee organization had estimated that ``as many as 10,000
or maybe more than 10,000'' persons are still in detention.
novine.143.bale.,
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Subject: President of rump Yugoslavia calls early federal elections
Subject: Gradacac hit; U.N. feted and fired upon
Subject: Twenty-fourth Fischer-Spassky game a draw
Subject: Bosnian negotiators back divisions
Subject: Serbs block U.N. journalists convoy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: President of rump Yugoslavia calls early federal elections
Date: 24 Oct 92 22:01:36 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- President Dobrica Cosic of the rump
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro Saturday called early federal
parliamentary elections for Dec. 20, setting the stage for a political
showdown that could affect efforts to restore stability to the strife-
torn Balkans.
``The future of Serbia and Montenegro is being decided,'' declared
Cosic at a Federation Palace ceremony at which he signed the order for
the polls.
Cosic's long-expected move came only hours before his main adversary,
communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, effectively opened his
Socialist Party of Serbia's (SPS) campaign by presiding over a
leadership shakeup on the final day of a two-day party congress.
Milosevic assumed the SPS presidency in an apparent bid to use his
prestige to ensure the party retains its lock on Parliament amid rising
popular dissatisfaction over economic and social chaos unleashed by the
collapse of former Yugoslavia and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
``Even though the crisis we are faced with is not only a result of
events in Serbia but also a result of international interests and
politics, we are obliged to do everythig we can to solve the (economic)
crisis,'' said Milosevic in his speech before congress.
Cosic and his main ally, Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic, as well
as the opposition, all are critical of Milosevic. They largely blame the
upheaval in the federation on Milosevic's revival of Serbian nationalism
and his support for Serbian territorial conquests in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
They see an SPS electoral defeat in parliament as the only way to end
devastating U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Serbia in May for its
role in the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Cosic, using his powers under the constitution of the rump Yugoslav
successor stage forged by Serbia and Montenegro after the collapse of
its defunct namesake, set Dec. 20 for direct elections for the federal
Parliament's 138-member Chamber of Deputies.
Thirty days later, he said, the Serbian and Montenegrin assemblies
would each select 20 members for the federal Chamber of Republics.
The present legislature, controlled by Milosevic through SPS
majorities, was chosen for a four-year term in May.
Political analysts viewed the Dec. 20 polls as crucial to ongoing
international efforts to prevent new conflicts in former Yugoslavia and
restore stability to the historic Balkan ``powderkeg.''
The efforts, spearheaded by the ongoing U.N.- and European Community-
mediated peace conference in Geneva, are aimed at normalizing ties
between rump Yugoslavia and Croatia, ending the Bosnia-Hercegovina war
and preventing explosions of grave ethnic tensions in Serbia's minority-
packed provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina that many fear could drag in
neighboring states.
Panic and Cosic cooperation in those efforts have prompted fierce
attacks on them by Milosevic, his party and their proxies in Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The two camps are locked in a fierce power struggle. Milosevic and
his loyalists have accused Cosic and Panic -- a Belgrade-born naturalized
U.S. citizen -- of being foreign agents and betraying Serbian national
interests by seeking normal relations with arch-rival Croatia.
In a show of strength this week by Milosevic, Serbian police seized
the federal Interior Ministry building in downtown Belgrade.
Before signing the election order, Cosic indirectly blamed the SPS
and its leader for the ``grave and lengthy economic, political,
spiritual and moral crisis (and) a stoppage and decay of human and
natural forces of our country.''
``Free democratic elections are the way out from the present,
unbearable political conflicts, squabbling and tensions,'' Cosic said.
At an earlier news conference marking his 100th day in office, Panic
-- tapped as a ``non-political'' prime minister by Cosic -- appeared to
rule out the possibility of heading an opposition slate, saying: ``As of
today, I will not be a candidate.''
``But ... I will be supporting people,'' Panic added, indicating he
would campaign for the opposition.
He said he would take steps to ensure fair polling, including
international monitoring. He said former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had
tentatively agreed to be an observer.
A Western diplomat warned, ``If the Socialists and Milosevic come out
on top by hook or by crook, what is this is going to mean for
establishing peace in the Balkans? The answer will be a resounding 'Not
now.'''
It was also not known if Serbia's main opposition groups -- the
Democratic Movement of Serbia, the Democratic Party and the Civic
Alliance -- would participate in the polls because of dissatisfaction
with a new proportional electoral system and Milosevic's iron grip on
state-run Belgrade Television, the greatest influence of public opinion
in Serbia.
Panic said he planned to convene Monday a ``roundtable'' of federal
government, SPS, and opposition representatives to establish guidelines
ensuring equal access to television and objective and fair reporting.
Ratomir Tonic, the president of the Republican Club, a Civic Alliance
member, said the opposition groups would also meet on Monday to decide
whether they would participate in the elections as a unified coalition.
Tonic said he believed the opposition should take part.``
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Subject: Gradacac hit; U.N. feted and fired upon
Date: 25 Oct 92 00:44:57 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces struck hard
Saturday against the northern Bosnian town of Gradacac, raining
artillery on civilian areas, while U.N. peace-keepers in the capital
were both thanked and shot at.
Bosnian troops in Gradacac, along the fiercely contested northern
line connecting Serbia with Serb-held territories of northwest Bosnia-
Hercegovina, pushed back Serbian tank and infantry offensives amid heavy
artillery attacks on civilian areas, Sarajevo radio reported.
Defense forces in Gradacac also said they found the mutilated bodies
of seven civilians attacked in apparent retaliation after Bosnian forces
destroyed an armored Serbian supply train and confiscated large supplies
of arms and ammunition, Bosnian radio said.
In Sarajevo, which like much of the rest of the republic enjoyed
another relatively quiet day, the Bosnian presidency met for the first
time since last week's high-level peace talks in Geneva.
A spokesman for the multi-ethnic presidency said afterward, however,
there was relatively little discussion of the main settlements proposed
in Geneva, all of which involve some degree of disintegration of the
republic.
And the city's U.N. peace-keeping force, on the the 47th anniversary
of the founding of the United Nations, was both feted and fired upon.
Several of Sarajevo's leading artists ventured inside a bomb-scarred
U.N. Protection Force cafeteria to treat scores of gun-toting UNPROFOR
troops to hand-clapping birthday celebration and modern and folk music.
The party, decorated by Christmas garland and evergreen boughs tucked
into sandbags lining the taped-over windows, was punctuated by a brief
dance between the city's UNPROFOR chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein
Abdul Razek, and renowned Yugoslav opera star Gertruda Munitic.
``Thank you for everything, thank you for everything you have done,''
Sarajevo choreographer and ballet dancer Gordana Magaj told the U.N.
staff and soldiers.
But at virtually the same time, less than a mile away, a French
UNPROFOR soldier was shot while guarding a delivery of humanitarian aid.
The soldier, who suffered only a minor leg wound, was hit by a sniper
only three days after a similar attack on a French soldier also
escorting aid deliveries.
``There's no doubt that this was a deliberate attack by a sniper,''
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said of the midday attack on the
soldier standing next to a clearly marked U.N. vehicle at the Vojnicko
Polje housing complex.
The area is controlled mostly by Bosnian forces, although Magnusson
said he could not place blame on one side. ``We know where it came from,
but not who did it,'' he said. The shot Wednesday at a French soldier
came from Bosnian territory.
The Bosnian military claimed a small military victory east of the
capital, saying its forces captured the village of Praca and were headed
toward Podgrab, only 10 miles east of the main Bonian Serb headquarters
at Pale, Sarajevo radio said Saturday.
In Belgrade, President Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro called early federal parliamentary elections for
Dec. 20, setting the stage for a political showdown that could determine
the course of efforts to restore stability to the strife-torn Balkans.
``The future of Serbia and Montenegro is being decided,'' Cosic said
Saturday at a federation palace ceremony at which he signed the order
for the polls.
Also Saturday, some 370 refugees who said they were evicted by
Serbian forces from Banja Luka and Prijedor in the northwest part of the
republic arrived in the Croatian border town of Noska, claiming they
were forced to pay Serbs more than $1,000 apiece to leave, Bosnian radio
said.
And the German government agreed to provide several million dollars
to house some 2,500 Bosnian refugees in the Croatian city of Karlovac
after they spent three weeks waiting for Western nations to accept them,
it said.
At least 14 people were killed and 107 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Saturday, including six killed
and 42 wounded in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
The capital remained relatively quiet Saturday. UNPROFOR, in its
daily survey for the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Friday, said
its military observers counted 68 rounds of large artillery falling onto
Bosnian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and no rounds reaching Serbian-
controlled territory.
Fighting between formerly allied Croat and Bosnian forces in Vitez
appeared to have ended, raising hopes the U.N. High Commission for
Refugees could resume using its main supply warehouse for aid convoys
supplying Sarajevo.
But the UNHCR'S highway supply line to Sarajevo remained totally shut
from the fighting around both Vitez and Mostar and the only supplies
reaching Sarajevo either Thursday or Friday were a schedule of UNHCR
planes already reduced by a 24-hour suspension attributed to reports of
fighting near the airport runway.
The UNHCR planned as part of its interim measures to run a large road
convoy Saturday on a scheduled two-day trip from Belgrade to Sarajevo. A
total of 16 U.N. relief flights reached the capital Saturday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Twenty-fourth Fischer-Spassky game a draw
Date: 25 Oct 92 01:19:18 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugosalvia (UPI) -- The 24th game of the controversial
rematch between former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and former
Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky ended in a draw Saturday on the 39th
move.
Fischer played black and employed what is known as a Sicilian
defense. Chess experts said his moves represented a ``theoretical
novelty,'' but added they did not change the outcome.
It was the 12th draw in the series that began Sept. 3 in the posh
Adriatic resort hotel of Sveti Stefan in Montenegro. The competition was
transferred to the Sava Congress Center in Belgrade after three weeks.
Fischer retains his 8-4 lead in games. The first player to win 10
matches will receive $3.35 million from Jezdimir Vasiljevic, a Serbian
bank owner.
Whatever the case, Fischer still faces a $250,000 fine and a maximum
10-year jail sentence for playing in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia
and Montenegro.
Fischer defied a U.S. Treasury Department warning him not to engage
in financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its involvement in
the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Although the next game is scheduled for Sunday, organizers said the
match may be postponed because Spassky has a cold and complained of
feeling ill.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian negotiators back divisions
Date: 25 Oct 92 02:34:11 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fresh from Yugoslav peace talks
in Geneva, Bosnian negotiators said Saturday they endorsed plans to
partly dissolve the republic as part of a negotiated peace settlement as
long as such a plan not ethnically based.
Muhamed Filipovic, vice president of the Muslim Bosnian organization,
and Mirko Pejanovic, the only Serbian member of the multi-ethnic Bosnian
presidency, told a news conference they were optimistic an acceptable
settlement that could permit a cease-fire might be very near.
Filipovic and Pejanovic returned to the capital after a week of high-
level meetings at the ongoing U.N- and European Community-sponsored
talks in Geneva, where general agreement was reached on a plan for
breaking Bosnia-Hercegovina into between eight and 13 largely autonomous
districts.
Both negotiators endorsed such plans, but said they would oppose
Serbian efforts to base the districts along already-developing ethnic
lines and would insist the divisions are not designed in ways that would
further fracture the republic.
``The autonomous divisions cannont be bearers of sovereignty,''
Filipovic said. ``Each administrative division should be the limit of
dissoulution (of the republic), not the stimulus for further
dissolution.''
Geneva conference spokesman Fred Eckhard said the current plans would
let the central Bosnian government oversee defense, foreign affairs,
finance and internal security, while providing Serbs, Croats and Muslim
Slavs with a large measure of responsibility for their other affairs.
U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and European Community representative Lord
David Owen said after the talks that an agreement would involve
condemnation by all sides of the ``ethnic cleansing,'' the installation
of a cease-fire in Sarajevo before winter sets in, and a new
constitution, probably along the lines of that of multi-ethnic
Switzerland.
Pejanovic suggested another model, that of geographically small
Washington, D.C., as a possibility for Sarajevo.
``We proposed Sarajevo as one specialized administrative unit, the
capital of the republic, where foreign police, defense, (currency),
media, transportation, mail, telephones and other utilities would be
under the authority of the capital, while the police would be under the
authority of the regions,'' he said.
Owen said work on a new Bosnian constitution was well advanced and
should be completed and made public in the coming week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs block U.N. journalists convoy
Date: 25 Oct 92 22:00:37 GMT
DRAGALIC, Croatia (UPI) -- Serbian militiamen used combine harvesters
and tractors to block the Belgrade-Zagreb highway Sunday, barring U.N.-
organized convoys of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a
setback to efforts to reopen the main land link between Europe and the
Middle East.
``There will be no reopening of the highway before our demands are
met,'' declared Dusko Vitez, the self-proclaimed mayor of the Serb-
controlled eastern Croatian town of Okucani, where the journalists were
to have met.
One convoy departed from Belgrade, the capital of the rump Yugoslav
union of Serbia and Montenegro, and a second left from Zagreb, the
capital of Croatia. Both were escorted by U.N. military vehicles and
were to have met in downtown Okucani, some 80 miles from Zagreb.
But local Serbian militiamen under Vitez' command set up barricades
of combine harvesters and tractors on the roadway, 5 miles from each
side of the town, and refused to allow the convoys to precede to a U.N.-
planned rendezvous.
``There will be no reopening until we get our own customs officers
collecting taxes on our stretch of the highway and our own police
controlling the traffic,'' Vitez told the 50 reporters who travelled
from Belgrade.
The Belgrade convoy was seen off by Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan
Panic. He has seeking the reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of
his efforts to normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat
war that erupted after Zagreb declared independence from former
Yugoslavia in June 1991.
Rebels of Croatia's Serbian minority proclaimed their own state. With
the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, they captured 35
percent of Croatia before a Jan. 3 truce went into effect as part of a
U.N.-brokered peace plan.
Under the plan, more than 14,000 troops and police of the U.N.
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were deployed in Serb-held areas of Croatia.
Only U.N. vehicles have been able to travel on the highway, portions of
which run through one of the three areas where peace-keeping units are
stationed.
``Of course, we can easily break through their (Serbian) barricades,''
said Gen. Carlos Maria Zabala, commander of U.N. Sector West, in which
Okucani is located. ``But, I do not think it would help improve the
situation.''
Zabala described relations between UNPROFOR and the local Serbs as
``more than good, until today.''
``I just don't understand these people. Two days ago, we had
everything arranged. They even promised to let us use their municipality
building for the celebration,'' he said.
But Vitez was adamant in his refusal to let the journalists meet.
``It is true we had an agreement, but we have to obey our
government's decision,'' he said, referring to the leadership of the
self-proclaimed Serbian state based in the town of Knin, 140 miles
southeast from Zagreb.
``I know that Panic said that the highway will be reopened, but he
should have asked us first,'' said one local Serbian militiamen.
``He doesn't own this road. We do,'' he said.
UNPROFOR went ahead with the convoys despite warnings Saturday that
Serbian forces would block the roadway.
The Serbs control several stretches of the highway totalling about 25
miles, and their leaders have said they would not relinquish control of
their sections until Croatia recognized their self-declared state.
Before the Belgrade convoy set out from the center of the city, Panic
was joined at an outdoor news conference by Jeannie Peterson, a
representative of UNPROFOR. Both expressed optimism that the highway
would be reopened.
``I am happy that this is taking place because it is a part of my
plan for establishing peace in the Balkans,'' said Panic, a Belgrade-
born naturalized U.S. citizen.
Peterson said the UNPROFOR-organized media trip to Okucani was a
``symbolic preview to the reopening of the highway.''
Panic said he hoped the highway would be reopened for commercial use
and added ``tolerance on both sides'' was needed to normalize relations.
He said the name of the roadway would be changed from the communist-
era ``Brotherhood and Unity Highway'' to the ``Highway of Peace.''
The Belgrade-Zagreb roadway is just one link in the main land route
connecting Western Europe and the Middle East.
Its closure has forced economically important commercial traffic to
take costly, time-consuming diversions through neighboring states,
depriving both rump Yugoslavia and Croatia of badly needed revenues.
The highway's reopening was a key issue in talks last week at the U.
N.- and European Community-mediated Geneva peace conference on former
Yugoslavia between Yugoslav federation President Dobrica Cosic and
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
Both agreed the move was a pre-condition to normalizing relations.
novine.144.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer-Spassky 25th game postponed
Subject: Bosnian-Croat allies defend central Bosnian town
Subject: U.N. aid flights often targeted by anti-aircraft weapons
Subject: President of two-republic Yugoslavia meets with Italian leaders
Subject: U.S. to resettle 1,000 Bosnians
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer-Spassky 25th game postponed
Date: 26 Oct 92 00:10:50 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky
postponed the 25th game of his controversial rematch with former world
chess champion Bobby Fischer Sunday because he had a cold.
It was the third and last time Spassky will be able to put off
playing Fischer. Fischer has not yet used the privilege.
Fischer leads the series 8-4. The first player to win 10 matches will
receive $3.35 million and the loser $1.65 million from Jezdimir
Vasiljevic, a Serbian bank owner who organized the rematch.
Whatever the outcome, Fischer faces a $250,000 fine and a maximum 10-
year jail sentence for playing in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and
Montenegro.
Fischer defied a U.S. Treasury Department order warning him not to
engage in financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its
involvement in the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The next game is scheduled for Wednesday at Belgrade's Sava Congress
Center.
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Subject: Bosnian-Croat allies defend central Bosnian town
Date: 26 Oct 92 12:20:17 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A coalition of Bosnian and Croat
defenders Monday claimed to have beaten back a Serbian offensive against
the central Bosnian town of Jajce, forcing the Serbs to flee so fast
they left their weapons.
Also Monday, military leaders of the republic's three main warring
factions were gathering again in Sarajevo amid a rash of local conflicts
to open talks on ways of easing the Bosnian war and preparing for a
cease-fire.
Serbian forces reportedly entered Jajce during a heavy artillery
assault Sunday. Sarajevo radio said the allied Croat and Muslim Slav-
majority Bosnian forces fully repulsed the invasion by Monday morning.
``The aggressor fled in panic, leaving behind weapons and armored
vehicles,'' said the radio, which relays official Bosnian reports.
Bosnian-Croat skirmishes also were slowing Monday in towns around
Sarajevo, and leaders of the two ethnic factions in Konjic formally
agreed not to fight each other and to keep the Serbs as their common
enemy, Sarajevo radio reported.
