Yugoslav Daily Survey 96-08-01

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From: Yugoslavia <http://www.yugoslavia.com>

CONTENTS

[01] PRESIDENT OF WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM THANKS YUGOSLAV PREMIER

[02] KRAJISNIK: ELECTIONS WILL FINALLY RESOLVE ISSUE OF SANCTIONS

[03] BOSNIAN SERBS OPPOSE IFOR BASE IN NORTHERN REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

[04] BILDT: MUCH REASON FOR CONCERN BUT ALSO OPTIMISM REGARDING BOSNIA

[05] KLEINER: 49 MUNICIPALITIES IN BOSNIA PARTITIONED

[06] CONTACT GROUP OF ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CALL FOR DISMANTLING HERCEG-BOSNA

[07] ALL WAR CRIMINALS MUST BE TRIED

[08] MINISTER SAYS REPUBLIKA SERBS CITIZENS CANNOT BE EXTRADITED

[09] BOSNIAN SERBS HAVE PROOF OF IZETBEGOVIC'S INVOLVEMENT IN WAR CRIMES

[10] RS GIVES HAGUE TRIBUNAL EVIDENCE ON WAR CRIMES AGAINST SERBS

[11] ZAGREB PROMISES TO DISMANTLE CROAT INSTITUTIONS IN BOSNIA

[12] SLOVENIA OFFICIALLY CONCEDES ILLICIT ARMS TRADE

[01] PRESIDENT OF WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM THANKS YUGOSLAV PREMIER

Your presence at the opening of the Session 'Central And Eastern Europe: On The Threshold Of A New Era' was highly important for the summit, marking Yugoslavia's key role in the region, Schwab said. The summit has allowed an intensive dialogue on regional issues and has been well greeted by political and business leaderships of the participating countries, Schwab said, adding that the presence of Yugoslav Prime Minister Radoje Kontic had been extremely important for a successful outcome of the summit.

[02] KRAJISNIK: ELECTIONS WILL FINALLY RESOLVE ISSUE OF SANCTIONS

Krajisnik said that the elections would also mean a general control or revision of present policy.

He highly spoke of Yugoslavia's efforts in helping refugees realize their right to vote and informing them about the importance of the elections for the rs. The registration of refugees and their voting is of paramount importance, Krajisnik said.

Speaking about difficulties in preparing elections, he warned that the Muslim-Croat Federation was allowed to have different election rules from the R.S. which was not in the interest of the R.S. That is a violation of the Dayton Agreement's provisions on elections, Krajisnik said.

[03] BOSNIAN SERBS OPPOSE IFOR BASE IN NORTHERN REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

Ninkovic said IFOR had decided to set up its base in Srpski Brod, a town in northern Republika Srpska near the border with Croatia, without authority from Republika Srpska. 'This is unnecessary, as IFOR's mandate is to separate the conflicting sides in Bosnia,' said Ninkovic and added that IFOR was attempting to set up a base between Republika Srpska and Croatia, which is not envisaged under the terms of the Dayton Peace Accords.

[04] BILDT: MUCH REASON FOR CONCERN BUT ALSO OPTIMISM REGARDING BOSNIA

Speaking at the talks and a subsequent press conference at U.N. Headquarters, Bildt said that the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina was gradually normalizing, which was confirmed by preparations for the September elections.

Bildt said he could see no scenario that would announce the straining of situation, which would require the presence of a strong international force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He said that reasons for the division between the three sides in Bosnia-Herzegovina had not been removed and that the international community would have to be present in Bosnia-Herzegovina to assist the political stabilization and restoration process.

Bildt said he did not believe that the Bosnia Peace Implementation Force should stay in Bosnia next year, but that International Civilian Police Force and some peacekeepers would be needed in Bosnia in future.

Bildt said that Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot be viewed apart from the political situation and normalization process in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans as a whole. In this context, Bildt criticized the behaviour of Croatian Authorities, both in Zagreb and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, regarding the situation in the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation.

[05] KLEINER: 49 MUNICIPALITIES IN BOSNIA PARTITIONED

The OSCE official said each side would have its own local electoral commission in the Sept. 14 elections.

Asked about the municipality of Brcko in the north of Republika Srpska, Kleiner said local authorities were negotiating about which parts of the municipality were to get provisional electoral commissions. He said the talks were not about who would get the town of Brcko but about the organizing of the elections.

[06] CONTACT GROUP OF ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CALL FOR DISMANTLING HERCEG-BOSNA

The Group, which aided Bosnian Muslims in money and arms during the war, expressed concern for the situation in Mostar.

Muslim Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic, who addressed the Conference in Geneva, called for an urgent dismantling of Herceg-Bosna. Muratovic said Herceg-Bosna was the cause of all problems in the Muslim-Croat Federation. He said the Federation would be able to function only if Herceg-Bosna was abolished.

[07] ALL WAR CRIMINALS MUST BE TRIED

Republika Srpska Justice Minister Marko Arsovic, who headed the delegation, told reporters in the Hague that the Republika Srpska delegation had visited the Hague in order to exchange views on cooperation with the Tribunal, an obligation it had undertaken under the Dayton Agreement.

The statement said that the trial of all war criminals was essential for the return of a legal state to Bosnia and restoration of lasting peace in the region.

The statement said that the Republika Srpska and the Tribunal had agreed that all parties to the conflict had committed crimes.

The Tribunal's Prosecutor pledged to investigate all evidence of responsibility of the Bosnian three sides' political and military leaders, the statement said.

[08] MINISTER SAYS REPUBLIKA SERBS CITIZENS CANNOT BE EXTRADITED

Arsovic, who headed the Republika Srpska delegation to the Hague in the past three days, described the visit to the Tribunal as very successful. Arsovic said that they had discussed possible cooperation, prosecution policy, Tribunal's biasness, extradition and other issues and that the final results of the talks were 'very favourable' to the Serb side.

