Yugoslav Daily Survey 96-01-12

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

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

12 January 1996

CONTENTS

[A] THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] YUGOSLAV PRIME MINISTER SIGNS IN THE BOOK OF MOURNING

[02] YUGOSLAV VICE PREMIER MEETS RUSSIAN DELEGATION

[03] YUGOSLAV MINISTER: YUGOSLAVIA EXPECTS BETTER DISTRIBUTION OF AID

[04] BELGIUM LIFTS BAN ON FINANCIAL OPERATIONS WITH YUGOSLAVIA

[B] BOSNIA -HERZEGOVINA

[05] SERBS SEEK DELAY FOR HANDING OVER SARAJEVO TO MUSLIM-CROAT FEDERATION

[06] BOSNIAN SERBS, OSCE OFFICIALS DISCUSS FUTURE ELECTIONS IN BOSNIA

[07] SERBS WILL COOPERATE IN HUNTING DOWN STREETCAR BOMBER IN SARAJEVO

[08] BOSNIAN SERBS PROTEST WITH IFOR AGAINST MUSLIM TORCHING OF VILLAGES

[09] BILDT CHAIRS SERB-MUSLIM MEETING IN SARAJEVO

[C] AMNESTY FOR THE KRAJINA SERBS

[10] FIRST GROUP OF AMNESTIED SERBS ARRIVE IN YUGOSLAVIA FROM CROATIA

[11] TUDJMAN SHOULD DECLARE AMNESTY FOR EXPELLED KRAJINA SERBS

[D] SREM - BARANIA REGION

[12] PEACE FORCE FOR SREM-BARANIA REGION STILL UNCERTAIN

[E] U.N. - FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

[13] MANUEL: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CHANGES ATTITUDE REGARDING FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

[A] THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] YUGOSLAV PRIME MINISTER SIGNS IN THE BOOK OF MOURNING

'With his personality and work, President Mitterrand, a true friend of my country, marked his time as an indefatigable and consistent fighter for peace, democracy, prosperity, a more just society and contributed considerablely to the process of European integration,' said Kontic.

[02] YUGOSLAV VICE PREMIER MEETS RUSSIAN DELEGATION

Tumanov and associates are visiting Belgrade at the invitation of the Yugoslav Constitutional Court, the Yugoslav Information Secretariat announced.

[03] YUGOSLAV MINISTER: YUGOSLAVIA EXPECTS BETTER DISTRIBUTION OF AID

Minister without portfolio Tomica Raicevic, who is President of the Yugoslav Government headquarters for humanitarian aid to refugees, said this in talks with a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, led by Vice President Tadeus Zivinski. The purpose of the visit was to view objectively the position of refugees and displaced persons in Yugoslavia and report to the Parliamentary Assembly, said the Yugoslav Information Secretariat.

Both sides agreed that the return of displaced persons had to be carried out with full security and guarantees from the international community.

Yugoslavia takes care of about 700,000 refugees, including the majority of 250,000 Serbs who fled their homes ahead of Croatia's aggressions on the northern, western and southern parts of the Republic of Serb Krajina last May and August.

[04] BELGIUM LIFTS BAN ON FINANCIAL OPERATIONS WITH YUGOSLAVIA

Although this is a routine decision, sources at the Belgian Finance Ministry voice content with opening one more channel for the normalization of the two countries' relations which were frozen when the Yugoslav crisis began.

[B] BOSNIA -HERZEGOVINA

[05] SERBS SEEK DELAY FOR HANDING OVER SARAJEVO TO MUSLIM-CROAT FEDERATION

It can only be done through contacts between international officials and Prime Ministers or Parliamentary Speakers of the (Bosnian Serb State) Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation, said Sarovic.

Galucci said he hoped that the 150,000 Sarajevo Serbs would not leave the city and that the transfer of power would be carried out in a painless and succesful way. All of us who had worked long and hard to bring about the Dayton agreement believe in a multiethnic society, said Galucci and added that an exodus of Sarajevo Serbs would be destructive for the implementation of the agreement.

[06] BOSNIAN SERBS, OSCE OFFICIALS DISCUSS FUTURE ELECTIONS IN BOSNIA

The Bosnian peace accord, initialled at Dayton, Ohio, USA, on Nov. 14 and signed in Paris on Dec. 14, 1995, entrusted the OSCE with organising and monitoring the elections.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Chief of the OSCE mission for Bosnia-Herzegovina Rawl Gould said he told members of the Republika Srpska Commission for drafting electoral laws and Justice Minister Mirko Arsovic that electoral rolls and census returns from before 1991 were esential for a succesful organization of the elections.

The Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA quoted Gould as saying that registration and identification of voters, especially refugees and displaced persons, would be a serious problem. Noting that they would provide all the necessary information to the OSCE mission, the Bosnian Serb officials said that identifying the electoral body would be a very complex undertaking because of large-scale migrations of the Serb people during the war.

[07] SERBS WILL COOPERATE IN HUNTING DOWN STREETCAR BOMBER IN SARAJEVO

The attack was an 'act of an indivual, not an organized and planned action,' UPI quoted Katic as saying.

The Serb authorities in Bosnia denied that Serbs had anything to do with the attack, which killed one person and wounded 14. It was the gravest event since the signing of the Dayton peaceaccord for Bosnia last month.

Katic said the Serb authorities would work together with the IFOR to investigate and shed light on the event, said UPI. He said the majority of Serbs would not let the attack jeopardize the peace in Sarajevo and Bosnia, said UPI.