The hotly-contested northern town of Gradacac came under another
night and morning of heavy Serbian artillery fire, it said, but
otherwise towns were relatively quiet along the contested line between
Serbia and the large region of Serbian-controlled northwest Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Monday's meeting of the republic's Bosnian, Croat and Serb military
chiefs followed their unprecedented gathering Friday at Sarajevo
airport, where they planned to continue a regular series of U.N.-
mediated talks on ways of implementing political agreements on ending
the six-month-old Bosnian conflict.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was relatively quiet
overnight and into Monday, although Serbian forces in hills overlooking
the capital unleashed a loud artillery barrage in the morning on the
Dobrinja apartment complex near the airport.
U.N. Protection Force military observers counted 148 rounds of large
artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled areas around Sarajevo during
the 24- hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Sunday and 41 rounds reaching
Serbian- controlled territory.
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across the republic
in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Sunday, including two killed
and 27 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat members of the
multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said Sunday he had not been informed of
and would not recognize his reported removal by the Croatian democratic
community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted
Saturday to replace Kljujic with party activist Miro Lasic in protest
with Kljujic's refusal to support a peace settlement in which the
republic would be divided along ethnic lines.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the capital for his
first time since war broke out more than six months ago, criticized
western governments for not providing more support to the Bosnian people
and said he was appealing next to Gulf Arab states.
French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of UNPROFOR's Bosnian
operations, planned to chair Monday's meeting of the rival military
leaders in Sarajevo before visiting Serb leaders in the suburb of Ilidza
and then returning downtown to officially open his new headquarters.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid reached
the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no supplies were brought
in by truck.
The U.N. relief effort by road into Sarajevo remained hampered both
by the loss of the Vitez warehouse and the shutdown due to fighting of
the main highway through Mostar.
Also Sunday, Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment to block
the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized convoys of
journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a setback to efforts to
reopen the main land link between Europe and the Middle East.
The Belgrade journalists convoy was seen off by Yugoslav Prime
Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the reopening of the 200-mile
highway as part of efforts to normalize relations with Croatia broken by
the Serb-Croat war.
Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia
and Montenegro, was in Italy on Monday for talks with Italian president
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the first a
western head of state has held with Cosic since the communist-turned-
nationalist and popular author was chosen as president of the truncated
Yugoslav union formed in April.
Cosic's trip was apparently aimed at promoting efforts by him and his
chief ally, Panic, to end the rump federation's international isolation,
which was deepened by the imposition in may of U.N. economic sanctions.
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Subject: U.N. aid flights often targeted by anti-aircraft weapons
Date: 26 Oct 92 17:58:31 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- U.N. relief airplanes flying into Sarajevo
have been frequently targeted by anti-aircraft weapons since the aid
airlift resumed this month, often forcing pilots to release flares as a
precaution against ground fire, a U.N. official said Monday.
Although no U.N. airplane has been fired upon by anti-aircraft
missiles or guns, the almost daily targeting of the planes has increased
concerns about the possibility of another shootdown like the one Sept.
3, which brought down an Italian cargo plane on a U.N. mission and
killed all four crew members.
``The airlift operation is in a fragile state at the moment,'' warned
the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said relief planes have been locked on by radar systems
and also have been targeted by heat-seeking missiles. He would not
elaborate on exactly how many times pilots had reported the problem,
saying only that it happens frequently and nearly daily, forcing pilots
to discharge flares as a protection against the ground fire.
``You can see the flares dropping from Sarajevo if you watch,'' said
the U.N. official.
The Sarajevo airlift operation was canceled for one month on Sept. 3
after the Italian cargo plane was shot down over Croatian territory
while en route to Sarajevo, the beseiged capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The shooting incident killed all four crew members aboard.
Since the airlift resumed, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
has been flying an average of 9 to 10 aid flights per day into the
Bosnian capital, about half of the number of flights prior to the Sept.
3 shootdown. The drop is due to a combination of heightened levels of
danger as well as increasing weather problems as the harsh Balkan winter
approaches.
In addition to problems with the airlift, the relief effort also has
been hampered by new fighting between Croat and Muslim forces in Bosnia-
Hercegovina. The fighting between the nominal allies has prevented any
land convoys of relief supplies from traveling to Sarajevo, said Peter
Kessler, the UNHCR spokesman in Zareb.
``Not one land convoy has been able to get into Sarajevo since the
fighting began,'' Kessler said. The UNHCR had organized 42 land convoys
to Sarajevo in the two months before the outbreak of fighting.
``We are very concerned about the Croat and Muslim clashes and that
it is worsening,'' Kessler said. ``It has hurt aid operations not just
to Sarajevo but everywhere else as well.''
``Every day there is a delay, it is a life or death situation for
many individuals,'' Kessler said.
The U.N. refugee agency has a supply wharehouse in Vitez, about 30
miles northwest of Sarajevo, that it has not been able to reach since
the Croat-Muslim fighting began last week.
U.N. aid workers had to be evacuated by a special U.N. Protection
Force last week becuase of heavy fighting between Muslims and Croats
outside UNHCR headquarters on Oct 20.
In Vitez 10,000 shelter kits, including 3 million square yards of
plastic sheeting to temproarily repair the damage done by the fighting
and prepare residents for the up-comming winter are waiting to be
delivered, Kessler said.
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Subject: President of two-republic Yugoslavia meets with Italian leaders
Date: 26 Oct 92 18:40:21 GMT
ROME (UPI) -- Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation
of Serbia and Montenegro, met with Italian leaders Monday to seek their
support in bringing the federation out of isolation and easing economic
sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, Italian officials said.
Cosic, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ilija Djukic and other aides,
started a two-day private visit to Rome by meeting for more than three
hours with Italian Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo at the 16th century
Villa Madama government guest house.
The talks, described by Italian officials as ``in-depth and
fruitful'', continued over lunch, at which the ministers were joined by
``experts'' on both sides.
Later, at 6 p.m., Cosic was received by Italian President Oscar Luigi
Scalfaro at the presidential Quirinale Palace. He was expected to have
further talks with Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato Tuesday
morning, the officials said.
Italy, along with most other western countries, does not officially
recognize Cosic's rump republic and Scalfaro was the first Western head
of state to receive the former communist-turned-nationalist, who
presides over the truncated Yugoslav union forged on April 27.
Serbia's communist regime, which engineered the alliance, is regarded
by the international community as being mainly responsible for the
violent collapse of the former Yugoslav federation.
The international isolation of Cosic's rump Yugoslavia was deepened
by the imposition in May of U.N. economic sanctions because of the
support Serbia and Montenegro have given to the Serbian territorial
offensive in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
But Italian officials said Italy was anxious to encourage Cosic and
Prime Minister Milan Panic in moves they have made toward a negotiated
settlement of the situation in the former Yugoslav Republics.
Foreign Minister Colombo insisted on the need for Cosic's republic to
carry out in full all the agreements which all parties signed in
conferences on Yugoslavia in London and Geneva.
Colombo told Cosic it was obvious that such action would greatly help
him to achieve his main aim of obtaining an easing of the U.N.
sanctions.
The officials said the Yugoslav president told Colombo that the
sanctions had transformed his country into ``a real and proper
concentration camp.''
``We have 500,000 unemployed and as many refugees,'' Cosic told the
Italian foreign minister. ``Without oil, we cannot sow crops, for lack
of heating we must close hospitals and schools.
``How can we, in these conditions, normalize our relations with the
other republics of the ex-Yugoslavia?'' he asked.
The officials said Cosic asked Colombo ``to take action within the
United Nations and the European Community to obtain an easing of the
sanctions.''
Colombo said Italy, which as a country neighboring the former
Yugoslav Republic has a major interest in a peaceful settlment, told the
president Italy would do what it could to help.
But he stressed that Cosic and his government must first put into
effect the London and Geneva agreements. He said Italy was particularly
interested in seeing the outcome of municipal, republican and federal
elections to be held in the rump Yugoslav republic in December, in which
Cosic's conciliatory line will be opposed by the hard line of Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic.
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Subject: U.S. to resettle 1,000 Bosnians
Date: 26 Oct 92 19:35:54 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Up to 1,000 Bosnians scheduled to be released from
Serbian detention camps will be resettled in the United States, the
administration said Monday.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who said numerous times
during the growing crisis in Bosnia-Hercegovina that the United States
was not prepared to resettle a large group of refugees, denied that the
latest announcement represented a change in policy.
He said the administration, which has already offered to bring 100
severly injured Bosnians to the United States for medical care, and its
allies still feel that ``the most appropriate policy is to assist the
people as close to home as possible and not to commence a resettlement
program.''
But, Boucher said, ``the detainees are a discrete population'' who
are ``of special concern because of what they had to go through.''
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last week that
there was a special need to remove released detention camp prisoners
from a situation in which they may very well be recaptured.
That assessment prompted the administration to alter its stance on
the resettlement of Bosnian refugees, Boucher said.
novine.145.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 207, 27 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN VERSUS CONGRESS. The last weekend meeting of Russian
President Boris Yeltsin with senior ministers at the government
datcha in Staro-Ogarevo was not a meeting of the Security Council
to select a new prime minister as reported by Russian media but a
routine government meeting, Vice Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin
was quoted by Radio Rossii on 25 October as saying. Shokhin
denied that any talks on government personnel changes had been
discussed. He stated that the meeting focused on the government's
tactics at the forthcoming Congress. He hinted that Yeltsin may
organize a referendum concerning the abolition of the Congress--an
idea which is being supported by democratic leaders such as
Gavriil Popov, Anatolii Sobchak and others. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TRADE UNION CHALLENGES GOVERNMENT. The chairman of the
Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, Igor Klochkov,
told journalists that 1.5 million people have participated in
anti-government demonstrations throughout the country on 24
October. ITAR-TASS quoted him as saying on 26 October that these
have been the largest trade union demonstrations in Russia in
recent memory. He stressed that the trade unions demand a
correction of the government's economic reform policy away from
shock therapy. He warned that if the government rejects the
demands, the trade unions will press for the creation of a
government of national trust. According to Klochkov, the Russian
trade unions are being supported by trade unions in other CIS
states. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOPS ORDERED TO RETURN FIRE IN ABKHAZIA. Russian troops
have been ordered to return fire if they come under attack in
Abkhazia, AFP reported on 26 October, quoting a Russian defense
ministry spokesman. To date, the Russian defense ministry has
insisted that its troops are remaining neutral in the
Abkhaz-Georgian conflict. In an interview given to Ostankino TV on
26 October and summarized by ITAR-TASS, Georgian parliament
Chairman-elect Eduard Shevardnadze argued in favour of a
"civilized solution" to the continued stationing of Russian troops
in Georgia. In a Tbilisi Radio address Shevardnadze argued that
Georgia still needs Russian troops to guard its borders and to
provide anti-aircraft missile defenses. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN ON REFORMS; BONNER WARNS OF FASCISM. Russian President
Boris Yeltsin told a delegation of US financiers that although he
may replace some of the present ministers, his strategy of reform
remains unchanged and that the main obstacles to reform have been
overcome, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 October. The same day, some
former Russian human rights activists, including Elena Bonner,
criticized the National Salvation Front's struggle for power in an
open letter in Izvestiya, warning of the danger of fascism.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET VESSELS BLOCKADED IN POTI. ITAR-TASS reported on
26 October that ships and sailors of the Black Sea Fleet were
being blockaded in the Georgian port of Poti. Tanks have been
positioned on the approach to the naval base, while barges have
been positioned in the harbor to prevent the departure of naval
vessels. Weapons are reportedly being demanded from the sailors.
The Black Sea Fleet has been conducting refugee evacuation
operations from Abkhazia, moving over 20,000 refugees from the
region. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TAJIK GOVERNMENT AGAIN CONTROLS DUSHANBE. On 26 October the
government of Tajikistan regained control of the capital,
according to domestic and Russian news agencies, and armed forces
from Kulyab Oblast had left Dushanbe, escorted out of the city by
Russian armored vehicles. The fighters from Kulyab had tried to
overthrow the government during two days of fighting in Dushanbe
that caused considerable damage to the city and paralyzed public
services and retail trade. The number of casualties is unknown,
but Western correspondents in Dushanbe report a number of bodies
lying in the streets. Occasional gunfire could still be heard in
the city, according to various reports. Acting President Akbarsho
Iskandarov, encountered by a Reuters correspondent as he surveyed
the wreckage of the Supreme Soviet chamber, said that the Kulyab
forces were regrouping in Tursunzade near the Uzbek border. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DISPUTE OVER BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENTS. The command of the
Black Sea Fleet has rejected Ukrainian Defense Minister Morozov's
complaint that its chief of staff, Vice Admiral Petr Svyatashov,
had been improperly appointed. According to an ITAR-TASS report
of 26 October, the Black Sea Fleet claims it is under the joint
command of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, and therefore the
Ukrainian minister of defense should not interfere in the
direction of the fleet. The statement did not indicate whether the
decision to appoint Svyatashov was coordinated between the
presidents. ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October that Admiral
Kasatonov in an interview with Krasnaya zvezda had called for
maintaining a strong Russian Navy and stated that Russian and
Ukrainian interests in the Black Sea coincided rather than
conflicted. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV BACK AT WORK. Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov
recovered from his collapse last week and chaired a meeting of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 October.
He rejected congressional plans to oust the government, noting
that, according to the Constitution, parliament can pass a vote of
no confidence against the government without convening a Congress.
He also stated that the Congress should adopt a basic law on land
ownership which would end accusations that the parliament was
against private land ownership. He emphasized that he personally
was in favor of convening the Congress next year, but since
parliament had decided differently, everyone must obey. (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS PROPOSAL TO ACCELERATE WORK ON NEW
CONSTITUTION. On 23 October the Russian parliament rejected a
proposal to speed up work on the draft of the new Russian
constitution to have it ready by the opening of the 7th Congress
of People's Deputies on 1 December, ITAR-TASS reported. Nikolai
Ryabov, the chairman of the Council of the Republic, who put
forward the proposal, argued that, if the draft was not ready, the
integrity of the Russian Federation would be threatened inasmuch
as the majority of the republics of the Russian Federation are
likely to adopt new constitutions before the end of the year and
they will not be based on the new Russian constitution, which will
create a very complicated legal situation. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT RATIFIES AGREEMENT ON STATUS OF CIS ECONOMIC
COURT. On 23 October the Russian parliament ratified the
agreement on the status of the CIS Economic Court, signed in
Moscow in June by the heads of state of Armenia, Belorussia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan, ITAR-TASS reported. Each signatory state is to
appoint or elect two judges for ten years. The chairman of the
court and his deputy will be elected by the court's judges and
approved by the Council of the CIS Heads of State. The economic
court, which will adjudicate disputes between enterprises in
different CIS states, is one of the five coordinating bodies
called for by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DELAY SOUGHT IN REPAYMENT OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN DEBT. The Russian
Foreign Economic Relations Minister Petr Aven told Interfax on 26
October that Russia will seek a two month delay in this year's
payments on its foreign debt. The proposal will be made at the 28
October meeting of the Paris Club of Western creditor-nations.
Aven said that Russia will seek the short-term postponement
because creditor-nations "are not ready" to make "a final decision
with respect to a ten or fifteen year delay of the Russian debt"
in the near future. Aven thought that Russia will be able to repay
$2.5-3 billion in 1993. (Roughly the same amount will be repaid
this year, against a non-deferred due amount of about $10
billion). (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN SIGN ECONOMIC PROTOCOL. The Prime Ministers
of Russia and Kazakhstan, Egor Gaidar and Sergei Tereshchenko, on
22 October signed economic agreements concerning debt settlement
and coordination of economic policies, Interfax reported. The
central bank chairmen of the two countries were also present at
the signing in Moscow. The protocol included measures for rapidly
reducing mutual enterprise debts (Kazakh enterprises owe Russian
enterprises about 75 billion rubles, Russian enterprises owe
Kazakhstan about 150 billion rubles) as well as creating a special
bilateral committee to help coordinate interest rate, credit
emission, trade, taxation and state spending policies. (Erik
Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ELECTIONS FAIL TO TAKE PLACE IN KARACHAEVO-CHERKESIA. The
elections that were to have been held in Karachaevo-Cherkesia on
25 October did not take place, ITAR-TASS reported. Voters were
supposed to elect deputies to the new republican bodies to be set
up as a result of the transformation of the territory from an
oblast into a republic, but the various nationalities inhabiting
the republic have been unable to agree on what the structure of
the new institutions should be. It has been suggested that the
oblast soviet of deputies, elected at the last election, be
allowed to function until 1995 as the republic's supreme soviet.
(Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PRESENTATION OF NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT. The newly-chosen
Ukrainian prime minister, Leonid Kuchma, is scheduled to present
his choices to the Ukrainian parliament for consideration on 27
October. During the past week Kuchma has been holding talks with
various political parties concerning the composition of the new
government. Thus far, only two former cabinet ministers, Minister
of Defense Konstantin Morozov and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Anatolii Zlenko, can rest assured that they will retain their
jobs. The formation of the new Ukrainian government is taking
place against a backdrop of disarray within the camp of the
reformist opposition and growing popular dissatisfaction with the
economic situation, particularly price increases. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SCHEDULE FOR PULLOUT OF RUSSIAN MISSILES FROM BELARUS. Interfax
reported on 26 October that a schedule had been drawn up and
approved for the withdrawal of nuclear-armed strategic missiles
from Belarus to Russia. It calls for the pullout of eight missile
brigades in 1993 and the remaining eight in 1994. By the end of
that year, Belarus will be free of nuclear weapons. The last
command and support sub-unit will leave for Russia in June 1995.
