Yugoslav Daily Survey 96-04-02

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

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

2 April 1996

CONTENTS

[A] FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] MILOSEVIC, KLEIN CALL FOR CONSISTENT IMPLEMENTATION OF SERBO-CROAT AGREEMENT

[02] U.N. ADMINISTRATOR SAYS MEETING WITH SERBIAN PRESIDENT WAS SUCCESSFUL

[03] OVER 30,000 REQUESTS FOR COMPENSATION OF SERB PROPERTY IN KRAJINA, CROATIA

[B] YUGOSLAVIA - ECONOMY

[04] EUROFIMA APPROVES LOAN TO YUGOSLAV RAILWAYS

[C] REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

[05] BOSNIAN SERB PRESIDENT: DAYTON ACCORD TO BE IMPLEMENTED CONSISTENTLY

[D] CROATIA - SERBS

[06] SERB HOUSES STILL BEING MINED IN KRAJINA

[E] FROM FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC PRESS

[07] SPIEGEL WEEKLY ON BONN'S ERRONEOUS POLICY IN THE BALKANS

[A] FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

[01] MILOSEVIC, KLEIN CALL FOR CONSISTENT IMPLEMENTATION OF SERBO-CROAT AGREEMENT

The Serbian presidential office said in an announcement that Milosevic and Klein also assessed that utmost attention had to be paid to the questions of normalization and improvement of conditions in the SBR, which would undoubtedly help relax tensions and build up mutual confidence.

Also assessed was that the success of this process was largely dependent on full cooperation between the local organs and the UN Administrator Klein, and his team.

Also participating in the talk between Milosevic and Klein and his aides was Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic, the announcement also said.

[02] U.N. ADMINISTRATOR SAYS MEETING WITH SERBIAN PRESIDENT WAS SUCCESSFUL

Addressing reporters after the talks, Klein said they were both optimistic regarding developments in that region. Klein said the objective of the UN peace efforts was to protect the lives of the population, their dignity and property. He said all interested parties, including the Yugoslav and Croatian Governments, were resolved fully to support the process of finding a preaceful settlement for the situation in the region.

Klein urged the population not to leave the area. He said they had nothing to fear as the UN administration had 5,000 troops, tanks, helicopters - a veritable armed force which was under its control.

Before we leave, Klein said, we shall set up a local government with an adequate representation of the local population. There is also capital which has been earmarked for investments in this area, but the situation should first be totally stable before investments begin, Klein concluded.

[03] OVER 30,000 REQUESTS FOR COMPENSATION OF SERB PROPERTY IN KRAJINA, CROATIA

The commission was set up in October 1995, while the Yugoslav Justice Ministry Technical Department received first requests to this end on January 1, 1996. The registering of persons living abroad with property in Krajina and Croatia will begin at Yugoslav diplomatic and consular offices abroad on April 15.

Three categories of people have the right to make claims to this end - refugees who fled Croatia to Yugoslavia in 1991 or at the outbreak of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, refugees from the Republic of Serb Krajina, proclaimed by Serbs in Croatia after its violent secession from the former Yugoslavia, who found shelter in Yugoslavia after August 1, 1995, and Yugoslav citizens who have left property in Serb Krajina and Croatia.

Despotovic said about 1,600 requests had been processed, and said it appeared that the majority of the refugees were quite well-to-do because they had left valuable immovable property - houses, flats, outbuildings, offices, stables, orchards, gardens, pastures. The processed lists will be submitted to the Yugoslav Ministry of Finance that is to work out methods of estimating the value of property.

Refugees are protected under relevant international conventions, and are guaranteed the right to compensation or restitution of property if they do not return home.

The Annex 7 of the Dayton peace accord for Bosnia also calls for compensation of refugee property if the property has been destroyed or if refugees do not want to return home. Despotovic said the property of refugees who had fled the Srem and Baranja Region would be registered within the region.

[B] YUGOSLAVIA - ECONOMY

[04] EUROFIMA APPROVES LOAN TO YUGOSLAV RAILWAYS

This was announced on Monday by Zivorad Maksimovic, the General Director of the Belgrade Railways Company and the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yugoslav Railways. Maksimovic attended last week's EUROFIMA meeting in Basel, Switzerland, which passed the decision.

Maksimovic said that the loan would provide financial support to rail companies in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia thus enabling the rehaul of their trains. He said that this is the result of successful financial cooperation with EUROFIMA.

[C] REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

[05] BOSNIAN SERB PRESIDENT: DAYTON ACCORD TO BE IMPLEMENTED CONSISTENTLY

Speaking at a session of the Bosnian Serb Parliament in Pale, Karadzic said the redrawing of the Dayton accord at the expense of the Serb people would not be allowed.

Referring to the November 1995 Dayton peace accord, Karadzic said it resembles the March 1992 Lisbon document for Bosnia which was reached before the start of the war in this ex-Yugoslav republic and from which Muslim leader Izetbegovic withdraw his signature.

Karadzic wondered 'why the war was waged, whether the same violators would violate the Dayton accord and whether they would be brough before the face of justice.'

Karadzic said that the priorities of Republika Srpska in the coming period are to care for the refugees and to distribute the abandoned property between them, to help in the sowing and the economic revival, and the prevent the plunder of state property, especially forests.

[D] CROATIA - SERBS

[06] SERB HOUSES STILL BEING MINED IN KRAJINA

The Committee issued a statement saying that since August 1995, when Croatia carried out an aggression on the southern and northern parts of Krajina, the remaining Serb population has been systematically robbed and harrassed and their houses and other facilities mined.

The Croatian branch of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee recorded numerous incidents in the entire region of the former UN Protected Areas in the sectors north and south which included attacks on citizens, physical harrassament, the siezing of property both with the tacit approval of uniformed persons and with the active participation of the Croatian police.

The Committe gives the example of the village of Kricka near Drnis, in southwestern Krajina, but also other settlements, where Serb houses are first plundered and then mined. Even just bare walls are not spared. The Commitee's team visited Kricka and, at its intervention, electrical power was restored to the only house (Serb) without electricity there. The Committee said that, however in the night of March 28, the two-story house of their children in the same village was mined.

The Committee said that this represents an act of retribution and yet another attempt to prevent the normalization of the situation in Krajina and to prevent the return of Serbs to their ancestral lands.

[E] FROM FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC PRESS

[07] SPIEGEL WEEKLY ON BONN'S ERRONEOUS POLICY IN THE BALKANS

Analyzing what the former and current foreign ministers Hans Detrich Genscher and Klaus Kinkel had done in that part of Europe, Der Spiegel said that German diplomacy had failed in the Balkans and added that Bonn's policy lacked a clear concept even in 1991, since the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia.

Since the breaking out of hostilities in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, Chancellor Helmut Kohl never traveled to the crisis areas in the Balkans, Der Spiegel said in its commentary, adding that German Foreign Minister Kinkel only visited briefly Sarajevo, Zagreb and Mostar, but was not very successful.

Kinkel was especially shocked by the Croats, the paper said, when President Franjo Tudjman first promised Genscher and than avoided to ensure civil rights for Serbs in Croatia.

Der Spiegel explained Kinkel's disorientaion in the Balkan quagmire by the fact that he does not have a single advisor for the region.