[08] BOSNIAN SERBS PROTEST WITH IFOR AGAINST MUSLIM TORCHING OF VILLAGES

Under the Dayton agreement, the villages should be returned to the Republika Srpska, said a protest letter sent to IFOR land force Commander Gen. Michael Walker on Wednesday, and added that Muslim forces had on Jan. 9 torched and destroyed houses in the village of Marcetici and continued looting and torching in the villages of Hadrovci, Davidovici and Novakovici. The letter said that the local Bosnian Serb Army Command had earlier lodged a protest with IFOR, but that the torching and looting had not stopped.

The torching of Serb villages during the intensive implementation of the Dayton agreement neither helps restore peace and strengthen confidence nor does it contribute to the functioning of IFOR in this very sensitive region, the letter said.

[09] BILDT CHAIRS SERB-MUSLIM MEETING IN SARAJEVO

The High Representative to oversee the Bosnia peace settlement, Carl Bildt, chaired the meeting to try to prevent Bosnian Serbs from leaving the areas around the city, Reuters quoted Bildt's Spokesman as saying.

Bildt said it was reassuring for the city's future that the Serbs felt confident enough to visit central Sarajevo. He believed the meeting was a good start in the confidence building process. 'This event has to be seen in the context of reconciliation. We are bringing people together to try to get them to cooperate,' Bildt's Spokesman said.

[C] AMNESTY FOR THE KRAJINA SERBS

[10] FIRST GROUP OF AMNESTIED SERBS ARRIVE IN YUGOSLAVIA FROM CROATIA

Remaining at the Gasinci camp there are 245 more Serbs scheduled to enter the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (F.R.Y.) on Saturday, January 13, said Branko Popovic of the Yugoslav Red Cross. Popovic said 112 of the 245 Serbs would be released on Saturday morning and others on Saturday afternoon.

Out of the 349 Serbs in the Gasinci camp, 311 decided to go to the F.R.Y., 38 others were still undecided, said Popovic.

The amnestied Serbs were taken prisoner during Croatia's armed aggressions against the Republic of Serb Krajina (R.S.K.) last May and August when around 4,000 Serbs were killed and around 250,000 expelled.

Most amnestied Serbs had not wanted to comment in detail what they had gone through while in Croatian jails and the Gasinci camp, explaining that they did not want to worsen the position of those remaining there. All of them confirmed they experienced the true torture with a great deal of beating and maltreatment. One of them, who wanted not to be mentioned by name because part of his family remained in Croatia, said that Gasinci resembled any other jail where Croatian policemen were humiliating prisoners.

[11] TUDJMAN SHOULD DECLARE AMNESTY FOR EXPELLED KRAJINA SERBS

We welcome your amnesty for 455 Serbs and consider it to be an act of good will, but we should not forget that it concerns people who stayed here (in Croatia) after you expressed guarantees for their safety at the time of the Croatian aggression on the western parts of the republic of Serb Krajina (former U.N.-protected Sectors South and North), but soon after that they were sentenced to long prison terms in brief trials, Djukic said.

Djukic, whose party is loyal to the authorities in Zagreb, warned Tudjman that there is a growing tendency in his speeches to express pleasure over the fact that the number of Serbs in Croatia has been reduced to five percent which 'was one of the declared goals of your policy at the beginning of the war'.

In his open letter, Djukic asked Tudjman how will families be able to return, if the men and boys are forced to go into pretrial confinement for 'participating in armed revolt against the Republic of Croatia' and if they are sentenced to long prison terms.

Djukic said that the policy of nationalism and of creating an ethnically clean state were the greatest dangers for that same state.

[D] SREM - BARANIA REGION

[12] PEACE FORCE FOR SREM-BARANIA REGION STILL UNCERTAIN

Hewitt also visited Vukovar and met with local Council President Slavko Dokmanovic. He said he hoped the Serbs and Croats would soon sit at the negotiating table again to speed up the implementation of the agreement.

Dokmanovic said the talks with Hewitt had convinced him again that the danger of a military option in the Srem-Barania region was definitely passed.

[E] U.N. - FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

[13] MANUEL: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CHANGES ATTITUDE REGARDING FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

Manuel said at a press conference in Belgrade she was convinced that the Statement and the U.N. Secretary-General's report on the situation in Croatia would help both the Serbs still living in Croatia and those who had sought refuge in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to return to their homes and live in normal conditions.

Manuel said she expected the U.N. Security Council to complete on Thursday the drawing up of a draft resolution on eastern Slavonia (Srem-Baranja region) that might be adopted already on Friday or by January 15, when the UNCRO mandate expires, at the latest.

Although the U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had asked that an international peace force of 9,300 troops be deployed in the region, this number will probably be reduced to 5,000, Manuel said.

U.S. General Jacques-Paul Klein, who was appointed administrator of the region during the transition period, Tuesday informed the Security Council of the situation in the region, Manuel said. Klein requested in his report that full guarantees be given to the Serb population of the region as regards safety, dignity and human rights, Manuel said.

The agreement reached at the end of lst November by the representatives of Croatia and of the Serb population of the Srem-Baranja region envisages international administration during a one-year transition period, which can be extended by another year if one of the sides requests it.

The future U.N. mission in the region will probably be called U.N. transitional administration for eastern Slavonia (UNTEAS), Manuel said. She also announced that a delegation of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission is expected to arrive in Yugoslavia next week.