(As of 1 September 1990 there were 54 mobile SS-25 missiles based
at Mozyr and Lida in Belarus. Subsequently, additional missiles
were deployed, bringing the total to 81.) (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BELARUS TO RECALL TROOPS. The Belarusian government has called for
all citizens of Belarus serving in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and
Baltic states to return to Belarus by 1 January 1993, according to
an ITAR-TASS report of 26 October. Apparently, troops located in
Russia and Ukraine will remain with their units. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN SPACE ROCKET BUILDER SIGNS US DEAL. NPO Energomash, the
builder of rocket engines that have placed all Soviet space
vehicles and payloads in orbit since the 1957 Sputnik launch,
signed an agreement on 26 October with the American firm Pratt &
Whitney Space Propulsion. According to a U.S. Information Agency
report, the deal provides Pratt & Whitney with exclusive U.S.
rights to market the Russian firm's rocket engines and other
technology. The American company is particularly interested in the
giant RD-170 rocket engine, capable of delivering over 734,000
kilograms of thrust and considered to be the most powerful
liquid-fueling rocket engine in the world. An official of Pratt &
Whitney said that the company might eventually manufacture the
RD-170 in the United States under license. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
AKAEV FEARS TENSIONS IN SOUTHERN KYRGYZSTAN. Kyrgyzstan's
President Askar Akaev met with demonstrators in Dzhalal-Abad in
southern Tajikistan on 26 October, Interfax reported, to try to
defuse tensions that he said could lead to a Tajikistan-style
civil war in the region. The demonstrators, supporters of
Dzhalal-Abad oblast administration chief Bekmamet Osmanov, were
protesting the Kyrgyz government's decision to monitor the
activities of the Dzhalal-Abad oblast administration in Osmanov's
absence. Akaev intended to discuss the situation in Dzhalal-Abad
Oblast with both supporters and opponents of Osmanov. The report
gives no indication whether interethnic tensions are involved, but
Dzhalal-Abad is located in the Fergana Valley, the site of bloody
fighting between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in 1990. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN-UKRAINIAN TREATY. The Presidents of Moldova and Ukraine,
Mircea Snegur and Leonid Kravchuk, met in Chisinau on 23 October
to sign a "treaty of good neighborliness, friendship and
cooperation." It provides for the observance of the rights of
Moldovans in Ukraine and of Ukrainians in Moldova in accordance
with internationally recognized standards; expanded cooperation in
the fields of education and culture; bilateral coordination of
customs procedures; transit facilities across Moldova for
Ukraine's western trade and across Ukraine for Moldova's eastern
trade; and the prohibition of the formation and transit of armed
groups hostile to one of the sides on the territory of the other.
The latter two provisions clearly benefit Moldova, 80% of whose
foreign trade moves across Ukraine, and which contends with
irregular Russian armed groups crossing Ukraine from Russia to
fight on the Dniester. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MORE LITHUANIAN ELECTION RESULTS. Preliminary results of the
Seimas elections on 25 October indicate that five groups captured
the 70 seats allocated proportionally, Radio Lithuania reports.
The Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP), the successor to the
Lithuanian Communist Party, won 44.7% of the vote; Sajudis -
19.8%; the three-party Christian Democratic coalition - 11.6%; the
Social-Democratic Party (LSDP) - 5.9%; and the Union of Poles
(UP)-2.3%. Only 14 of the 71 contests for seats in single-mandate
districts were decided on 25 October; 11 of these went to the
LDLP. The fate of the rest of the single-mandate districts will be
determined in the second round of the elections, to be held on 8
November. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BRAZAUSKAS CALLS FOR BROAD COALITION IN LITHUANIA. At a press
conference on 25 October, chairman of the Lithuanian Democratic
Labor Party Algirdas Brazauskas urged all political forces in the
future Seimas to form "a broad coalition in the name of civil
concord and prosperity in Lithuania," Radio Lithuania reports. He
said that relations with Russia should be normalized, with
adjustments on economic matters and trade, but added that he will
continue to demand both the complete withdrawal of Russian troops
from Lithuania and compensation for the damages they inflicted.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHS AND SLOVAKS AGREE ON CUSTOMS UNION, COMMON CURRENCY. On 26
October Czech and Slovak leaders, meeting in Javorina, Slovakia,
agreed on a customs union between the Czech and Slovak republics
after Czechoslovakia splits on 1 January 1993. Under the terms of
the agreement, there will be duty-free exchange of goods and
services between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the two
states will have common trade and customs policies toward third
countries. A joint council and a permanent secretariat will
coordinate these policies. The two sides also reached agreement
on retaining a common currency. CSTK reports Slovak Premier
Vladimir Meciar as saying that the Czechoslovak koruna will remain
the common currency indefinitely, but that either side could pull
out of the arrangement at any time. Meciar also said that he and
Czech Premier Vaclav Klaus had decided against a "common
citizenship." The status of Czechs in Slovakia and Slovaks in the
Czech Republic will be decided by the two republics' parliaments.
Czech and Slovak leaders also approved draft laws on the abolition
of federal laws and federal institutions. The federal government
approved these drafts the same day and submitted them to the
Federal Assembly. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE ON MASS GRAVE NEAR VUKOVAR. The 27 October Los Angeles Times
says that a mass grave found near Vukovar appears to contain the
remains of over 170 Croatian soldiers. The paper quotes Clyde
Snow, a US forensic anthropologist working with the UN human
rights investigation team headed by former Polish Prime Minister
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, as saying that three more months of
investigations will be needed. The wounded men were reportedly
taken by Yugoslav army soldiers and Serbian irregulars from the
Vukovar hospital following that strategic town's fall last
November. Witnesses claim that the men were beaten and killed by
their abductors. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US TO TAKE 1,000 BOSNIANS. Major US dailies report on 27 October
that the State Department announced the previous day that
Washington has agreed to allow 1,000 Bosnian camp inmates to
immigrate. The US had sought to keep the refugees as close to
Bosnia as possible to permit their eventual easy return home, but
international aid agencies have been urging Washington to take
some former camp inmates to help speed up emptying the camps. Over
10,000 inmates are awaiting resettlement. Some two million people
have been displaced in the Yugoslav conflict, and the lives of up
to 400,000 people may be at stake in the upcoming harsh Bosnian
winter. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN TOWN REPORTED WIPED OFF THE MAP. Radios Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Serbia reported on 26 October that the predominantly Muslim
town of Prozor was wiped off the map by forces of the Croatian
Defense Council (HVO) during an attack on 24 October. A statement
released by the Bosnian Army command in Sarajevo said "Prozor no
longer exists." There has been no independent confirmation of the
report, however. The Bosnian presidency has refused comment,
fearing a chain reaction in other villages where tension between
Croats and Muslims is running high. Radio Croatia reports on 26
October that key Muslim leaders and the army are on the verge of
breaking with Bosnia's President Alija Izetbegovic, on the grounds
that his policy of maintaining a close alliance with Croatia has
failed to benefit Muslim interests. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
TENSIONS RUNNING HIGH IN THE SANDZAK. Tensions are also rising in
the Sandzak in southwest Serbia after the abduction on 22 October
of some 20 Muslims traveling from Bosnia to their jobs in the town
of Priboj. Unconfirmed reports say the Muslims were executed near
Priboj. Rump Yugoslavia's Prime Minister Milan Panic ordered an
investigation on 26 October and said that every effort will be
made to reduce tension. Panic and cabinet members also met with
military officials and ordered increased border patrols in the
Priboj region along the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sandzak
Muslim leaders urged local residents to remain calm. Radio Serbia
carried the reports. Muslims have been complaining of
provocations and other incidents since the summer, and about
60,000 of them have moved from mixed areas to largely Muslim areas
as a result. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK GOVERNMENT UNABLE TO AGREE ON GABCIKOVO. Meeting in
the early hours of 27 October, the Czechoslovak federal government
failed to reach agreement on stopping work on the controversial
Gabcikovo hydroelectrical dam project. Speaking to reporters in
Prague, Federal Premier Jan Strasky said that "the Slovak
ministers were against stopping work at Gabcikovo." Deputy Prime
Minister Miroslav Macek said that the Czech ministers had demanded
that "the damming of the Danube be stopped immediately," which
would create conditions for a special EC commission to evaluate
the project and for further negotiations. According to Macek, the
Slovak ministers insisted that the damming of the Danube, which
began on 24 October, must continue so that shipping on the river
can be renewed on 3 November. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON GONCZ INCIDENT. Hungarian
deputies debated at the 26 October parliamentary session the
demonstration that prevented President Arpad Goncz from delivering
his address at the commemoration of the 1956 revolution on 23
October, MTI reports. Opposition parties called for an ad hoc
committee to investigate the incident. Sandor Olah, a member of
the Smallholder deputies in the governing coalition, said that
Nazi symbols had surfaced for the first time at an official
celebration organized by the interior ministry and urged the
interior minister to draw the consequences and resign. Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall rejected charges that his government was in
any way responsible for the incident and said no investigation was
necessary. Several Hungarian Democratic Forum deputies, including
parliamentary caucus leader Imre Konya, said that the major reason
for the incident was that Goncz opened himself to criticism by
getting involved in everyday politics. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
DEADLOCK REPORTED IN ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT TALKS. Petre Roman,
National Salvation Front (NSF) leader and Romania's former prime
minister, suggested on 26 October that political leaders had
reached an impasse in efforts to form a government. He accused
President Ion Iliescu and his Democratic National Salvation Front
(DNSF) of continuing a campaign of calumnies against his party.
The DNSF, which broke away from the NSF in March-April, is
generally seen as opposing radical reforms. In a statement
broadcast by Radio Bucharest, DNSF deputy leader Adrian Nastase
said that his party might withdraw from the race to form a new
cabinet and join the opposition instead. Neither the DNSF, which
failed to win a majority in recent elections, nor the opposition
seems eager to govern during what is likely to be a difficult
winter. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TENSION OVER ETHNIC AUTONOMY IN ROMANIA. Radio Bucharest broadcast
on 26 October excerpts from a statement adopted the previous day
by the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (HDUR) at a
conference in Cluj-Napoca. The statement, which insisted that
ethnic Hungarians "neither want to emigrate nor be assimilated
into the Romanian nation," demanded "self-administration" for
Hungarian communities. It also said that "autonomy for ethnic and
religious communities" is part of Transylvania's political
tradition. The extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party warned in
a communique of possible ethnic strife following the HDUR
declaration, which it described as "an irresponsible attack on the
country's Constitution." (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER RESIGNS. Latvia's Minister of Foreign
Affairs Janis Jurkans has resigned, according to an RFE/RL
correspondent's report on 27 October. Jurkans had been widely
criticized by members of the Latvian Supreme Council. He survived
a parliamentary vote of confidence last week after legislators
evaluated the performance of the government of Prime Minister
Ivars Godmanis. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DANISH LEADER OFFERS ASSISTANCE FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL. While
discussing the Russian troop withdrawal from the Baltic States,
Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen told his Russian
counterpart Andrei Kozyrev that Denmark had worked vigorously to
establish an international fund to finance the construction of
military housing in Russia, Interfax reported on 26 October.
Ellemann-Jensen said that the efforts had led nowhere so far and
his country had thus decided on a unilateral initiative to expand
housing in Russia using Danish funds. Kozyrev endorsed this idea.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOZYREV LINKS HUMAN RIGHTS WITH TROOP WITHDRAWAL. Kozyrev also
told the Danish Foreign Minister that the issues of Russian troop
withdrawal from the Baltic States and the rights of Russian
speakers in the Baltics are interrelated. When asked how far
Moscow would go to protect Russian speakers in the former USSR
republics, Kozyrev said: "We are prepared to resort to the most
far-reaching, tough, radical measures, but within the framework of
international law." He did not rule out the possibility of using
force "for the purpose of ceasefire and other peacekeeping
functions in the areas of armed conflicts," but not for the
purpose of "ethnic cleansing." Kozyrev stressed that Russia "is
categorically against the Yugoslav version," Interfax reported on
26 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SALVATION FRONT PLANS ACTIONS IN THE BALTIC STATES. The program
of the newly formed National Salvation Front in Russia includes
actions in the Baltic States, according to BNS and Interfax
reports of 24 and 26 October. The organization has announced plans
to visit Russian army garrisons in the Baltic States in the period
20-30 November for the purpose of securing the rights of the
troops and their families. Among the leaders of the Salvation
Front are Col. Viktor Alksnis and Russian TV journalist Aleksandr
Nevzorov. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIA TO LAUNCH LARGE-SCALE PRIVATIZATION. According to a
detailed plan distributed to the media on 26 October, the
Bulgarian government aims to begin the privatization of at least
92 companies before the end of the year. The Agency on
Privatization, which prepared the plan, is to deal with eleven
companies worth more than 10 million leva. While the agency has
attributed first priority to companies involved in industry and
agriculture, it is advising municipalities to concentrate on
sectors such as building, trade, services, transport, and
communications. Although political differences have delayed
large-scale privatization, the government has in the meantime
managed to spread ownership through its policy of restoring
property rights to precommunist owners. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
POLAND COURTS WESTERN INVESTMENT. A three-day forum designed to
promote Western investment in Poland, sponsored by the Polish
government and the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization, opened in Warsaw on 26 October. President Lech
Walesa, the forum's honorary chairman, said that without foreign
capital Poland's economic transformation would take a hundred
years. Deputy Prime Minister Henryk Goryszewski pledged that
Poland will remain friendly to investors, despite public fears of
foreign domination. An opinion poll published in Rzeczpospolita on
26 October showed that 44% of respondents feel there is too little
foreign investment in Poland; 25% think the level is just right;
and only 20% believe that there is too much. However, 51% of
respondents said they would oppose the sale of their own work
place to a foreign investor. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WORLD BANK OPENS BUDAPEST OFFICE. The World Bank opened a new
office for the East Central European region in Budapest on 26
October, MTI reports. Finance Minister Mihaly Kupa said at the
inauguration ceremony that the presence of the office will
facilitate the Hungarian government's goal of turning Budapest
into the region's financial center. Kemal Dervis, the director of
the World Bank's East Central European department, told Radio
Budapest that the World Bank is concerned about Hungary's large
budget deficit and hopes that the government will take resolute
measures to reduce it. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.146.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. forensics expert uncovers mass grave in former Yugoslavia
Subject: Legal experts named to Balkans war-crimes panel
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north
Subject: Mediators unveil proposed constitution to rival Bosnian factions
Subject: Serbia's assembly approves early elections amendment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. forensics expert uncovers mass grave in former Yugoslavia
Date: 26 Oct 92 23:10:15 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- A U.S. forensics consultant to the United Nations
said Monday he uncovered overwhelming evidence in Croatia that 174
wounded men were removed from a hospital by senior officers of the
Yugoslav National Army in late 1991 and executed then buried in a mass
grave.
Dr. Clyde Snow, a forensic anthropoligist who travelled to the region
this month with the U.N. Human Rights Commission to gather evidence of
Serbian atrocities for a potential war-crimes tribunal, told reporters
at the State Department that he believes there are ``dozens or hundreds''
of mass graves spread across what was once Yugoslavia.
Although the United Nations has not yet decided on its next step,
Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton said, the administration is
``determined to get these facts out.''
Bolton sent a stern warning to those who may have been involved in
abuses that any attempts to hide or alter such evidence as mass graves
would be considered a war crime.
``We want to warn all the parties that may have been involved in
these atrocities that any attempt to cover up the evidence or destroy it
would of course be what in our system is called obstruction of justice
and in turn a war crime,'' Bolton told reporters.
The U.N. War Crimes Commission, which was created by a Security
Council resolution earlier this month, is charged with investigating and
prosecuting human rights abuses in the former Yugoslavia.
The panel is currently in the process of gathering information,
Bolton said, and will determine in the future how to use it as evidence
in a war-crimes tribunal.
``The most important thing now is to make sure that all the evidence
that can be preserved will be preserved,'' he said.
Dr. Snow gave a chilling account of the evidence he gathered at a
mass grave near the Croatian town of Vukovar and during interviews with
witnesses to events leading up to the mass execution.
In November, 1991, after Croatia declared independence from
Yugoslavia, Belgrade began its brutal offensive to reclaim the
territory. Slovenia and Bosnia-Hercegovina in the following months also
declared independence and have suffered similar if not worse abuse at
the hands of Belgrade's troops.
Snow said Yugoslav Army troops, seeking a medical facility to treat
its soldiers, went to a hospital in Vukovar and removed 400 Croatian
patients.
He said 174 wounded Croats were singled out ``by a (Yugoslav Army)
Colonel'' and taken on three buses to a farming community named Ovcara.``
``These 174 men were never seen again,'' Snow said.
Later that evening, Snow said he was told by witnesses, the men were
taken to a field by Yugoslav Army soldiers as well as Serbian irregulars
and executed then buried in shallow graves.
Snow travelled to the field Oct. 18 and ``immediatelly encountered a
human skeleton, then another.'' Although Snow left the ``crime scene''
undisturbed, he discovered two more bodies and one skull with a bullet
hole in the temple.
``We have strong reason to believe this grave probably contains the
bodies of the men who...were kidnapped from the hospital Nov. 20.''
He said the United Nations was treating the field ``as a homicide
scene,'' and Russian troops were currently guarding it.``
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Legal experts named to Balkans war-crimes panel
Date: 26 Oct 92 20:03:41 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Secretary-General Boutros Ghali appointed five
legal experts Monday to the U.N. war crimes commission that will
``examine and analyze'' reports of atrocities by warring ethnic groups
in the former republics of Yugoslavia.
The work of the commission could lead to an international trial of
those charged with allegedly torturing and killing thousands of
civilians, mostly in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where six months of fighting
between Serbs, Croats and Muslims has brought widespread reports of
racially motivated killings.
The U.N. war-crimes commission was set up by the Security Council on
Oct. 6 after Serbian irregulars were accused of executing Muslim Slavs
in detention camps. The council also asked governments to provide to the
commission information related to severe violations of human rights.
Ghali said the five experts will ``examine and analyze information
concerning possible breaches of international humanitarian law and the
Geneva Conventions in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.''
The secretary-general named Frits Kalshoven, a professor from the
Netherlands, to head the commission. He currently is a legal adviser for
international affairs of the Netherlands Red Cross Society.
Other members are Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian professor teaching at
De Paul University in Chicago who is president of the university's
International Human Rights Institute; William Fenrick, Director of
Canada's Law Operations and Training at the National Defense
Headquarters; Judge Keba Mbaye of Senegal, a former judge of the U.N.
International Court of Justice; and, Professor Torkel Opsahl, president
of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights.
When it constituted the war-crimes commission, the Security Council
called on the experts to contact governments and international
organizations or conduct their own investigations to gather evidence on
war crimes committed during the conflict in the former Yugoslav
republics.
Government representatives on the Security Council said that they
would seek to prosecute those responsible of human rights violations,
particularly the ``ethnic cleansing'' campaign against the Muslim
population in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The governments of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the United States have been
the only two to have provided written records of allegations of war
crimes.
The U.S. State Department last week submitted its second series of
reports dealing with the issues, drawing heavily from interviews done by
U.S. embassies in the Eastern and Central Europe.
The State Department said the documents showed ``numerous abhorrent
incidents, including willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of
civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction of
property and mass forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians.''
The documents cited several cases of mass killings. The report said
in one instance near Brcko, Serbian irregulars allegedly killed between
2,000 and 3,000 Muslim men, women and children.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees appealed Monday to
governments to admit thousands of detainees from camps in the former
Yugoslavia. It said many of the refugees have been ``subjected to
horrendous abuses and torture.''
It said the United States on Monday offered to take 1,000 refugees,
the largest number by any governments. Finland, Italy, Norway, New
Zealand and Switzerland have offered to admit some refugees.
The refugee agency's deputy commissioner Douglas Stafford said in the
appeal that the refugees have suffered the worst atrocities.
