YDS 10/20

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov)

20. OCTOBER 1995. YUGOSLAV DAILY SURVEY

C O N T E N T S:

FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - MILOSEVIC RECEIVES HOLBROOKE - HOLBROOKE: END OF FINAL STAGE OF TALKS AHEAD OF PEACE CONFERENCE - MILOSEVIC, STOLTENBERG BELIEVE BOSNIA PEACE AGREEMENT WILL BE SIGNED

REPUBLIKA SRPSKA - BOSANIAN SERBS DEMAND SENDING OF U.N. OBSERVERS TO CROAT-MUSLIM SIDE - GENERAL CEASEFIRE IN BOSNIA TO TAKE EFFECT AT MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY - MORE THAN 120,000 NEW SERB REFUGEES ARRIVE IN BANJA LUKA - MUSLIMS DENY UNHCR ACCESS TO SANSKI MOST

THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJIN - CROATIA - U.N. SPOKESMAN SAYS U.N. TRYING TO RENEW TALKS ON EASTERN SLAVONIJA

FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

MILOSEVIC RECEIVES HOLBROOKE

B e l g r a d e, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic received here Thursday head of the U.S. negotiating team for the former Yugoslavia Richard Holbrooke, who arrived for a new round of talks after visiting Sarajevo and Zagreb. Milosevic and Holbrooke are expected to devote the greatest attention to further preparations for a peace conference in the U.S. and to the dangers threatening the peace process due to Zagreb's arrogant and aggressive stance on the resolution of the issue of the Srem-Baranja region. Talks were attended by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic.

HOLBROOKE: END OF FINAL STAGE OF TALKS AHEAD OF PEACE CONFERENCE

B e l g r a d e, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke on Thursday announced an end of the final stage of the talks during which the U.S. negotiating team had shuttled several times between Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo. Following talks with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Holbrooke said that the talks would continue in Dayton, Ohio, unless something unexpected happened in the coming period. Holbrooke said that the issue of eastern Slavonija had been discussed on Zagreb and Belgrade on Thursday, and that further talks about this would be conducted between the representatives of the Serbs from that region and Zagreb.

MILOSEVIC, STOLTENBERG BELIEVE BOSNIA PEACE AGREEMENT WILL BE SIGN ED

B e l g r a d e, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Co-Chairman of the international conference on the former Yugoslavia Thorvald Stoltenberg have expressed a common belief that hitherto progress and positive results in the current stage of the peace process will lead to its definitive and successful conclusion in the form of a peace agreement for Bosnia. During talks on Thursday, Milosevic and Stoltenberg stressed that the peace agreement for Bosnia should finally bring an end to the several-year-long civil war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The peace agreement should mark the beginning of a new stage charactarized by equality among states and peoples in the Balkans both in their mutual relations and in their treatment by the international community, it was heard. It was also stressed that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia supported Stoltenberg's activities in efforts to restore negotiations between the officials of the regions of eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srem on the one hand and Croatia on the other.

REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

BOSANIAN SERBS DEMAND SENDING OF U.N. OBSERVERS TO CROAT-MUSLIM SI DE

B j e lj i n a, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - The Vice-President of Republika Srpska, Nikola Koljevic, said he had demanded from the UNPROFOR on Thursday that U.N. observers be sent to the Bosnian Croat and Muslim side within 24 hours. Koljevic said that the U.N. observers should be sent primarily to Sanski Most and the region of the Vrbas canyon, in western Bosnia, as well as to the region of Trnovo, Orasje and to several other areas where there were armed provocations. 'Combined with reports from our observers, this would secure a complete ceasefire as early as Friday, which would be important for the peace process,' Koljevic said.

GENERAL CEASEFIRE IN BOSNIA TO TAKE EFFECT AT MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY

B a nj a L u k a, Oct 19 (Tanjug) - The Bosnian warring parties have agreed a general ceasefire that should take effect at midnight local time (2300 gmt) on Thursday. The Republika Srpska Army Command said in a statement on Thursday that the warring parties had agreed that a total ceasefire should go into force at midnight throughout the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and specifically in the West. The statement said that the agreement had been reached in a meeting at Sarajevo airport earlier on Thursday of a joint commission representing the warring parties and the UNPROFOR. The commission has been set up to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire accord emplaced at 0001 hours local time on Oct. 12 (2301 gmt Oct. 11). It was also agreed that regional ceasefire implementation commissions meet on the lines of separation at Mrkonjic-Grad and Sanski Most at noon on Oct. 20.

MORE THAN 120,000 NEW SERB REFUGEES ARRIVE IN BANJA LUKA

B e l g r a d e, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - More than 120,000 Serb refugees have arrived in the Banja Luka region over the past ten days, the humanitarian oprganization Medicines sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Thursday quoting the UNHCR. The AFP quoted MSF Spokeswoman Francoise Wallemacq as saying that the number of Serb refugees who fled before the Muslim and Croat offensives to the region of Banja Luka and the neighboring communes in the northwest of Republika Srpska, now totals 285,000. 'At this moment, the biggest problem for MSF is the shortage of personal hygiene items for the refugees in view of the coming winter. It is necessary to secure heating and clothing for all of them,' Wallemacq said. The local office of the Bosnian Serb Commessariat for Refugees in the town of Prijedor, 50 km to the west of Banja Luka, said that currently in this area there are about 45,000 refugees. The situation is extremely difficult, and in the nearby town of Omarska, it is even alarming, the local official for refugees Ilija Bojanic said. In Omarska currently there are about 25,000 refugees from the region of Sanski Most. The majority of them have been given accomodation in the industrial zone which barely satisfies the minimum living conditions.

MUSLIMS DENY UNHCR ACCESS TO SANSKI MOST

B e l g r a d e, Oct 19 (Tanjug) - UNHCR official in Banja Luka Vladimir Curko said on Thursday that the UNHCR was being denied access to Sanski Most, western Bosnia, where Muslims were holding thousands of Serb civilians captive. According to the most recent reports, the Serb civilians captured in the latest Muslim operations and held in Sanski Most are subjected to all kinds of indignity and ill treatment at the hands of Muslim troops that have recently occupied that Bosnian Serb town.

THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJIN - CROATIA

U.N. SPOKESMAN SAYS U.N. TRYING TO RENEW TALKS ON EASTERN SLAVONIJ A

B e l g r a d e, Oct. 19 (Tanjug) - U.N. Spokesman in Belgrade Susan Manuel has warned that a military settlement of the sitution in the region of eastern Slavonija, Baranja and west Srem would be disastrous and that this was why the international community was trying to get the Croatian leadership to refrain from attacking. Manuel said U.N. officials were trying to renew the interrupted talks between the Serb and Croatian sides. Manuel said the U.N. was trying to prepare a plan of aid for about 3,000-4,000 remaining Serbs (in former sectors South and North) who are in an increasingly difficult situation, as she pointed out. U.N. observers toured 250 villages in nine weeks and recorded over 250 cases of murder, intimidation, armed robbery and arson. Their reports also said 77% of the objects in former sector South were no longer fit to live in, Manuel said. U.N. observers also visited nine locations with over 600 fresh burial-mounds, and Croatian authorities did not provide any information when they were asked to explain who was buried in those graves, Manuel said.