'We have succeeded in convincing them that, according to the number of accused Serbs (54), Muslims (3) and Croats (18), the prosecution policy requested by their Prosecutor had not been objective so far and that mostly Serbs were tried. They convinced us that they were preparing trials against the other two parties to the conflict,' Arsovic said.

He said that a Hague Tribunal delegation would visit the northwestern Bosnian Serb town of Banjaluka next week and collect evidence on crimes against Serbs.

Arsovic said that this investigation would be aimed at collecting evidence against Croat and Muslim war crimes suspects.

[09] BOSNIAN SERBS HAVE PROOF OF IZETBEGOVIC'S INVOLVEMENT IN WAR CRIMES

Arsovic said that he had discussed in principle the problem of extradition of war crimes suspects in the Hague. He said that the Republika Srpska could not extradite its citizens, because its Constitution and relevant Penal Code banned it.

[10] RS GIVES HAGUE TRIBUNAL EVIDENCE ON WAR CRIMES AGAINST SERBS

The Belgrade paper Vecernje Novosti said on Tuesday that investigation had established so far that about 2,300 Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina had been the victims of war criminals - military and police forces of Bosnian Croats, Muslims and the Republic of Croatia. The International Tribunal for War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia has not reacted to the material evidence. it has only formed several 'cases' but has not launched an investigation or indicted anyone, R.S. Deputy Justice Minister Goran Neskovic told the Belgrade paper.

The first 'file' concerns Muslim Army Commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, who is suspected with his superiors and soldiers of having committed war crimes against Serbs in the broader area of that town in eastern Bosnia.

Although investigation on Serb victims in Sarajevo was made difficult by the fact that Muslims control the area, the R.S. War Crimes Commission has established that 120 Serbs had been slaughtered and buried at a dump in the suburb of Pofalici and that many others had been killed and buried in other areas of Sarajevo.

Neskovic particularly pointed to crimes against Serbs in the areas of Brod, Derventa and Odzak (northern Bosnia and near the border with Croatia) which prove that the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina did not start in April 1992 but a month earlier.

The first crimes against Serbs were carried out by Croatian forces in the village of Sijekovac, near Brod, on March 27-28.

No one has been indicted for the crimes against Serbs in Mrkonjic Grad, western Bosnia, although the Tribunal's pathologist attended the exhumation of a mass grave of 181 Serb soldiers and civilians. Most of them were put to death in a most brutal way after surrendering to the enemy or being captured.

The list of war criminals includes Bosnian Muslim leader and the leader of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Alija Izetbegovic, his Deputy Ejup Ganic, former Muslim Army Chief of Staff Sefer Halilovic and his Deputy Gen. Rasim Delic.

Neskovic particularly stressed that the involvement of regular Croatian Army in the Bosnian war and their crimes against Serbs had been determined beyond any doubt. They perpetrated crimes against Serbs in Brod, Kupres in April 1992 and in Glamoc, Petrovac, Jajce (western and central Bosnia) in the summer and fall of 1995.

There is evidence on Croatian air raids on refugee convoys in the Petrovac area. We have determined the number and identity of the victims, he said, adding that the military top of Croatia and President Franjo Tudjman were responsible for that crime.

[11] ZAGREB PROMISES TO DISMANTLE CROAT INSTITUTIONS IN BOSNIA

The 'Republic', proclaimed by Croats in 1992, would be transformed into a 'political community of Croat people,' said a statement issued after their talks with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.

The pressure on Zagreb and Bosnian Croats follow the latter's rejection of local elections in Mostar, a city divided between Muslims and Croats, and a threat by the E.U. that it would end its two-year administration of the city. Relations between the federal partners in the paper Federation, created in 1994 at the insistence of Washington, have been causing much anxiety for the future of the Dayton Peace Accords.

The statement said Croatia wanted a 'consistent implementation of the Washington and Dayton accords, above all agreement on strengthening the Federation and its connection with Croatia.'

Tudjman said Croatia played a constructive role in the implementation of the Agreement, but it would not 'allow those circles who wished to compromise Dayton to do so behind Croatia's back.' After the meeting with Ganic, Tudjman spoke over the telephone with Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic. The statement said Tudjman had contacted Izetbegovic after Ganic set out certain 'unilateral and unacceptable stands for Croats in Bosnia and Croatia.'

Steiner and U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith told Tudjman that the European Union and the United States demanded that the Croats in Mostar accept the results of the local elections so as not to set a precedent for Bosnia's elections in September. They said the EU ombudsman in Mostar had assessed the elections as fair and that the local administration should be set up on the basis of the election results. Steiner said the Muslims and Croats had earlier agreed on the decision of the ombudsman as being final and binding.

Steiner and Galbraith called on the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in Mostar to end the boycott and take part in setting up the city authorities. They asked the Croatian Government to influence the Bosnian Croats to solve the crisis in the city.

[12] SLOVENIA OFFICIALLY CONCEDES ILLICIT ARMS TRADE

Slovenia has thus officially conceded that it was violating the U.N. embargo on arms deliveries to the former Yugoslavia. The embargo was violated also by quite a few Western and Asian countries, with deliveries made to Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims.

According to the Government report, Slovenia also provided all-round logistics support to Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims.

The chief decisions on arms deliveries to Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims from or via Slovenia and across the so-called open border with Croatia were taken by the Slovenian Defense Council, headed by President Milan Kucan.

The Government report, based on data provided by the Interior Ministry and Security and Intelligence Services, specifies that arms were delivered to Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims for a battle 'against the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbs.'

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