``These people have been beaten, tortured and have experienced
atrocities of the worst kinds,'' Stafford said. ``They are in need of
immediate protection.''
The United Nations has reported a slow response from governments to
assist the refugees. UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red
Cross have been interviewing refugees in camps in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
but they said plans to evacuate them were postponed because not enough
countries have come forward to admit the refugees.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north
Date: 27 Oct 92 15:27:23 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces Tuesday
reportedly shelled towns across northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina
and launched a new ``ethnic cleansing'' operation.
Meantime, in Geneva, international peace mediators presented the
warring factions with a plan for a political settlement of the war.
Commanders of the former Yugoslav republic's Serbian, Croatian and
Muslim Slav-dominated Bosnian forces held the first of a series of U.N.-
mediated working-level talks in Sarajevo aimed at demilitarizing the
capital and guaranteeing humanitarian aid deliveries.
On the war front, Yugoslav army-equipped Serbian forces launched
artillery barrages into and around the northern and central towns of
Jajce, Gradacac, Brcko, Maglaj, Tuzla and Bihac, Sarajevo radio
reported.
In Brcko, the radio said, Serbian soldiers embarked on a new round of
``ethnic cleansing,'' destroying mosques, cemeteries and a Catholic
church, while forcing non-Serbs into signing documents at a local Red
Cross office saying that they were voluntarily abandoning their homes
and leaving the town.
There was no independent confirmation of the report, although U.N.
officials have accused Serbian forces in the past of coercing non-Serbs
into signing such documents in other areas of the war-torn state.
The United States has said it has presented information to U.N. war
crimes investigators on previous Serbian ethnic cleansing measures in
Brcko, including the alleged massacre of some 3,000 non-Serbs.
Brcko, which has a pre-war ethnic mix of 44 percent Muslim Slav, 25
percent Croatian and 21 percent Serbian, was one of the first towns
conquered in a Serbian drive launched in late March to rip a self-
declared state out of 70 percent of Europe's newest state.
The Serbs are confronted by Croatian nationalist forces and the
Bosnian army, which mostly comprises Muslim Slavs, but also includes
moderate Serbs and Croats opposed to the partition of the republic,
which won international recognition of its independence in early April.
Western governments and U.N. officials and international human rights
groups say Serbian soldiers have systematically expelled tens of
thousands of non-Serbs from areas claimed for the Serbian ``state'' in
operations involving forced evictions, house-burnings and killings.
Croatian and Muslim forces have been accused of pursuing similar
tactics, but not on the same massive scale as allegedly employed by the
Serbs.
In Geneva, U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European Community
mediator David Owen presented representatives of the three sides with
their proposal for a new republic constitution that sources said would
create a federal structure similar to the Swiss-style system of cantonal
districts.
The local divisions would not be ethnically based and the federal
government would oversee foreign affairs, finance and security.
Serbian and nationalist Croatian leaders have been insisting on a
division of Bosnia-Hercegovina into autonomous ethnic regions with
little or no central linkage.
Vance and Owen planned to begin a three-day visit to former
Yugoslavia on Wednesday as part of an apparent bid to elicit support for
their plan.
Sarajevo radio quoted Bosnian officials in the eastern town of
Srebrenica as reporting the deaths over the past seven months of at
least 173 children among a total of some 80,000 refugees who fled
Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' and are now living homeless, hungry and
cold in surrounding forests.
The officials said 342 children among the refugees were injured, 1,
837 lost one parent, 563 lost both parents, and more than 10,000
children have been stricken by various illnesses, the radio said.
Sarajevo saw another day of sporadic artillery and sniper fire.
The working-level U.N.-mediated talks between Bosnian, Croatian and
Serbian military commanders were called to discuss a proposal for a 12-
mile-wide demilitarized zone around the capital and its airport to
facilitate deliveries of humanitarian aid.
U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) negotiators said they were not
greatly optimistic that the plan could be quickly approved and
implemented.
``A start has been made,'' said UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson.
``All we can say is the machinery is now in motion. It may not even be
going very fast, but it is in motion.''
UNPROFOR, in its daily survey, said its military observers detected a
total of 43 Serbian heavy artillery rounds hitting Bosnian-controlled
territory in the Sarajevo area during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Monday. By contrast, only seven Bosnian-fired shells hit Serb-
controlled areas, it said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mediators unveil proposed constitution to rival Bosnian factions
Date: 27 Oct 92 17:38:29 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Cyrus Vance and David Owen, the co-chairmen of the U.
N.-European Community peace conference on the former Yugoslavia, Tuesday
unveiled to the rival factions of Bosnia-Hercegovina a proposed
constitution that would be the basis for a political settlement of their
almost seven-month-old war.
Public disclosure of the plan was delayed until Wednesday due to
difficulties in translating the English-language draft into French as
required by U.N. regulations, said Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for the co-
chairmen.
But, according to earlier extensive leaks of its details, the plan
calls for the establishment of a federal system in Bosnia-Hercegovina
similar to the cantonal structure of Switzerland, with a central
government retaining control of foreign relations, economic affairs and
internal security.
Most other political responsibilities would be transferred to the
administrations of an unspecified number of regions that would be
established without regard to the local ethnic mixes in the newly
independent republic.
There have been no official responses from leaders of the republic's
Muslim Slav, Croatian and Serbian communities, whose negotiators met
behind closed doors with Owen and Vance to review the proposed
constitution.
Bosnia-Hercegovina's Muslim Slavs, who comprise 44 percent of the 4.4
million-strong population, and the small number of moderate Serbs and
Croats advocate maintaining the republic as a unified, federal state.
But most of 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs, and 750,000 Roman
Catholic Croats, backed respectively by the regimes in neighboring
Serbia and Croatia, want to divide Bosnia-Hercegovina in autonomous
ethnic regions.
Serbian forces, backed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, ignited
the conflict in late March when they launched an offensive aimed at pre-
empting international recognition of the republic's independence and
capturing a self-declared state proclaimed on 70 percent of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Nationalist Croatian forces this summer proclaimed an ``Autonomous
Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna'' in Croat-dominated Western
Hercegovina and other Croatian pockets.
``This is a unique constitution for a unique situation,'' Eckhard
said of the Vance-Owen proposal. ``The co-chairmen have ignored the
question of ethnic purity in trying to set up the embryo regions, but of
course most of them will have a dominant ethnic group.''
He said the proposed central government would comprise members of all
three ethnic groups, as does the current one, in addition ``other
persons.'' Asked who these persons would be, he pointed out that two out
of every five marriages in Bosnia-Hercegovina are mixed.
Vance and Owen were to depart Wednesday for Belgrade, where Eckhard
said they would hold talks with Dobrica Cosic, the president of the rump
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro, its prime minister, Milan
Panic.
They also hoped to meet President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia,
widely regarded as the prime architect of the Serbian land-grab
offensive, although the talks had not yet been confirmed.
Eckhard said Vance and Owen were seeking ``as much of a one-on-one
meeting as possible'' with Milosevic.
On Thursday, the pair was to swing through Macedonia, Kosovo and
Albania, where they were to overnight after a meeting with government
officials.
They planned to return to Geneva Friday, Eckhard said, via Montenegro
and Croatia, where they would meet Croatian President Franjo Tudjman,
Gen. Satish Nambiar, the commander of U.N. forces in ex-Yugoslavia, and
Cedric Thornberry the senior U.N. political officer.
In a related development, the U.N. Childrens Fund said it had
received assurances from all parties that a week-long truce would be
observed beginning Nov. 1 to enable humanitarian aid to be distributed
to children and other refugees, mostly in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but also
in Montenegro.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a non-
governmental organization affiliated with the United Nations, announced
it was moving 208 former prisoners from Serbian detention camps, plus
their families, to Switzerland within the next few days.
The refugees were among 1,500 former inmates brought out of camps in
Serb-held areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina by the International Red Cross and
the U.H. High Commission for Refugees. They were given temporary refuge
in the Croatian town of Karlovac.
The IOM said it hopes to move another 70 former prisoners to Finland
shortly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia's assembly approves early elections amendment
Date: 27 Oct 92 17:52:30 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The communist-controlled Serbian
Assembly Tuesday passed a constitutional amendment authorizing early
parliamentary and presidential polls, but allowing President Slobodan
Milosevic to maintain his grip on the state media, election machinery
and police forces during the campaign.
In a bid to loosen Milosevic's control of the media and ensure
opposition participation in the polls, the Yugoslav federal government
demanded the resignation of the top official of state-run Belgrade radio
and television.
The Serbian legislature approved a constitutional amendment that
permitted early elections by the end of the year and ``foresees the
continuity of the current government until new elections are held, when
the mandate of the president and parliamentary deputies will end.''
The provision allowed Milosevic to retain control of the opinion-
shaping state-run media, Serbia's pervasive security network and the
communist-run election bureaucracy.
Normally, early elections in parliamentary democracies are triggered
when a government chief dismisses a legislature and submits his own
resignation.
Political analysts believe that Milosevic sought to avoid such steps
not just to maintain a pre-poll lock on power, but to avoid giving an
impression that he and his Socialist Party of Serbia are responsible for
dire economic, social and political chaos stemming from their roles in
the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Early federal and republic elections have been pushed by President
Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro,
and his prime minister, Milan Panic, a Belgrade-born naturalized U.S.
citizen, as part of a peace-seeking initiative.
Both regard Milosevic's ouster as the main requisite for the lifting
of severe economic sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro by the
United Nations on May 30 for underwriting the Serbian territorial
conquests in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Their efforts have ignited a major power struggle with Milosevic.
Cosic on Saturday set Dec. 20 for early multi-party elections for the
federal Parliament, control of which Milosevic's party captured in May.
Milosevic and his supporters have accused Cosic and Panic of
betraying Serbian national interests through their efforts to end the
war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and normalize relations Croatia severed by
last year's Serb-Croat war.
Serbian Justice Minister Zoran Cetkovic, defending the constitutional
amendment for early elections, said it only ``enables the constitutional
and legal continuity of the authorities until new ones are elected.''
Serbian Assembly Chairman Aleksandar Bakocevic urged Serbian Prime
Minister Radoman Bozovic to prepare by Thursday decrees so that Serbian
elections could be held simultaneously with the Dec. 20 federal polls
and Montenegrin assembly contests.
A federal commission appointed by Panic to monitor the federal
elections announced that it demanded the resignation of Milorad Vucelic,
the general manager of Serbian radio and television, because he was
named to the leadership of Milosevic's party over the weekend.
Panic presided over the commission, which said that Vucelic's two
posts were ``incompatible.''
``Having in mind that the television is the most powerful medium...,
its influence on votes is a decisive one,'' the commission said in a
statement.
The federal government wants ``all political parties to be given an
equal chance'' to publicize their platforms, the commission said.
The commission said the federal government believed that Vecelic's
departure would mark the beginning of ``freeing the media from (ruling
party) control.''
In December 1990, Milosevic and his communists won a massive five-
year mandate in Serbia's first multi-party elections following a
campaign strongly supported by the state-run media.
novine.147.bale.,
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Secretary-General Boutros
Ghali appointed five legal experts Monday to the U.N. war
crimes commission that will ``examine and analyze'' reports
of atrocities by warring ethnic groups in the former
republics of Yugoslavia.
The work of the commission could lead to an
international trial of those charged with allegedly
torturing and killing thousands of civilians, mostly in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, where six months of fighting between
Serbs, Croats and Muslims has brought widespread reports of
racially motivated killings.
The U.N. war-crimes commission was set up by the
Security Council on Oct. 6 after Serbian irregulars were
accused of executing Muslim Slavs in detention camps. The
council also asked governments to provide to the commission
information related to severe violations of human rights.
Ghali said the five experts will ``examine and
analyze information concerning possible breaches of
international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions in
the territory of the former Yugoslavia.''
The secretary-general named Frits Kalshoven, a
professor from the Netherlands, to head the commission. He
currently is a legal adviser for international affairs of
the Netherlands Red Cross Society.
Other members are Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian
professor teaching at De Paul University in Chicago who is
president of the university's International Human Rights
Institute; William Fenrick, Director of Canada's Law
Operations and Training at the National Defense
Headquarters; Judge Keba Mbaye of Senegal, a former judge of
the U.N. International Court of Justice; and, Professor
Torkel Opsahl, president of the Norwegian Institute of Human
Rights.
When it constituted the war-crimes commission, the
Security Council called on the experts to contact
governments and international organizations or conduct their
own investigations to gather evidence on war crimes
committed during the conflict in the former Yugoslav
republics.
Government representatives on the Security Council
said that they would seek to prosecute those responsible of
human rights violations, particularly the ``ethnic
cleansing'' campaign against the Muslim population in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The governments of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the United
States have been the only two to have provided written
records of allegations of war crimes.
The U.S. State Department last week submitted its
second series of reports dealing with the issues, drawing
heavily from interviews done by U.S. embassies in the
Eastern and Central Europe.
The State Department said the documents showed
``numerous abhorrent incidents, including willful killings,
torture of prisoners, abuse of civilians in detention camps,
wanton devastation and destruction of property and mass
forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians.''
The documents cited several cases of mass killings.
The report said in one instance near Brcko, Serbian
irregulars allegedly killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Muslim
men, women and children.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees appealed
Monday to governments to admit thousands of detainees from
camps in the former Yugoslavia. It said many of the refugees
have been ``subjected to horrendous abuses and torture.''
It said the United States on Monday offered to take
1,000 refugees, the largest number by any governments.
Finland, Italy, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland have
offered to admit some refugees.
The refugee agency's deputy commissioner Douglas
Stafford said in the appeal that the refugees have suffered
the worst atrocities.
``These people have been beaten, tortured and have
experienced atrocities of the worst kinds,'' Stafford said.
``They are in need of immediate protection.''
The United Nations has reported a slow response from
governments to assist the refugees. UNHCR and the
International Committee of the Red Cross have been
interviewing refugees in camps in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but
they said plans to evacuate them were postponed because not
enough countries have come forward to admit the refugees.
novine.148.bale.,
U.N. Says Muslims Face Extermination, Reports On Mass Graves
GENEVA (AP) - A U.N. investigator said Wednesday that
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina ``are virtually threatened with
extermination'' because of ethnic cleansing by Serbs.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki's report reiterated what has long been
charged - that ethnic cleansing does not appear to be a
consequence of the war, but its goal.
``This goal, to a large extent, has already been achieved
through killings, beatings, rape, destruction of houses and
threats,'' the former Polish premier said.
Mazowiecki, who had announced his main findings Monday
ahead of the report's publication, said Bosnian Serb leaders
have pursued their plan while negotiating peace in Geneva.
Muslims are the ``principal victims and are virtually
threatened with extermination,'' he said.
The report, given to the U.N. Human Rights Commission,
also detailed evidence of mass graves near the town of
Vukovar in the neighboring republic of Croatia, ``some of
which contain victims of atrocities.'' Vukovar fell to Serb
forces in a fierce battle in last year's war in Croatia.
Clyde Snow, an American forensic expert, said in the
report he found remains of young men buried over an area of
10 by 30 yards at the head of a ravine about a mile southeast
of the village of Ovcara.
The discovery appeared to confirm witness accounts that
about 175 patients from Vukovar hospital disappeared after
its evacuation last Nov. 20, Snow said.
Witnesses said lightly wounded civilian men and soldiers
were separated from women, children and the elderly and taken
away on buses of the Yugoslav National Army, which backed
Croatia's ethnic Serbs.
The captives were taken to a garage in Ovcara, where two
were beaten to death by Yugoslav soldiers and Serb
paramilitary fighters, the witnesses said. By the evening,
they said, the prisonsers were divided into groups of 20 and
driven by truck to the ravine.
Snow did not say how many bodies might be in the mass
grave or indicate where or how the victims might have been
killed.
Mazowiecki visited former Yugoslavia this month and said
the human rights situation had worsened since his last trip
in August.
He urged other countries to admit more victims of ethnic
cleansing, especially people detained in camps, because they
otherwise face death.
novine.149.bale.,
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- U.N. sanctions against Serbia are
not working as goods get through on the Danube River and by
trucks that are supposedly only crossing through, not
unloading, in that nation, a Senate report said Monday.
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report,
released by Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., the chairman, said
panel investigators found ``major holes'' in the U.N.
sanctions.
``Allowing Serbia to evade sanctions permits it to
continue a ruthless war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and deprives
the world community of the one non-military tool to check
Serbian aggression,'' Pell said. ``Failing to enforce
sanctions makes the military option inevitable.''
The report said ``a large volume of of goods reaches
Serbia'' on the Danube, providing Serbia with most of its
oil. The document said that fewer that 5 percent of the
barges are inspected by Romanian and Bulgarian customs.
The staff report added that the U.S. Customs Service
and other observers ``believe the overwhelming majaority of
barges violating the sanctions regime are Ukranian flag
vessels.''
False invoicing for truck cargo and phony ship
manifests allow the traffic to evade the sanctions.
International monitors on the Danube River and at land
crossings to Serbia cannot do their job because they do not
have essential communications systems, the staff
investigators said.
The report said that to make the sanctions more
effective, transit traffic to Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia
should be banned and an inspection system set up to inspect
and verify all transit cargoes as they enter and leave Serbia.
novine.150.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 208, 28 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN BANS NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin has called for the banning of the National Salvation
Front, which was founded last weekend by an assortment of
communist, nationalist, and other political groups. Yeltsin said
that he decided to ban the Front because it had called for the
overthrow of the lawful authorities, including the president,
ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October. Leaders of the Front asserted
that Yeltsin was panicking. Izvestiya reported on the same day
that Yeltsin had created a "working group" of senior ministers who
will plan to hold a referendum on the constitution while also
temporarily suspending parliament. Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev stated that during its last meeting, the Security
Council had discussed the introduction of emergency rule, but that
no consensus had been reached. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENTARY GUARDS SURROUND IZVESTIYA. The parliamentary guards,
under the command of parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov,
have surrounded the publication house and the editorial offices of
the newsapaper Izvestiya in order to enforce a parliamentary
decision to return the newspaper to the legislature's control,
ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October. Izvestiya first became
independent after the failed August 1991 putsch, but parliament
subsequently voted to subordinate the newspaper once again to
parliament. President Yeltsin had previously promised that he
would defend Izvestiya against seizure by parliamentary
hardliners. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN CRITICIZES FOREIGN MINISTRY. In a highly critical speech
at the Russian Foreign Ministry on 27 October, President Yeltsin
noted that there had been "improvisations, inconsistencies and
contradictions" in the work of the Foreign Ministry, whereas its
personnel reform was progressing "very, very slowly." Yeltsin
claimed that Russia must advocate its foreign policy interests
more directly, and not be overly concerned with charges of Russian
imperialism. Rather, Russian foreign policy should focus on
protecting Russia's interests and security, and Russia should not
allow itself to be insulted in a manner which the USSR would not
have tolerated. Overall, the speech was a clear call to greater
action, and tougher stands, by the Foreign Ministry. The speech
was reported by Interfax. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN VOICES SUPPORT FOR GAIDAR, KOZYREV. In his 27 October
speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry, President Yeltsin voiced
his support for Prime Minister Gaidar and Foreign Minister
Kozyrev. Yeltsin noted that he had no intention of "sacrificing"
either Gaidar or Kozyrev, but his support for Kozyrev seemed more
qualified. Yeltsin described Gaidar's retention as "essential" but
did not say the same for Kozyrev. While Yeltsin did dismiss
rumors of Kozyrev's resignation as speculation, the harshness of
Yeltsin's criticism of the Foreign Ministry would seem to imply
that Kozyrev's days as Foreign Minister are numbered. Yeltsin
also praised the work of the Russian embassy in Washington which
is headed by Vladimir Lukin, a critic of, and potential successor
to, Kozyrev. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN CALLS FOR TOUGHER POLICY TOWARD BALTIC STATES. President
Yeltsin accused the West of double standards concerning the
"persecution" of the Russian-speaking population in the Baltic
States in his 27 October speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
According to Interfax, he urged the Foreign Ministry to make
greater efforts to raise the issue, and complained that in this
area, as in others, the Foreign Ministry was only reacting to
events rather than anticipating them. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN SHOW OF FORCE STOPS GEORGIAN SHELLING IN ABKHAZIA.
According to an ITAR-TASS report of 27 October, two Russian Su-25
attack aircraft flew over Georgian artillery emplacements shelling
a Russian military garrison in Eshery. While the aircraft did not
open fire, the shelling stopped under the threat of attack. In a
separate incident reported by AFP on 28 October, a Russian Su-25
fired an air-to-air missile at a Georgian aircraft that had opened
fire on it. Neither aircraft was hit. Both incidents appear to
reflect the first implementation of a new policy that allows
Russian forces to return fire without warning. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERASHCHENKO DETAILS POSITION ON ECONOMIC ISSUES. Russian Central
Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko gave what may be the most
informative presentation to date of his positions on economic
reform policy in an interview with Trud on 27 October. His major
point was that an excessively tight credit policy had largely
caused the drastic fall in Russian economic production, and urged
that "we should not repeat the mistakes of the USA in 1929, when
[such a policy contributed to] the country collapsing into a deep
economic crisis." Although appreciative of the need to continue
anti-inflation measures and clearly against such policies as
indexation of wages, he argued for a reorientation of economic
policy towards ending the plunge in economic activity in the
country. Gerashchenko also touched on weaknesses of current
pricing, interest rate and privatization policies. (Erik
Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA'S RECESSION DEEPENS. During the interview with
Gerashchenko, the interviewer cited some statistical data that was
presumably taken from the Goskomstat report for the first nine
months of 1992. Industrial output in August was said to be 27%
lower than in August 1991, while industrial output in September
was down by 28-29%. He also mentioned a monthly inflation rate of
25%. Reuters of the same date cited Izvestiya to the effect that
inflation in October could rise to 25%. The original source could
not be obtained. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUBLE FALLS FURTHER. At the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange
session on 27 October, the ruble fell further, Bizness-TASS
reported. It closed the day at 393 rubles to the US dollar,
against 368 rubles to the dollar on 22 October. Volume traded was
$45 million, up from $39 million on 22 October. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN COUNCIL OF ENTREPRENEURS. During his visit to Tolyatti on
25 October, Gaidar addressed an assembly of some 60 industrial
executives, Interfax and Western agencies reported. In return for
their support, he promised greater consultation with them and
their peers, and announced a number of concessions to industry.
Gaidar said that a government resolution would be adopted on 26
October to set up a Council of Entrepreneurs under the Russian
government. It was not immediately clear how this body would
differ from, or interact with the Council on Entrepreneurship,
which was set up on 2 March,and the Trilateral Commission, of
which little has been heard of late. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PERSONNEL CHANGES IN RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. On 23 October, ITAR-TASS
reported that Russian Health Minister Andrei Vorobiev had been
replaced. He had suffered a heart attack on 22 October while
presenting his plans to reform the health care system to the
cabinet. His replacement was not named, nor was a reason for his
retirement given. Russia's chief representative to the
International Monetary Fund, Konstantin Kagalovsky, was replaced
on the same day. ITAR-TASS reported that he would become an
adviser to Gaidar. No replacement for Kagalovsky was named, but
it is thought that Aleksei Mozhin is in line for the post. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CHEMICAL WEAPONS ELIMINATION SITES NAMED. The presidium of the
Russian parliament discussed a draft program for the elimination
of Russian chemical weapons on 26 October. ITAR-TASS reported the
names of the four sites where elimination facilities will be
built. They are Novocheboksarsk (in the Chuvash autonomous
republic, some 650 kilometers east of Moscow), Kambarka (in the
Udmurt autonomous republic), and two locations in Saratov oblast:
Volsk-17 and Gornyi. Russia has said it has 40,000 tons of
chemical weapons. A destruction facility had been built in
Chapayevsk in 1989, but local protests forced the government to
limit its use to research. The new sites mentioned in the draft
program appear to be declared chemical weapons storage facilities.
Kambarka, for example, is a depot for nearly 7,000 tons of
lewisite, a poisonous blister gas used in World War I. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DELEGATION TO IRAN DISCUSSES NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY SALES.
According to a report published in Kommersant on 27 October, a
delegation that included representatives of the Russian Atomic
Energy Ministry and Russian nuclear technology exporting
organizations, met with Iranian officials from 15 through 24
October. The group discussed the timetable for the construction in
Iran of a VVER nuclear reactor, the sale of which was agreed in
August 1992 despite US objections. Other discussions concerned
possible joint uranium prospecting projects, and a chemical
process for extracting uranium from low-grade ores. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW UKRAINIAN CABINET OF MINISTERS. The Ukrainian parliament on 27
October approved the new cabinet of ministers presented by Prime
Minister Leonid Kuchma, Ukrinform-TASS reported. Ihor Yukhnovsky,
the former head of the opposition People's Council in the
parliament, was named first deputy prime minister. He will be
assisted by five deputy prime ministers. A total of 21 ministers
were named; three ministerial posts remain vacant. Kuchma, in his
address to parliament, said that the composition of the new
government is not final and may be changed if the need arises.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN-TAJIK FORCES COOPERATE FOR STABILITY IN DUSHANBE.
Tajikistan's acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov told a press
conference on 27 October that the Tajik government has adequate
forces at its disposal to prevent a repetition of the attempt by
fighters from Kulyab Oblast to overthrow it, Interfax reported.
He admitted that authorities in Dushanbe had been warned that the
Kulyab forces would attack the capital on 24 October, but had not
believed the warning. The Russian division stationed in
Tajikistan will continue to guard important sites, including
government buildings, the Nurek power station and industrial
installations. Iskandarov said that an assembly of representatives
of all political parties and movements, public organizations and
ethnic groups is to be convened to find a solution to the
country's crisis. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KYRGYZ VICE-PRESIDENT HAS DOUBTS. Kyrgyzstan's Vice-President
Feliks Kulov told Interfax on 27 October that Iskandarov had asked
him to resume his peace mission but he has been unable to reach
the Tajik leader. Kulov said that he had been told by Tajikistan's
National Security Committee that the situation in Dushanbe was
completely out of control and that Pamiris from Gorno-Badakhshan
were seizing motor vehicles and taking hostages. Kulov's
information appears to confirm a Tajik diplomat's statement to an
RFE/RL correspondent in Moscow that forces from Badakhshan and
supporters of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) have been
robbing the populace and commandeering vehicles. According to the
diplomat, the Pamiris and IRP supporters had started fighting each
other. The IRP and Badakhshan's nationalist movement are both
members of the anti-Communist coalition. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
DZHALAL-ABAD CRISIS APPARENTLY DEFUSED. Kyrgyzstan's President
Askar Akaev has apparently defused a crisis that, according to
Akaev, threatened to create a Tajik-type situation in Dzhalal-Abad
Oblast in the southern part of the country, Interfax reported on
27 October. During a lightening visit to Dzhalal-Abad, Akaev
managed to persuade supporters of the chief of the oblast
administration (akim), Bekmamat Osmonov, to give up their
demonstrations demanding the resignations of Vice-President Feliks
Kulov and Prime Minister Tursunbek Chyngyshev for having demanded
an investigation of Osmonov's rule. Osmonov himself offered his
resignation, admitting that a sharp division between supporters
and adversaries of his policies endangered stability in the
oblast, where the presence of a large Uzbek minority creates the
potential for interethnic violence. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN HUMAN RIGHTS BODY APPEALS TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS.
The Moldovan Parliament's Commission for Human Rights and
Interethnic Relations on 21 October appealed to international
organizations to defend the rights of Moldovans in areas on both
banks of the Dniester controlled by "Dniester" insurgents and by
Russia's 14th Army. The appeal, carried by Moldovapres, noted the
ongoing "liquidation of constitutional bodies," the imposition of
the Russian script in place of the Latin for the "Moldovan"
language, the closure of many "Moldovan"-language kindergartens,
the eviction from jobs and/or homes of thousands of Moldovans who
disagree with the "Dniester republic"'s policies, and the illegal
detention of several local Moldovan activists on unsubstantiated
charges. The appeal also noted that "in its difficult situation,
Moldova is not in a position to defend its citizens in its eastern
area." (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE ON UKRAINIAN-MOLDOVAN SUMMIT. The presidents of Moldova and
Ukraine, Mircea Snegur and Leonid Kravchuk, declared at the
signing ceremony of the Ukrainian-Moldovan treaty on 23 October,
as cited by TASS, that the sides agree on respecting each other's
territorial integrity and not raising territorial issues stemming
from the second world war; but that they do not rule out a future
examination of the issue of northern Bukovina and southern
Bessarabia (former parts of Moldova and, later, of Romania, which
were transferred to Ukraine following the Soviet annexation of
these areas). Kravchuk told a news conference in Chisinau, as
reported by the Moldovan media, that Ukraine regards the "Dniester
region" as an inseparable part of Moldova; and that Moldova's
independence and territorial integrity is important to Ukraine.
He said that any legal-political status of that region is for the
Moldovan parliament to determine. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
"VISEGRAD TRIANGLE" MEETS EC REPRESENTATIVES AT LONDON SUMMIT.
The prime ministers of Poland and Hungary, Hanna Suchocka and
Jozsef Antall, and Deputy Prime Minister Antonin Baudys of
Czechoslovakia, are scheduled to meet with the current EC
President, British Prime Minister John Major, and European
Commission President Jacques Delors in London on 28 October. The
Czech and Slovak prime ministers Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar
will also be present at the meeting. According to Western media
reports, the chances for any concrete results are small. Major
has already indicated that the three countries will not be offered
a timetable for membership as the EC gives priority to the
applications of European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member
countries. Although the dispute over the Gabcikovo dam project is
not on the official agenda, the issue is likely to overshadow the
meeting. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PREMIER SAYS GOVERNMENT MAY RESIGN. Speaking at a
press conference in Prague on 27 October, Czechoslovak Premier Jan
Strasky said that his government may resign because of
Czech-Slovak disagreements within the government over the
Gabcikovo hydroelectric dam project. CSTK quotes Strasky as
saying that in the 10-member cabinet, all five Czech members want
to suspend work on the dam project and seek mediation, while all
five Slovak members want the work to continue. Strasky said that
the resignation would be "a logical step" considering the fact
that the federal government is unable to take any decision when
interests of Czechs and Slovaks are not the same. Also on 27
October, Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus told CSTK that his
government will play a minimum role in the dispute between Hungary
and Slovakia over the Gabcikovo dam. According to Klaus, the
dispute can only be solved by a compromise between the Slovak and
Hungarian governments. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN FIGHTING UPDATE. Western news agencies on 27 October
reported continued heavy fighting in and around the western
Bosnian town of Jajce. Serbian forces have been shelling the
Muslim-held settlement for several days, and Serbian media said
that Jajce had fallen. There has been no independent confirmation
of the Serbian reports, nor of those in the Croatian media, as
quoted in the 28 October Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that
Serbian planes flew nine missions against Jajce in defiance of the
UN's ban on flights. Meanwhile, Reuters on 28 October said that
media reports that the central Bosnian town of Prozor had been
leveled were wrong. The news agency added, however, that the
Croats appear to have driven out the town's civilian Muslims after
several days of fighting between Croats and Muslims. Reuters
quoted a Bosnian military officer as saying that the Croats no
longer appeared to be simply consolidating their positions, but
rather practicing their own form of "ethnic cleansing." (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UN NEGOTIATORS URGE HELP FOR FREED CAMP INMATES. Cyrus Vance and
Lord Owen urged the countries involved in the Yugoslav peace
process to "save the lives" of the thousands of people being
released from detention camps, AFP said on 27 October. The
refugees are mainly Muslims who are victims of Serbian "ethnic
cleansing" and cannot return to their homes in Serb-held
territory. Elsewhere, Reuters quoted UN human rights envoy and
former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki as saying that all
nationalities in the conflict had committed atrocities but that
the Muslims had suffered the most. He added that "those
responsible for this conflict are those carrying out a policy of
ethnic purification,' that is the Serbs." Mazowiecki said "words
fail me" when he tried to describe the conditions at the Serb-run
Trnopolje camp he had visited. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN POLITICIANS DENOUNCE HUNGARIANS' AUTONOMY QUEST.
Romanian politicians of various persuasions attacked the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania (HDFR) for calling for
"self-administration on the basis of community autonomy." Romanian
National Unity Party leader Gheorghe Funar called the statement a
"provocative action against the Romanian people" and appealed to
parliament to outlaw ethnic parties, Rompres said on 27 October.
Former prime minister Petre Roman said the HDFR statement
challenges state unity and may lead to tensions and "dangerous
situations." In statements carried by the daily Evenimentul zilei
the same day, Ion Ratiu of the National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic ruled out autonomy based on geographic criteria; and
Emil Constantinescu, the Democratic Convention of Romania's
candidate in the last elections, said that national integrity and
the state's national character are issues that cannot be
questioned. Civic Alliance Party leader Nicolae Manolescu, on the
other hand, called the HDFR statement "perfectly acceptable."
(Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
PROGRESS IN ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT TALKS. A new round of negotiations
on the future government was held on 27 October in Bucharest. The
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF), on one hand, and the
Democratic Convention of Romania and the National Salvation Front,
on the other, made some progress towards reaching an agreement on
a political pact and a "parliamentary moratorium," Radio Bucharest
reported. This solution, proposed by president Ion Iliescu on 21
October, involves a grace period during which the opposition would
refrain from obstructing a narrow coalition or minority government
led by the DNSF. Radio Bucharest said agreement had been reached
on the preamble to a joint declaration, the general aims of the
future government, and the immediate goals to be pursued in the
approaching winter. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
YELTSIN AGAIN CHARGES RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN BALTIC STATES. Russian
President Boris Yeltsin has reiterated his appeal to the Russian
Foreign Ministry to become more active in drawing the West's
attention to alleged "human rights violations in the Baltic
states." Yeltsin told the Foreign Ministry Council session on 27
October that the West is maintaining "double standards" in the
matter of human rights. "We are afraid of speaking of our own
interests, fearing charges of imperialism, even when our interests
are ignored, " Yeltsin said. BNS, quoting Interfax, covered
Yeltsin's remarks. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DISCORD PROMPTED LATVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER'S RESIGNATION. Janis
Jurkans told the press on 27 October that his resignation from the
post of Minister of Foreign Affairs was prompted by discord
between himself and the parliament and members of the government
on issues directly or indirectly related to Latvia's relations
with other countries, especially Russia. He spoke of these
differences in a Latvian TV interview aired on 26 October; the
following morning Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis asked for his
resignation, Radio Riga reported on 27 October. In recent months
Jurkans openly criticized the work of the legislature and
expressed views contradicting the decisions of the legislators and
members of the government, thus gradually losing his support base
in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DELAYS IN TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM LITHUANIA? Stasys Knesys, the
Lithuanian government commissioner for the Russian troop
withdrawal, noted that although the withdrawal is proceeding on
schedule, some army units have not submitted the applications
necessary to remove weapons and equipment, BNS reported on 27
October. Only two months remain before the deadline for the
withdrawal of all aviation units, yet no units have completed
withdrawal applications. Moreover, the commanders of the Panevezys
transport aviation division mentioned 30 May 1993 as the final
date for their withdrawal. Although Lithuania has given some
Russian navy ships permission to enter Klaipeda, none has yet
arrived. The 3rd coast guard division based there has not
submitted a withdrawal application. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN OFFICERS UNWILLING TO LEAVE KLAIPEDA. Officers from the
3rd Klaipeda division of the Russian coast guard said on the
"Aty-Baty" program of Russian television on 25 October that they
have no intention of leaving Lithuania because conditions at their
new bases are unsatisfactory. Baltic Fleet commander Vladimir
Egorov admitted during the program that there were difficulties in
providing decent living conditions for the withdrawing troops,
adding: "Of course, to live in Klaipeda is better and more simple
than in Russia." (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WALESA PROPOSES "NATO II." President Lech Walesa's chief security
adviser, Jerzy Milewski, told a press conference on 27 October
that the final version of Poland's defense doctrine will be ready
within two weeks. Milewski also described Walesa's idea of
NATO-II, a transitional defense alliance meant to include Eastern
European countries and former Soviet republics. In Walesa's view,
NATO-II could help defuse conflicts in the region until formal
membership in NATO is possible, thereby preventing
"Yugoslavianization." Milewski stressed that NATO-II was an idea
for discussion, not a policy proposal. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
SERBIA-MONTENEGRO ARMY REORGANIZATION ANNOUNCED. According to the
Belgrade daily Politika on 24 October, the federal army of rump
Yugoslavia plans to dismiss 17,000 civilian employees and 3,500
officers and non-commissioned officers under a reorganization
scheme. The dismissals will mainly involve personnel in the
Serbian-dominated "Army of Yugoslavia" not directly involved in
the fighting in Slovenia, Croatia, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Politika said that the peacetime armed forces of the rump
Yugoslavia would be reduced to 120,000 troops, about half of whom
would be professional soldiers. The armed forces of Yugoslavia at
the beginning of 1991 were made up of 70,000 career soldiers and
120,000 conscripts. The reorganization plan also calls for the
abolition of the Territorial Defense system, which military
officials say has served the interests of individual political
parties and their paramilitary units. Last month a proposal
called for mandatory military service of twelve months, with a
two-year term for those granted alternate service. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SERBIA'S ASSEMBLY DECIDES ON EARLY ELECTIONS. Radio Serbia
reported on 27 October that the National Assembly unanimously
adopted an addendum to a constitutional law that makes possible
early republican elections before year's end. Assembly president
Aleksandar Bakocevic said he will soon call the elections, which
would be held within 45 to 90 days. In mid-October the Assembly
agreed to hold republic-wide elections on the same day as the
federal elections scheduled for 20 December. Meanwhile, a federal
commission headed by rump Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic
demanded the resignation of Belgrade TV director Milorad Vucelic,
who is a staunch supporter of Serbia's President Slobodan
Milosevic. Opposition parties threaten to boycott the December
elections if Vucelic and the ruling Socialists continue to
dominate Belgrade TV. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN BUDGET DEBATED IN PARLIAMENT. The introduction of a
double-level value added tax was the focus of controversy in
parliament on 27 October, as debate on the 1993 budget began.
Finance Minister Mihaly Kupa called the introduction of the new
tax system "essential," but even the coalition parties are divided
over the issue. The Smallholders charge the new system would
place too heavy a financial burden on large segments of the
population. Deputies from the Christian Democratic party and the
Hungarian Democratic Forum announced they would submit amendments
aimed at easing the burden on low-income families. The opposition
rejects the entire draft budget, claiming that it is not based on
sound economic calculations. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN GOVERNMENT TO TAKE OVER OLD DEBTS. The Bulgarian
government plans to use 5 billion leva ($215 million) of state
funds to resolve part of the problem of overdue debts between
state firms and banks. In a Bulgarian radio interview on 26
October, deputy prime minister and economic policy coordinator
Ilko Eskenazi revealed that the government intends in a one-off
action to assume responsibility for nearly all investment credits
granted before 1991. Eskenazi said experts were preparing an
"ambitious program" for selecting companies that would have their
debts reduced. Total inter-enterprise debt in Bulgaria is
estimated at above 60 billion leva ($2.55 billion). (Kjell
Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN TALKS ON MEDIA LAWS BREAK DOWN. Despite hours of talks
on 27 October, coalition and opposition parties failed to reach
agreement on draft media laws. The most controversial issues are:
the parliamentary majority needed to pass the laws, the
appointment of new radio and television chiefs, and the new
satellite station Hungaria TV. State Secretary in the Prime
Minister's Office Tamas Katona told MTI and Radio Budapest that
the government will soon submit some draft media laws to
parliament, and will seek the approval of parliament's cultural
committee for its candidates to head radio and television.
Coalition and opposition parties traded blame for the breakdown of
the talks. The Constitutional Court had set 30 November as the
deadline for the adoption of media laws. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
300 ABKHAZIA ESTONIANS AWAIT EVACUATION. Some 300 ethnic Estonians
trapped by the fighting in Georgia's Abkhazia area are still
waiting to be evacuated to Estonia. According to BNS of 27
October, Estonian authorities have promised the residents of two
ethnic Estonian villages in Abkhazia--Salme and Sulev--that they
will be airlifted out within days. On Sunday, 59 Abkhazia
Estonians were brought to Tallinn on an emergency aid flight.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.151.bale.,
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north as crucial Geneva session begins
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:56:56 PST
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces
shelled towns across north and central Bosnia-Hercegovina and
launched a new ``ethnic cleansing'' operation Tuesday as the
Geneva-based international peace mediators presented the
warring factions with a plan for a political settlement of
the conflict.
Commanders of the former Yugoslav republic's Serbian,
Croatian and Muslim Slav-dominated Bosnian forces held the
first of a series of U.N.- mediated working-level talks in
Sarajevo aimed at demilitarizing the capital and providing
better security for humanitarian aid deliveries.
At about the same time, local Croatian and Muslim Slav
forces resolved the last in a recent series of battles that
jolted their already shaky alliance against the Serbs,
reaching a cease-fire in Prozor, a town just west of
Sarajevo, Sarajevo radio said.
The Croat-Muslim Slav clashes, which erupted last week
north of Sarajevo and forced the closure of a U.N. aid
warehouse in the town of Vitez, were reportedly the fiercest
in Prozor.
Prozor was left virtually deserted of civilians and
some homes still smoldered as the cease-fire went into
effect. A strong contingent of Croatian infantry and weaponry
remained in town, Sarajevo radio said.
Elsewhere on the war front, Yugoslav army-equipped
Serbian forces launched artillery barrages into and around
the northern and central towns of Jajce, Gradacac, Brcko,
Maglaj, Tuzla and Bihac, Sarajevo radio reported.
In Brcko, the radio said, Serbian soldiers embarked on
a new round of ``ethnic cleansing,'' destroying mosques,
cemeteries and a Catholic church while forcing non-Serbs into
signing documents at a local Red Cross office saying that
they were voluntarily abandoning their homes and leaving the
town.
There was no independent confirmation of the report,
although U.N. officials have accused Serbian forces in the
past of coercing non-Serbs into signing such documents in
other areas of the war-torn state.
The United States has said it has presented
information to U.N. war crimes investigators on previous
Serbian ethnic cleansing measures in Brcko, including the
alleged massacre of some 3,000 non-Serbs.
Brcko, which has a pre-war ethnic mix of 44 percent
Muslim Slav, 25 percent Croatian and 21 percent Serbian, was
one of the first towns conquered in a Serbian drive launched
in late March to rip a self- declared state out of 70 percent
of Europe's newest republic.
The Serbs are confronted by Croatian nationalist
forces and the Bosnian army, which mostly comprises Muslim
Slavs, but also includes moderate Serbs and Croats opposed to
the partition of the republic, which won international
recognition of its independence in early April.
Western governments and U.N. officials and
international human rights groups say Serbian soldiers have
systematically expelled tens of thousands of non-Serbs from
areas claimed for the Serbian ``state'' in operations
involving forced evictions, house-burnings and killings.
Croatian and Muslim forces have been accused of
pursuing similar tactics, but not on the same massive scale
as that allegedly employed by the Serbs.
In Geneva, U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European
Community mediator David Owen presented representatives of
the three sides with their proposal for a new republic
constitution that sources said would create a federal
structure similar to the Swiss-style system of cantonal
districts.
The local divisions would not be ethnically based and
the federal government would oversee foreign affairs, finance
and security.
Serbian and nationalist Croatian leaders have been
insisting on a division of Bosnia-Hercegovina into autonomous
ethnic regions with little or no central linkage.
Vance and Owen planned to begin a three-day visit to
former Yugoslavia on Wednesday as part of an apparent bid to
elicit support for their plan.
Sarajevo radio quoted Bosnian officials in the eastern
town of Srebrenica as reporting the deaths over the past
seven months of at least 173 children among a total of some
80,000 refugees who fled Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' and are
now living homeless, hungry and cold in surrounding forests.
The officials said 342 children among the refugees
were injured, 1, 837 lost one parent, 563 lost both parents
and more than 10,000 children have been stricken by various
illnesses, the radio said.
The day again began relatively quiet in Sarajevo, but
was broken around 2:30 p.m. by a heavy barrage of artillery
fire in various locations around the city.
At least six people were killed and 25 wounded Tuesday
throughout the capital, as Serbian forces unloaded with their
large 155mm shells, Bosnian television reported.
At least one person was killed and three were injured
by sniper fire in the frontline Pero Kosoric Square, Sarajevo
radio said.
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel Date:
Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:21:40 PST
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Only a handful of soldiers
for the expanded U.N. military force has arrived in the
Balkans, forcing U.N. relief convoys to attempt to resume
trips into Bosnia-Hercegovina without a military escort and
despite heavy fighting, a U.N. official said Tuesday.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees in Zagreb, said relief convoys
would try to travel to Sarajevo and Vitez in central
Bosnia-Hercegovina Wednesday despite the heavy fighting
reported along the roads in the region.
Keats said the relief agency asked the U.N. Protection
Force for an escort but its request was denied because only
about 150 soldiers have arrived in the Balkans as part of the
buildup to a 6,000-strong multi- national U.N. force. Spanish
troops are supposed to be deployed along the route but only
15 of the 700 soldiers have arrived so far, said Sergio
Apollonio, a UNPROFOR spokesman.
A relief convoy traveling into central
Bosnia-Hercegovina came under shell fire last week. The
drivers of the trucks said the U.N. vehicles were
deliberately attacked despite assurances from local
authorities that they would be granted safe passage.
``We will probably run into the same bunch of villains
at the same road blocks as we did last week,'' Keats said. No
land convoys have reached Sarajevo since fierce fighting
between the nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces erupted
on Oct. 19, he said.
The convoy scheduled to leave Wednesday will take five
truckloads of supplies to Sarajevo and 10 truckloads to
Vitez. Humanitarian aid organizations have been asking since
August for the United Nations to quickly deploy the 6,000
troops which are supposed to escort the unarmed relief
convoys through dangerous routes in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
About 150 have arrived and full deployment will not take place until
mid-November, Apollonio said. But UNHCR representatives said with the
harsh Bosnian winter almost upon them, the troops are desperately needed
now.
``If they arrived last month, they would be too
late,'' said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee
agency in Zagreb. ``The UNHCR estimates that up to 400,000
people could die from lack of water, shelter, food and
electricity if supplies do not begin arriving soon.''
Of the 6,000 troops, approximately 1,100 will be
Canadians, 1,400 French, 700 Spanish, 2,300 British and 500
Dutch and Belgian, Apollonio said.
The Candadians will be deployed in Banja Luka to
secure routes in the northern region of the republic, the
French in Bihac for the northwestern region, the Spanish near
Mostar for the south central region and the British will be
in Vitez for the eastern region, Apollonio said.
A central command station is scheduled to be set up in
Kiseljak about 15 miles northeast of Sarajevo.
Apollonio said the deployment was being delayed in
central Bosnia because of clashes between Muslims and Croats.
He said deployment was being delayed in Serb-controlled areas
because of Serb unwillingness to accept the soldiers.
``The Serbs in Banja Luka simply say that don't have
the approval to let the U.N. in,'' Apollonio said.
novine.152.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel unescorted
Subject: Islamic group to seek lifting of U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia
Subject: Mediators propose a constitutional structure for Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: Montenegro signals break in alliance with Serbian regime
Subject: International mediators bring Bosnian peace plan to former Yugoslavia
Subject: Fighting persists in Bosnia as peace mediators begin Balkans tour
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel unescorted
Date: 27 Oct 92 21:21:40 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Only a handful of soldiers
for the expanded U.N. military force has arrived in the
Balkans, forcing U.N. relief convoys to attempt to resume
trips into Bosnia-Hercegovina without a military escort and
despite heavy fighting, a U.N. official said Tuesday.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees in Zagreb, said relief convoys
would try to travel to Sarajevo and Vitez in central
Bosnia-Hercegovina Wednesday despite the heavy fighting
reported along the roads in the region.
Keats said the relief agency asked the U.N.
Protection Force for an escort but its request was denied
because only about 150 soldiers have arrived in the Balkans
as part of the buildup to a 6,000-strong multi- national U.N.
force. Spanish troops are supposed to be deployed along the
route but only 15 of the 700 soldiers have arrived so far,
said Sergio Apollonio, a UNPROFOR spokesman.
A relief convoy traveling into central
Bosnia-Hercegovina came under shell fire last week. The
drivers of the trucks said the U.N. vehicles were
deliberately attacked despite assurances from local
authorities that they would be granted safe passage.
``We will probably run into the same bunch of
villains at the same road blocks as we did last week,'' Keats
said. No land convoys have reached Sarajevo since fierce
fighting between the nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces
erupted on Oct. 19, he said.
The convoy scheduled to leave Wednesday will take
five truckloads of supplies to Sarajevo and 10 truckloads to
Vitez. Humanitarian aid organizations have been asking since
August for the United Nations to quickly deploy the 6,000
troops which are supposed to escort the unarmed relief
convoys through dangerous routes in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
About 150 have arrived and full deployment will not
take place until mid-November, Apollonio said. But UNHCR
representatives said with the harsh Bosnian winter almost
upon them, the troops are desperately needed now.
``If they arrived last month, they would be too
late,'' said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee
agency in Zagreb. ``The UNHCR estimates that up to 400,000
people could die from lack of water, shelter, food and
electricity if supplies do not begin arriving soon.''
Of the 6,000 troops, approximately 1,100 will be
Canadians, 1,400 French, 700 Spanish, 2,300 British and 500
Dutch and Belgian, Apollonio said.
The Candadians will be deployed in Banja Luka to
secure routes in the northern region of the republic, the
French in Bihac for the northwestern region, the Spanish near
Mostar for the south central region and the British will be
in Vitez for the eastern region, Apollonio said.
A central command station is scheduled to be set up
in Kiseljak about 15 miles northeast of Sarajevo.
Apollonio said the deployment was being delayed in
central Bosnia because of clashes between Muslims and Croats.
He said deployment was being delayed in Serb-controlled areas
because of Serb unwillingness to accept the soldiers.
``The Serbs in Banja Luka simply say that don't have
the approval to let the U.N. in,'' Apollonio said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic group to seek lifting of U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia
Date: 28 Oct 92 14:24:00 GMT
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (UPI) -- Pakistan, elected
Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council, is expected to ask the
United Nations to lift its arms embargo against Bosnia, said
a spokesman for the Foreign Office.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Shaharyar Khan said
Pakistan and other members of the Islamic contact group would
raise the Bosnian issue at the world body.
The group, which includes Pakistan, Iran, Turkey,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Senegal, plans to present a
four-point action program before the Security Council. The
plan demands an end to arms embargo against Bosnia.
The group will also seek effective measures to
strengthen Bosnia's defense and the continued delivery of
humanitarian relief to that country.
Meanwhile, Khan told a news conference in Islamabad
Wednesday the Islamic group played an effective role in
getting Pakistan elected to the Security Council.
He said Pakistan received 161 out of 172 votes but
this, he said, was only possible after two Muslim countries,
Iran and Indonesia, withdrew their candidacy, in its favor.
He said India, otherwise a traditional rival, also
favored Pakistan's quest for the Asian seat in the Security
Council.
Pakistan has been a member of the Security Council
four times before.
Other non-permanent members of the Security Council
are Djibouti, Brazil, Spain and New Zealand.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mediators propose a constitutional structure for Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 28 Oct 92 16:00:54 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- U.N. and European Community mediators
on ex-Yugoslavia proposed Wednesday a new constiotutional
structure for war-torn Bosnia- Hercegovina based on seven to
10 autonomous regions but rejecting any ethnic or religious
divisions.
The proposal had been rejected even before being
made, however, by Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian
Serbs.
Mediators Cyrus Vance for the U.N. and Lord David
Owen for the E.C. said the population of Bosnia-Hercegovina
``is inextricably intermingled.''
``Thus there appears to be no viable way to create
three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles,'' they said in an introduction to
their proposed structure.
``Any plan to do so would involve incorporating a
very large number of members of the other ethnic/confessional
groups, or consist of a number of separate enclaves of each
ethnic/confessional group.
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' the two men said.
Vance and Owen, who are based in geneva, were in
Belgrade Wednesday and had aides release their proposal. They
had wanted to do it on Tuesday but the French language
translation was not ready in time.
Bosnian Serbs leader Karadzic said in Bosnia on
Tuesday that the state should be divided on ethnic lines,
which would mean the Serbs having by far the largest amount
of territory.
``His position is hardly surprising seeing that the
Bosnian Serbs now have 70 percent of which much was taken at
the point of a gun,'' one U. N. official close to the peace
talks told United Press International.
Vance and Owen argued that a division of
Bosnia-Hercegovina on ethnic and/or confessional lines --
Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- would service little purpose and
only lead to continued fighting.
GENEVA (UPI) -- U.N. and European Community mediators
on ex-Yugoslavia proposed Wednesday a new constiotutional
structure for war-torn Bosnia- Hercegovina based on seven to
10 autonomous regions but rejecting any ethnic or religious
divisions.
The proposal had been rejected even before being
made, however, by Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian
Serbs.
Mediators Cyrus Vance for the U.N. and Lord David
Owen for the E.C. said the population of Bosnia-Hercegovina
``is inextricably intermingled.''
``Thus there appears to be no viable way to create
three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles,'' they said in an introduction to
their proposed structure.
``Any plan to do so would involve incorporating a
very large number of members of the other ethnic/confessional
groups, or consist of a number of separate enclaves of each
ethnic/confessional group.
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' the two men said.
Vance and Owen, who are based in geneva, were in
Belgrade Wednesday and had aides release their proposal. They
had wanted to do it on Tuesday but the French language
translation was not ready in time.
Bosnian Serbs leader Karadzic said in Bosnia on
Tuesday that the state should be divided on ethnic lines,
which would mean the Serbs having by far the largest amount
of territory.
``His position is hardly surprising seeing that the
Bosnian Serbs now have 70 percent of which much was taken at
the point of a gun,'' one U. N. official close to the peace
talks told United Press International.
Vance and Owen argued that a division of
Bosnia-Hercegovina on ethnic and/or confessional lines --
Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- would service little purpose and
only lead to continued fighting.
``A confederation formed of three such states would
be inherently unstable,'' they argued. ``At least two would
surely forge immediate and stronger connections with
neighboring sdtates of the former Yugoslavia than they would
with the two other units of Bosn ia and Hercegovina,'' they
said.
Officials said this meant a Serbs would move toward a
Serbian state and Croats toward Croatia, leaving the Muslim
community isolated.
Vance and Owen said they also realized that a
centralized state was unacceptable to at least two of the
ethnic communities -- officials said Croats and Muslims were
meant -- as their interests would not be protected.
``Consequently, the only viable and stable solution
that does not acquiesce in already-accomplished ethnic
cleansing, and in further internationally unacceptable
practices, appears to be the establishment of a decentralized
state,'' they said.
``This would mean a state in which many of its
principal functions, especially those directly affecting
persons, would be carried out by a number of autonomous
provinces.
``The central government, in turn, would have only
those minimal responsibilities that are necessary for a state
to function as such, and to carry out its responsibil+ities
as a member of the international community,'' the two
mediators said.
Vance and Owen argued that their proposed provinces
should be neither too small oir too big to ensure they were
administratively and economically viable.
``To meet these criteria, the number of provinces
might range from seven to ten, with the precise number to be
established by negotiations among the parties in the light of
the proposed boundaries of the provinces,'' they said.
The boundaries, they said, would take ethnic factors
into account but also geographical features like rivers,
historical factors, existing road and railroad networks and
economic viability.
Both central and provincial governments would be
structured on classical lines with legislative upper and
lower houses, a presidency consisting of all the provincial
governors, and central government president elected by that
joint presidency, a prime minister, a cabinet, and a national
civil service which would be small because of its limited
functions.
The judiciary would be ``a shared responsibility of
the central and provincial governments,'' Vance and Owen
proposed, with courts dealing respectively with provincial or
with central state matters.
``As the central government is to be solely
responsible for national defense, the military forces are to
be entirely under its control,'' the proposed constitutional
structure stated.
U.N. and other officials close to the Vance-Owen
mediation effort ackowledged privately that it would take
monthsd and months and possibly be impossible for all sides
in Bosnia-Hercegovina to agree on provincial boundaries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Montenegro signals break in alliance with Serbian regime
Date: 28 Oct 92 17:33:01 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The tiny Republic of
Montenegro Wednesday expressed strong support for the
Yugoslav federal government's efforts to bring peace to the
region and end punishing U.N. economic sanctions.
The development signaled a break in Montenegro's
political alliance with communist President Slobodan
Milosevic of Serbia.
It also represented a potentially important boost to
Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic in his ongoing power
struggle with Milosevic.
``The fact is that the Montenegrin government
supports the politics of Mr. Panic,'' Montenegrin Prime
Minister Milo Djukanovic declared at a news conference in
Belgrade.
``The best thing for Yugoslavia right now, especially
under the current political circumstances, is to continue the
politics of Mr. Panic,'' he asserted.
Djukanovic's comments signaled an end to what had
been Montenegro's unstinting support for Milosevic's
policies, including backing for rebel Serbs who seized 35
percent of Croatia in last year's Serb-Croat war and the
ongoing Serbian territorial conquests in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``At this moment we should realize that we only have
federal Yugoslavia...and that everyone has to take care of
their own problems,'' said Djukanovic, implying that Serbs in
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina may have to go it alone.
Montenegro and Serbia were the only two of the six
republics of former Yugoslavia that did not secede, and they
forged a rump federation in an unsuccessful bid to inherit
the international status of its defunct namesake.
A tiny mountainous land with few resources,
Montenegro has suffered graver consequences than Serbia from
U.N. economic sanctions imposed on the two for backing the
Serbian land-grab in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Panic, a Belgrade-born naturalized U.S. citizen and
self-made millionaire, has made lifting the sanctions his
main priority, and believes that the ouster of Milosevic
through Dec. 20 elections is the prime condition for
achieving that goal.
Milosevic, his party and its Serbian proxies in
Croatia and Bosnia- Hercegovina have attacked Panic as a
traitor to Serbian national interests and a foreign spy for
his efforts to normalize relations with Zagreb and opposition
to the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Djukanovic, whose communist government was widely
regarded as a puppet of Serbia's regime, appeared to have
determined that trying to salvage Montenegro's economic
well-being was of greater importance than continued support
for Milosevic's nationalist agenda.
He indicated such a decision in saying that his
Democratic Party of Socialists would not forge any alliances
in the December polls. But he denied there were growing
demands in Montenegro for an outright break with Serbia and
leaving rump Yugoslavia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: International mediators bring Bosnian peace plan to former Yugoslavia
Date: 28 Oct 92 18:50:52 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- International mediators
Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen began a three-day swing
Wednesday through former Yugoslavia to win support for a
proposed new constitution for Bosnia- Hercegovina intended as
the cornerstone of a settlement of the seven- month-old war.
Vance and Owen, co-chairmen of the Geneva-based
U.N.-European Community peace conference on the defunct
six-republic Balkan federation, first met briefly with
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic at the Intercontinental
Hotel.
They then drove to the federal government
headquarters for talks with President Dobrica Cosic of the
rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro and his prime
minister, Milan Panic, who have been cooperating closely in
peace-seeking efforts in a bid to end harsh U.N. economic
sanctions.
Vance and Owen then crossed to the other side of
Belgrade for two hours of talks with Panic's main rival,
communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, widely
regarded as the main political and financial patron of
Serbian forces fighting to carve a self-declared state out of
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Vance later called the meeting with Milosevic
``satisfactory.''
The pair capped the day by bringing Panic and
Karadzic together in the unusual setting of the Yugoslav
Defense Ministry, where they were joined by Yugoslav Army
chief of staff Col. Gen. Zivota Panic. He is no relation of
the federal prime minister.
The meetings all focused on a proposed new
constitution for Bosnia- Hercegovina that Vance, a U.N.
special envoy and former U.S. secretary of state, and EC
representative Owen, a onetime British foreign secretary,
unveiled Tuesday in Geneva to negotiators of the newly
independent republic's Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slav
communities.
Cosic indicated strong support for the Vance-Owen
plan, saying they showed ``exceptional understanding for our
situation.''
``Our talks were very substantial,'' he told
reporters after meeting the mediators. ``Between us there
were no vital differences.''
The draft, made public Wednesday in Geneva before its
presentation to the U.N. Security Council in New York, is
intended as the basis for a settlement of the war that
erupted when Karadzic's forces in late March launched their
drive to capture 70 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
According to the documents released in Geneva, Vance
and Owen rejected Karadzic's demand for the division of the
republic into autonomous ethnic districts, raising a serious
question as to how he could be made to accept the plan.
The draft would create seven to 10 semi-autonomous
Swiss-style cantonal divisions with large degrees of local
autonomy. A federal government would oversee foreign policy,
internal security and finances.
In a statement issued in Geneva, Vance and Owen said
Bosnia- Hercegovina's ethnic groups are ``inextricably
intermingled. Thus, there appears to be no viable way to
create three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles.''
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' they said.
Nationalist Croatian militias backed by the rightwing
regime of the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia are also
bent on severing their enclaves. Many observers believe there
is an agreement between Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and
Milosevic to divide Bosnia-Hercegovina at the expense of its
Muslim Slavs.
Partition is opposed by forces loyal to the Bosnian
government, which is dominated by Muslim Slavs, but also
includes moderate Serbs and Croats who reject a division of
Europe's newest state.
There are 1.9 million Slavic Muslims, 1.4 million
Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman Catholic Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
After overnighting in Belgrade, the capital of both
Serbia and the rump Yugoslav federation, Vance and Owen were
to travel Thursday to Pristina, the capital of Serbia's
restive province of Kosovo, for talks with leaders of the
independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority.
They were then to go to Skopje, the capital of the
former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which has yet to win
international recognition of its independence, and then make
a side trip to Albania.
On Friday, they were to return to Geneva via the
Croatian capital of Zagreb, where they were to meet Tudjman.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting persists in Bosnia as peace mediators begin Balkans tour
Date: 28 Oct 92 19:58:55 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fresh clashes
flared Wednesday across Bosnia-Hercegovina as international
mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen began a three-day
swing through former Yugoslavia to build support for a
proposal to end the bloody 7-month-old Balkan conflict.
The first U.N. humanitarian aid convoy to reach
Sarajevo in 10 days arrived from Croatia's port city of
Split, completing the two-day trip via the war-torn towns of
Mostar and Vitez without military escorts, although one truck
was lost when it toppled into a shallow river.
``The bank of the road fell away and the vehicle went
tumbling down into the river,'' said Larry Hollingsworth, the
U.N. refugee agency's logistics coordinator, adding the
driver was not hurt.
``The Mostar road, as far as I'm concerned, is
open,'' Hollingsworth said. ``All we have to do is use it, as
much as I did today.''
Hollingsworth dropped 10 truckloads of aid off in
Vitez and took six others into Sarajevo, where some 500,000
residents and refugees have been trapped and bombarded by
surrounding Serbian forces since early April.
It was the first convoy to reach Sarajevo since Oct.
19, when the Split-Sarajevo road was shut by fighting in
Mostar and Vitez. Combat has since subsided around both towns.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency asked for escorts
from the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), but was refused
because only about 150 troops have arrived as part of a
6,000-solder expansion of the 1,500-member contingent
authorized almost two months ago by the U.N. Security Council.
The expansion is intended to provide greater security
to humanitarian aid distribution operations across the
war-ravaged former Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Serbs
and Croats.
U.N. aid officials have expressed increasing anger
with the NATO countries contributing troops to the UNPROFOR
buildup for taking so long to deploy their forces amid the
approach of the fierce Balkan winter.
U.N.-organized aid flights have continued to reach
the capital, this week reaching their largest daily totals
since a month-long suspension ended Oct. 3. But, without
truck supplies, deliveries have remained well below the
city's estimated 225-ton-per-day minimum needs.
In a related development, a 19-truck UNHCR relief
convoy bearing 207 tons of food departed Belgrade on a
two-day trip to Sarajevo. About 40 tons of cargo were to be
left in Pale, the main Serbian headquarters, just to the east
of Sarajevo. The convoy was to have set out Tuesday, but was
delayed by security concerns for a day.
It was the first time that a UNHCR convoy has been
dispatched from Belgrade to Sarajevo in a move that U.N.
officials said was aimed at establishing another regular
supply route to the stricken city.
In Belgrade, Vance and Owen, the co-chairmen of the
Geneva-based U.N. -European Community-sponsored peace
conference on former Yugoslavia, held the first meetings of a
three-day trip mainly aimed at gaining support for a proposed
new Bosnian constitution intended as the cornerstone of a
political settlement.
After a brief talk with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic, Vance, a U.N. special envoy and former U.S.
secretary of state, and Owen, an EC representative and
onetime British foreign minister, met with President Dobrica
Cosic of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro,
and his prime minister, Milan Panic.
Afterwards, Cosic appeared to signal strong support
for the draft constitution, praising Vance and Owen for
their ``exceptional understanding of our situation.''
``Between us there were no vital differences,'' he
said.
The proposal, presented Tuesday in Geneva to
representatives of the warring factions, rejects Serbian and
Croatian extremist demands for a partition of the newly
independent former Yugoslav republic into autonomous ethnic
districts.
Instead, it would create an undisclosed number of
Swiss-style cantonal districts that would have a high degree
of local autonomy. A federal government would oversee
internal security, finances and foreign affairs.
Partition of the republic is opposed by forces loyal
to the Bosnian government, which is dominated by Muslim
Slavs, but also includes moderate Serbs and Croats.
Official reaction to the plan, which was due to be
presented later in the day to the U.N. Security Council, was
still not forthcoming from the warring factions.
The conflict erupted after Yugoslav army-armed
Serbian forces launched an offensive in late March to
pre-empt international recognition of the republic's
independence and seize a self-declared state. Serbian leaders
ultimately seek to merge their territories with
communist-ruled Serbia, their chief economic and political
patron.
In the latest frontline developments, Serbian forces
launched artillery and infantry attacks in areas around the
northern and central towns of Gradacac, Jajce, Brcko, Tesanj
and Teslic, Sarajevo radio reported.
The estimated 50,000 residents of Jajce were
sheltering in basements amid a heavy Serbian barrage, the
radio said.
Serbian forces rushed new reinforcements to Gradacac,
which suffered through a night of artillery attacks that
continued Wednesday, the radio said.
Sarajevo was relatively calm after moderately heavy
Serbian artillery and infantry attacks Tuesday.
Military commanders of the warring factions met at
Sarajevo airport for another day of talks on improving the
flow of humanitarian aid into therepublic, with discussions
focusing on the possible demilitarization of thecapital, U.N.
mediators said.
At least 11 people were killed and 113 injured
republic-wide in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.,
including seven dead and 60 wounded in Sarajevo, Bosnian
health officials said.
novine.153dejanr,
Dogovorili smo se sa Baletom da od sada ove zanimljive priloge šalje u
konferenciju NOVOSTI, tema world.news. Pratićemo ih, dakle, tamo.
novine.154banusko,
Danas 22.11.92. u 22.15 TV Beograd je objavio da Mađar SO,
jedini list na Mađarskom jeziku sutra neće izaći zbog nedostatka
rotopapira i ostalih repro-materijala. Slučajno mi kuma radi u
redakciji Mađar So-a i ona mi se poslepodne javila i pohvalila da
Mađar So ŠTRAJKUJE. Štrajkuju zbog malih plata, zbog nesposobnog
direktora koga je postavio Kepec i sličnih stvari. Politika nije
razlog.
Eto toliko što se tiče TV i istinitog obaveštavanja.A vi glasajte
za koga hoćete......
novine.155dejanr,
-> #154, banusko>> Eto toliko što se tiče TV i istinitog obaveštavanja.
Još bolje je kad objavljuju Ćosićev intervju na II dnevniku, pa prenesu
ceo onaj "dosadni" deo a ono gde napada Miloševića samo "preskoče" :(
novine.156balinda,
[POLITIKA - 22. novembar 1990.]
Veliki narodni miting u Nišu:
za Srbiju, za slogu, za jedinstvo
N A J V A č N I J I J E M I R
Slobodan Milošević:
"Srbija se nalazi pred izborima da li ćemo se
opredeliti za mir i ekonomski i kulturni
prosperitet ili za sukobe i mržnje koji će
blokirati sve dosadašnje napore da izađemo iz
krize i živimo bolje."
.......
.......
"Put u moderno, razvijeno i pravedno društvo,
nespojiv je sa bilo kakvim mističkim porukama
koje kao aveti prošlosti kruže u nekim delovima
Srbije i koje razni lažni proroci i ludaci
nude srpskom narodu kao zalog budućnosti. Ovo
se pogotovo odnosi na one koji u ime te
prošlosti nude nacionalističke obračune,
revanšizam i opšti haos."
.......
.......
novine.157djovicevic,
1818r tm--a
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No Panic in Britain's Thin Red Bosnian Line (Vitez)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
VITEZ, Bosnia _ It was, as a British officer might say, a cracking good
show.
During a recent patrol near the northeast Bosnian city of Tuzla, a
convoy of British žžWarrior'' armored fighting vehicles was ambushed by
Serb militia forces. The Serbs opened fire with everything they had _
mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons.
The Serbs never made a dent. The 45 tracked British Warriors in Bosnia
weigh 30 tons each, have reinforced armor plating, are armed with 30mm
rapid-fire cannon and can race across the countryside at more than 50
miles an hour. The next best thing to being in a bunker on a Balkan
battlefield is to be in a Warrior.
The Serb grenades ricocheted off the British armor, making žžpoing''
sounds and leaving, at worst, small burn marks on the white paint
identifying the Warriors as being under United Nations command. Instead
of firing back, the British plowed ahead and did not stop until they
reached the local Serb militia headquarters.
žžWe got out and shook their hands,'' said a British military spokesman.
žžThe Serbs couldn't believe it; they were amazed.'' There was no
immediate explanation of why the Serbs opened fire on the clearly marked
U.N. vehicles, but Serb commanders have explained such incidents in the
past as regretable accidents, or as the understandable reaction of Serb
militiamen believing they were under attack.
Nevertheless, that engagement _ in which Serb pride was the only
casualty _ may have been the best demonstration yet that the U.N.
troops most at risk in Bosnia's bloody factional war may not be as
vulnerable as some Western leaders contend.
žžWe must be very careful we don't needlessly put young men and women
who are there in harm's way more than they are,'' said President Bush
last week after discussing possible Western military intervention in
Bosnia with British Prime Minister John Major.
Major reluctantly joined Bush in supporting Western enforcement of a
U.N. žžno-fly zone'' over Bosnia that could lead to the downing of Serb
aircraft there, but he has argued vigorously for a long grace period
before the flight ban would take effect and for other Western
constraints as well.
Major's contention _ as well as, to lesser extent, that of the French _
has been that the destruction of Bosnian Serb aircraft, or their bases,
could provoke Serb militia forces to launch revenge attacks against
British and French ground troops helping deliver U.N. humanitarian aid
to suffering Bosnian civilians.
But British troops operating near the frontline here seem more than a
bit bemused by such hand-wringing. Veterans of the Persian Gulf War and
sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, they don't quite understand what
the fuss is about, and they especially don't like politicians portraying
them as frightened, defenseless Boy Scouts. žžWe don't feel so
vulnerable,'' said the spokesman, who asked that his name not be used.
žžWe could give (the Serbs) a nasty headache if we wanted.''
Indeed, officials of Bosnia's embattled Slavic Muslim-led government and
some Western diplomats in the region argue that the continued focus on
the vulnerability of U.N. relief troops is merely an excuse to put off
intervention. žžThere's this myth that the day you shoot down a Serb
jet these 10-foot-tall, man-eating Serbs will slaughter all the
innocents,'' said one Western diplomat in neighboring Croatia. He noted
that the Serb nationalist forces that now control about 70 percent of
Bosnia seized much of that territory in a well-camouflaged spring blitz
against poorly armed Muslims and Croats, and that since then they have
shown litte discipline or cohesion.
žžThe West is looking for excuses to not intervene,'' said Besim Spahic,
the Muslim mayor of Zenica, a city 15 miles northwest of this British
staging base and about 40 miles north of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.
Muslim advocates of intervention propose Western air strikes against
Serb air bases, artillery batteries and other military targets in
Serb-held Bosnia, and perhaps on their support bases in neighboring
Serbia as well.
This, the argument goes, would allow the Muslim-led government's lightly
armed ground forces to engage the Serbs on more even terms; all the
U.N. relief troops would have to do is hunker down and curtail their
civilian aid operations. Bosnian government leaders have said
repeatedly that they would gladly swap the relief operation for Western
military intervention against the Serbs.
The main threat to British and other U.N. ground forces would come from
heavy artillery fire, according to the military spokesman. The front
line is about nine miles from the base here at Vitez, well within range
of the Serbs' 155mm howitzers, and an accurate salvo could cause heavy
casualties.
But British officers here say that in a hostile situation, the Serbs
would have to be precisely on target with their first shot, because
their batteries would likely be silenced before a second or third round
could be fired. The British army, like the U.S. Army, has advanced
radar and thermal-sensing equipment that can quickly locate smoking
artillery pieces and target them for retaliation.
Serb artillery could be taken out in several ways, military officers
say. The easiest method would be with air strikes, and although the
British now have no long-range guns in place with which to return Serb
artillery fire, such weapons could speedily be shipped here.
žžThe Serbs would be pretty stupid to take us on,'' boasted one British
soldier as he relaxed here at an off-hours cafe.
novine.158djovicevic,
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Freezing People of Sarajevo Scavenge for Fuel (Sarajevo)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
SARAJEVO _ Desperate to stay alive, the freezing people of Sarajevo have
begun to devour what's left of their shattered city.
Trees in parks and along once stately boulevards are being cut down at a
hurricane pace as men, women and children scavenge for firewood.
Buildings shelled by Serb forces besieging the city are being stripped
of anything that burns-beams, flooring, roofing, wallpaper, foam
insulation.
Usually, it is government militiamen with chainsaws who fell the
decades-old trees and appropriate the biggest chunks. Civilian men with
axes cut up the branches, then grandmothers and children move in,
scurrying around to pick up the twigs.
žžIt's cold, and we have to stay alive, so we cut the trees,'' said
Sarija Misut, 19, as he sawed through one of the last pine trees in
Sarajevo's main cemetery. Nodding toward the frozen mounds marking new
graves around him, the young man added: žžIt's better than ending up
like the ones here.''
Many people, unable to find a tree to cut down, are reduced to hacking
away at tree stumps, and a recent lull in the fighting has seen the
boom-boom-boom of mortars replaced with the chip-chip-chip of axes
attacking wood. Sidewalks are crowded with people carrying, pushing or
dragging loads of firewood. Some bear sacks of wood on their backs,
sherpa-like. Some transport sticks and logs and broken boards in
wheelbarrows or baby carriages. Some tote huge beams on their
shoulders, like workers at a construction site. But Sarajevo, if
anything, is a deconstruction site.
There are those like Himzo Babic, 42, who roamed through a shell-blasted
store Monday looking for cardboard to burn in his 12th-floor apartment
so that his 18-month-old infant would not freeze to death. Babic, a
Slavic Muslim who sought refuge in Sarajevo to escape the advancing
Serbs, has neither saw nor axe with which to forage for fuel, and the
hammer and screwdriver he does have don't work very well. So it's
easier to collect cardboard _ and to burn everything loose around him.
žžI have burned most of my furniture,'' he said. žžI burned the wood
parquet from the floor. I've also burned books.''
There has been no electricity in Sarajevo for three weeks. That means
no lights, no running water and, most importantly as sub-freezing
weather sets in, no central heating. Mild fall weather has turned nasty
all of a sudden, with a light snowfall dusting the city Sunday night and
temperatures hovering around 10 degrees.
Without central heating, most of the 350,000 people trapped in Sarajevo
have rigged up makeshift stoves, and entire families eat and sleep
together in one room because it's impossible to find enough wood to heat
two. For the people of Sarajevo, it's the same battle against death
they've waged for eight months now, except that the cold could kill more
of them than Serb bullets and bombs.
žžThere is no wood left in my neighborhood,'' said an off-duty policeman
named Zoran who walked two miles before finding a thick tree stump to
hack at. žžEverything has been wiped out, even the stumps.'' There were
open blisters on Zoran's hands as he flailed away at the stump, his
labored breathing forming a cloud of steam in front of his haggard face.
He has two children at home, aged four and eight, and no powdered milk
or fresh food to feed them. žžPlease tell the outside world to stop
this siege,'' he pleaded. žžAny way it can. This is insanity.''
But bad as things are now, some officials of Bosnia's Muslim-led
government fear they will soon get worse. Fuad Babic, who is in charge
of civil defense in Sarajevo, estimates that with winter only barely
begun, nearly half the city's trees are already gone. žžI have tried to
physically stop people from cutting the trees, but I lost the will to do
it after a woman came to me crying and said she needed the wood to keep
her two babies warm,'' Babic said.
It is the weakest who give out first. At a nursing home in Nedarici, a
frontline suburb between Sarajevo and its airport, eight elderly people
have died of the cold in the past four days, staff members say. The
remaining 114 patients live in filthy, unheated rooms and, for the
bedridden ones, fouled sheets. žžThe meals they are getting are
adequate,'' said a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency. žžIt's the
cold they are succumbing to. ... This is just a microcosm of what
we're going to see across Sarajevo.''
At the State Hospital, nurse Stanislava Pasagic, 24, has been unable to
work for five days because her hands are frostbitten _ covered with
blisters and cold as a corpse. žžFive other nurses have the same
problem,'' she said. The hospital's emergency heating system is powered
by generators that have enough fuel to operate for just three hours
during the day and three at night, and patients shiver under layers of
blankets.
But staying alive in Sarajevo is not just a matter of staying warm. It
also means finding water to drink and wash with. Because there is no
electricity, water pumps are idle except in the rare buildings that have
their own generators and fuel to run them. And so the streets are
filled with people lining up to fill containers at wells and water
storage tanks.
Walking anywhere in Sarajevo can be deadly because most streets are
within range of Serb snipers and mortar batteries, and malnourished
people do not walk very briskly. Weighed down with buckets of water,
they walk even slower, and when they stand in line for hours at an open
well, they become stationary targets.
According to doctors here, several people are being shot every day as
they stand in water lines. On Sunday, one middle-aged man was rushed to
a hospital after a sniper's bullet tore through his chest. Doctors took
one look at him and wrote down a Latin phrase that is becoming more and
more common in their log book: Mortus ad latus. Dead on arrival.
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U.N. Chief Confirms Bosnia Trip (Geneva)<
By John Parry=
Special to The Washington Post=
GENEVA _ U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali confirmed Monday
that he will visit war-ravaged Bosnia this week, even as talks here
among the U.N. chief and the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and the new
two-republic Yugoslav state apparently produced little hope of a
breakthrough toward peace in the region.
U.N. officials said all three presidents reiterated long-standing
positions on the eight-month-old fratricidal conflict, while
Boutros-Ghali repeated his calls for a concerted effort toward a
peaceful solution of the Bosnian war.
Each of the presidents _ Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, Alija Izetbegovic of
Bosnia and Dobrica Cosic of the new Serb-controlled Yugoslavia _ spent
little more than an hour with Boutros-Ghali, and none made a statement
afterward. At separate press conferences, however, Tudjman repeated
accusations that Russian mercenaries are aiding the Serb nationalist
cause in Bosnia, while Cosic reiterated charges that Muslim mercenaries
are helping the Slavic Muslim-led Bosnian government.
Meanwhile, Therese Gastaut, Boutros-Ghali's spokeswoman, confirmed a
statement by the secretary general on Sunday that he will travel to
Sarajevo, Bosnia's besieged capital, žžwithin the next few days'' to
visit U.N. military forces providing humanitarian aid to civilians
there. Details of the trip will not be made public ahead of time for
security reasons, Gastaut said.
A new round of negotiations among Bosnia's warring factions is scheduled
for Geneva on Jan. 2, when representatives of the former Yugoslav
republic's Serbs, Croats and Muslims will try to formulate the terms of
a lasting military cease-fire, establish permanent safe corridors for
delivery of humanitarian aid and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive
peace throughout the region.
Cyrus Vance and David Owen, cochairmen of the permanent Balkan peace
conference here, have called the Jan. 2 talks especially significant
because they will involve both civilian and military leaders of the
warring Bosnians, plus representatives of neighboring Croatia and
Yugoslavia, which have supported rival factions.
novine.159djovicevic,
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Kosovo's Albanians Assert Nationalism (Pristina, Serbia)<
By Christine Spolar=
Special to The Washington Post=
PRISTINA, Serbia _ In two small rooms of a home here in the capital of
Serbia's Kosovo province, the future of an ethnic Albanian independence
movement is being prepared.
In one room, 28 students sit shoulder to shoulder on cloth-covered mats
and listen to a lecture on statistics. In another, two dozen teenagers
jam together on a chilly day to take careful notes on Albanian grammar.
There are no desks or chairs, few books and little chalk for the one
small blackboard.
žžWe want to learn. It is our only weapon to resist our enemy,'' said
Arben Kuqi, 16, an ethnic Albanian and one of a thousand youngsters who
walk miles every day for lessons that allow them to avoid contact with
the žženemy'' _ their Serbian neighbors and their schools.
The intensity of that attitude in largely Albanian Kosovo worries those
who fear a spread of ethnic purges in the Balkans. To many, Kosovo _ a
Connecticut-sized region of southern Serbia where Albanians outnumber
Serbs by nine to one _ seems the obvious next venue for Serb žžethnic
cleansing.''
If guns are drawn, neighboring Albania as well as large Albanian
communities in two other Balkan republics _ Montenegro, now a satellite
of Serbia in the new Yugoslav state, and newly independent Macedonia _
are considered likely to come to the aid of the 1.8 million Albanians
here. Serbian leaders have said they will do whatever is necessary to
defend their land, in Kosovo or wherever else foreign powers might
intervene.
The underground school here, and dozens like it set up in homes
throughout Kosovo, has been one way the Albanians have shown their
antipathy toward the repressive Serb-controlled provincial government
that was installed here three years ago. Thousands of Albanian children
have used such schools since last January as their only source of
education.
Their existence _ and the creation of a whole system of other community
services _ underscores the extent to which the Albanians passively
resist Serbian control and the ultranationalist policies of Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic, who rose to power by whipping up
xenophobic fears.
Two weeks ago, the Albanians of Kosovo exercised that resistance, with
considerable political consequences. In Serbian and Yugoslav elections,
they saw no candidate willing to focus on their plight, so they refused
to vote. That aided the reelection of Milosevic and cleared the way for
election of dozens of militant Serbian nationalists to parliament, a
move that Western observers said diminishes hopes for ending the war in
Bosnia and defusing tensions in Kosovo.
Three years ago, as the old Yugoslav federation began to break up and
Kosovo's Albanian leaders talked of independence, Serbia moved to quash
the threat, ordering ethnic Albanian teachers, doctors, judges and high
government workers to sign loyalty oaths to keep their jobs. By some
estimates, as many as 70,000 people were dismissed or left their jobs as
a result. Others reportedly were imprisoned without charge.
In the ensuing months, Albanians accused Serbian security forces of
harassment, beatings and killings, and they say these increased in the
months leading to the recent elections.
žžIt is tense and confrontational'' in Kosovo now, one observer said,
žžand things could go wrong.''
One Serbian politician who has promised to make trouble is Zelko
Raznjatovic, leader of a Belgrade-based paramilitary unit who is accused
by the United States of responsibility for mass killings of Slavic
Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Raznjatovic won a seat in parliament and
vowed the next day to push the new assembly to declare žžopen war'' on
the Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo.
The Albanian political hierarchy, exiled from local government, elected
its own žžgovernment'' this spring and has worked to set up its own
services. Boycotting Serb-controlled services, it has developed a
system of welfare from donations and encouraged establishment of
roadside health clinics, schools in homes and university classes taught
by unemployed Albanians.
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The History of Kosovo (Pristina, Serbia)<
By Christine Spolar=
Special to The Washington Post=
PRISTINA, Serbia _ The history of Kosovo is often detailed painstakingly
by Serbs and Albanians alike in even casual conversations and cannot be
overrestimated in the current confrontation. Serbs view it as the
birthplace of Serbian nationhood, and Albanians see it as theirs by
right of possession and the dictates of more recent history.
Six hundred years ago, the Serbs fought against the invading Turks and
lost decisively at the Battle of Kosovo _ a battle that welded Serbs
together as a people and one that is still discussed here as if it
happened yesterday. So too, is the decision by Yugoslav communist ruler
Marshal Tito two decades ago to grant virtual home rule to Kosovo, which
by then was heavily populated with Albanians left out of neighboring
Albania when its borders were redrawn earlier this century.
Three years ago, as the old Yugoslav federation began to break up and
Kosovo's Albanian leaders talked of independence, Serbia moved to quash
the threat, ordering ethnic Albanian professionals to sign loyalty oaths
to keep their jobs. In the ensuing months, Albanians accused Serbian
security forces of harassment, beatings and killings. Human rights
organizations, including Amnesty International and the Helsinki
Commission, have decried the repression.
But Serbian leaders here and in Belgrade deny there is any orchestrated
oppression of the Albanians and say they have caused most of their own
problems by not working with the Serb-controlled government.
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Serbian Radicals Vote to Oust Prime Minister Panic (Belgrade)<
By Laura Silber and Carol J. Williams=
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times=
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Encouraged by their recent electoral triumph,
ultranationalist Serbian radicals voted Tuesday to oust Milan Panic, the
California millionaire, from the office of federal prime minister.
The no-confidence motion against the moderate Panic easily passed both
houses of the federal Parliament, spurred on by the wave of extremism
that has washed over the remains of Yugoslavia since a Dec. 20 election
defeated proponents of peace and reform.
Panic was closeted with advisers late Tuesday and made no immediate
comment on the move to depose him. An aide, reached at the prime
minister's Belgrade residence, said Panic would make an announcement
Wednesday morning.
The vote aimed at forcing Panic's resignation was the third called by
Serb nationalists in the past four months, the two previous moves having
failed because deputies from the republic of Montenegro came to the
prime minister's rescue.
But in the wake of elections that strengthened the hand of the hard-line
nationalists rule in what is left of Yugoslavia, the Montenegrins closed
ranks with their longtime Serbian allies to deal Panic a crushing, if
mostly symbolic defeat.
Thunderous applause broke out in the upper parliamentary chamber when
the Montenegrins withdrew their backing of Panic and voted
overwhelmingly to unseat him.
Panic had already hinted he would resign as head of the virtually
powerless federal government following his loss to Serbian strongman
Slobodan Milosevic after a hard-fought campaign for the republic
presidency.
Western diplomats described the vote of no-confidence _ proposed by a
militant deputy accused of war crimes _ as an attempt to complete the
humiliation of Panic and the conciliatory course he proposed to spare
the rump Yugoslavia a future of isolation and despair.
The political swing toward nationalist extremism that gave Milosevic a
wide margin of victory 10 days ago was reflected in the no-confidence
vote. The lower house, dominated by Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party
and their Serbian Radical allies, voted 95-2 against Panic, with 12
deputies abstaining. The upper house, evenly split between the two
remaining Yugoslav republics, Serbia and Montenegro, voted 30-5 with one
abstention to remove the prime minister.
Despite the vote, Panic and his federal Cabinet were expected to remain
in power in a caretaker status until a new slate of ministers is
appointed by the Parliament that will take office some time next month.
Western diplomats also speculated that Serbian Radical Party leader
Vojislav Seselj called for the vote against Panic as a means of forcing
the fence-sitting Montenegrins to choose sides.
(Begin optional trim)
Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and his Democratic Socialist Party
supported Panic's unsuccessful bid to replace Milosevic.
Parliamentary sources said a Montenegrin official, Svetozar Marovic, was
likely to be named prime minister by the new regime in an effort to
appease Montenegro, the republic that makes up only 5 percent of the
population of the rump Yugoslavia. But other deputies indicated Panic
would be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Radoje Kontic, also from
Montenegro.
Seselj, who was singled out by U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger last week as likely to be brought before a war crimes
tribunal, had warned a day earlier that Panic might be arrested if he
remained in Belgrade.
(End optional trim)
Panic, 63, had returned to his native Yugoslavia in July in a
much-publicized quest to bring peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina and turn the
attention of his fellow Serbs to repairing their shattered economy.
LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST--12-29-92 1857EST<
READY GO-AHEAD:
1083r tm--a
u i bc-yugo-sarajevo 12-29 0764
bc-yugo-sarajevo<
(wap) (ATTN: Foreign editors)<
Caged in Sarajevo _ By the United Nations (Sarajevo)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
SARAJEVO, Bosnia _ Every night, hundreds of exhausted men, women and
children try to flee this besieged, freezing city on a dangerous escape
route that crosses the airport tarmac. Most are stopped by well-armed
troops who force them back to the ruins of Sarajevo, for here the
keepers of the siege are U.N. soldiers.
žžIt breaks our hearts,'' said a French soldier who has turned back old
women and mothers with babies. žžThey cry, they plead with us for help
to cross. They even offer money. But we're under orders to stop
them.''
The airport forms a crucial part of a tight siege line thrown around
Sarajevo by powerful Serb nationalist forces who have been bombarding
the city for months. Under heavy international pressure, the Serbs
agreed to allow U.N. control of the airport so that relief flights for
Sarajevo's trapped civilians could land. But, apparently in exchange,
U.N. commanders have adopted a strict policy of stopping any residents
of the largely Slavic Muslim city from crossing the tarmac to escape the
siege.
U.N. officials here have never hidden the fact that they turn back
people at the airport, but until icy winter temperatures took hold here
in the past week, the numbers were small. Now the number of intercepted
civilians is soaring _ there were more than 500 Monday night _ and U.N.
officials here acknowledge that the no-passage policy represents a
troubling moral trade-off. žžIt's a tremendous compromise,'' said one.
When the civilians are stopped, the U.N. troops search them for
weapons; everyone is frisked, including children. They are then taken
in U.N. patrol vehicles to the starting point of their sprint to
freedom _ back where they started, in Sarajevo.
Scenes of wrenching pathos take place every night, according to four
French soldiers who spoke on condition that they be identified only by
their first names. They expressed misgivings about the no-passage
policy but said they were soldiers first and that means following
orders. žžWe are not here to think,'' said Paul. žžWe are here to
follow orders. There are others, higher up, who do the thinking.''
Women drop to their knees begging to cross the tarmac, the soldiers
said. Men who are caught heading into the city with sacks of potatoes
or dried meat take family pictures from their wallets and plead that
they are carrying food to their trapped wives and children.
Some people who hobble onto the tarmac have shrapnel wounds or other
injuries and say they are trying to get medical attention on the other
side. Mothers carry newborn babies wrapped in blankets; old people
move as quickly as they can, which is rarely quick enough.
All are turned back.
The U.N. policy is also burdened by the fact that troops here, on at
least one occasion, have stood by without taking any action as fleeing
civilians came under Serb machine-gun fire on the exposed tarmac. U.N.
troops at the airport are allowed to fire their weapons only in
self-defense, which precludes intervention to save people who are being
shot down before their eyes.
According to U.N. spokesman Mik Magnusson, if civilians fleeing
Sarajevo were allowed to cross the tarmac, the besieging Serbs would
attack the airport, shutting it down. The choice, he indicated, is to
help enforce the Serb siege or give up any hope of continuing
humanitarian aid flights that are keeping thousands of people alive.
The airport dilemma demonstrates the cloudy moral ground that the U.N.
Protection Force sometimes occupies in Bosnia. Its compromises with the
Bosnian Serbs _ who have been condemned the world over for waging
aggressive war in Bosnia _ havee infuriated the Slavic Muslim-led
Bosnian government, which has charged that the United Nations is
knuckling under to international pariahs and war criminals.
U.N. officials say they must consider the situation pragmatically. At
a recent news conference, the top U.N. generals in Bosnia were asked if
they minded dealing with alleged war criminals _ which the United States
has branded a number of top Serb leaders _ and they responded by saying
they have no choice.
žžThe international community is dealing with them,'' said Indian Lt.
Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. forces in the Balkans. žžThey
are leaders of one of the parties of the conflict, like it or not.''
novine.160milan,
-> #159, djovicevic Sve ove vesti (prema zaglavlju mi se čini da je to servis Los
Angeles Times-a i Washington Post-a) baca .bale. na world.news.
Tako, da ovo ispada dupliranje posla.
Pl poz M