Software Vault: The Diamond Collection

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Software Vault: The Diamond Collection / The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO / cdr16 / yugo0395.zip / BOSN9508.TXT next >

Wrap

Text File | 1995-03-09 | 66KB | 1,618 lines

----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e t - Mar. 1, 1995 ========================================== Document-Id: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1995/2/28/4.TEXT.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ ________ For Immediate Release February 28, 1995 PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER KOK OF THE NETHERLANDS Cross Hall 1:13 P.M. EST (...) Q Did you assure the Prime Minister that the U.S. would take part in any possible withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers from Croatia, if necessary? THE PRESIDENT: Croatia and what? Q Croatia with U.S. troops? Would U.S. troops help bring them out, if necessary? THE PRESIDENT: Let me, first of all, say, we did not discuss that explicitly. You know, the United States has -- I guess we ought to get this clear -- the United States has committed explicitly, and has a plan for helping on the troops in Bosnia. And one of the reasons that the Dutch have been so strong in believing we should not unilaterally lift the arms embargo is that they have troops in and around Srebrenica, I think -- PRIME MINISTER KOK: Right. THE PRESIDENT: And perhaps the most vulnerable of all of the United Nations troops are the Dutch. They have really been brave, they've stuck their necks out. They have prevented much more bloodshed and saved a lot of lives. And that's why they're against the unilateral lift of the arms embargo, because they know what could happen not only to their own troops, but if they are compelled to withdraw, what could happen in that fragile area. And we all remember it wasn't so long ago when that whole area was given up for lost, and now hasn't been. Now, we have gone through that. We're still doing our best to preserve the U.N. mission and presence in Croatia. We may not be able to persuade President Tudjman and his government to do that. We have, therefore, not articulated a clear position. Obviously, we feel a great obligation to all of our allies who are in UNPROFOR who are in vulnerable positions. But I want to say that we have not at this moment explicitly embraced a plan, consulted with the congressional leadership and ratified it. But, obviously, we are just as concerned about the U.N. forces in Croatia as those in Bosnia, but the decision-making process is at a different point. (...) END1:33 P.M. EST ************************************** Document-Id: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1995/2/28/2.TEXT.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ _______ For Immediate Release February 28, 1995 REMARKS OF PRESIDENT CLINTON AND PRIME MINISTER KOK OF THE NETHERLANDS IN PHOTO OPPORTUNITY The Oval Office 10:37 A.M. EST Q about U.N peacekeeping forces that may be in jeopardy because of the attitude of the Republican Party? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't agree with the attitude of the party with regard to the peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. And with regard to, at least some of what I've seen in the House of Representatives on peacekeeping generally. I believe the United States should participate in peacekeeping. I think we should pay our way. I think we should continue to be a strong force there. With regard to Bosnia, I think we should -- the United States should support the Contact Group and should support those countries that do have their soldiers on the ground and at risk there. And we have said, for example, if we had to withdraw -- if UNPROFOR collapsed, we would try to do our part to help people get out of Bosnia safely. But I think it would be a mistake for the United States to go off on its own and start making independent Bosnia policy. We don't have our soldiers there; the Europeans do have soldiers there; the Canadians have soldiers there. They have put their lives at risk. We have spent a lot of money in Bosnia and we have supported from air and sea and from our hospital in Croatia and a lot of other ways we've supported the operation of the U.N. in Bosnia. Q So you're with our Prime Minister and against the Republicans in this matter? THE PRESIDENT: That's correct. (...) END10:42 A.M. EST ============================================ OMRI DAILY DIGEST No. 44 2 March 1995 CROATIA STANDS FIRM ON UNPROFOR. The Croatian Defense and National Security Council met at the Presidential Palace on 1 March, Hina reports. An official statement on President Franjo Tudjman's decision to end UNPROFOR's mandate as of 31 March states: "The Council is determined to stick to the decision . . . The mandate will not be extended. As proof of its determination to achieve a peaceful solution and the reintegration of the occupied areas, Croatia is willing to accept the presence of international monitors on its internationally recognized borders with Serbia and Bosnia. Croatia will not accept a new UNPROFOR, or the deployment of any forces in the disengagement zone in Croatia [that is, along the current battle lines between Croatian and Krajina Serb forces]." Zagreb charges that the UN presence along those lines has served only to protect Serbian conquests. Novi list on 2 March quotes Chief of the General Staff General Janko Bobetko as saying that control of Croatia's borders with Serbia and Bosnia would "solve the crisis" in Zagreb's view. Nasa Borba, however, cites Defense Minister Gojko Susak as arguing that if a new war should break out, "the international community will not react if we work professionally and quickly, as our army is capable of doing." -- Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. "SOME OF THE WORST ETHNIC CLEANSING SINCE LAST YEAR." This is how a UN spokesman on 1 March summed up the expulsion from the Banja Luka area of 679 Muslims and Croats, whose houses were dynamited. Nasa Borba on 2 March reports that the Banja Luka Serbs also arrested six employees of the Muslim charity organization Merhamet. The Serbs had previously detained three other Merhamet workers elsewhere in Bosnia. UN officials on 1 March said that both government and Serbian forces are hindering movement of UN personnel. AFP added that for the first time, the Serbs have issued a blanket ban on all UN refugee agency convoys heading for Sarajevo. In other news, Vecernji list on 2 March reports that a large contingent of Zagreb doctors has arrived in Nova Bila, in central Bosnia. The historic monastery has a hospital that was all but destroyed in the fighting between Croats and Muslims in 1993, during which the Bosnian Croats often complained that Zagreb had abandoned them. -Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. CONTACT GROUP MEETS MILOSEVIC. Representatives of the international Contact Group met in Belgrade on 1 March with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. According to international news agencies, the purpose of the latest meeting was to secure Milosevic's backing for a peace plan and to sound out his views on the situation in the former Yugoslavia. Milosevic has been unwilling so far to endorse a plan whereby Belgrade would recognize Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against the rump Yugoslavia. According to a Reuters account, Contact Group delegates were tight-lipped after the meeting. Members of the group are slated to hold an emergency meeting in Paris on 2 March. -- Stan Markotich, OMRI, Inc. RUMP YUGOSLAV ARMY OFFICIAL SACKED. Tanjug on 1 March reported that Col. Ljubodrag Stojadinovic, head of the rump Yugoslav army's propaganda division, was dismissed the same day, following trial by military tribunal on charges of impugning the president and the military. According to Belgrade's independent Radio B 92, Stojadinovic's dismissal may have far-reaching consequences, signaling to other alleged proBosnian Serb nationalists that they, too, may be purged. -- Stan Markotich, OMRI, Inc. U.S. TO SEND MORE TROOPS TO MACEDONIA? The U.S. administration is considering sending more troops to Macedonia, the Baltimore Sun reported on 2 March. A senior administration official said 500 to 10,000 additional soldiers could be stationed there. Between 300 and 600 U.S. army soldiers have been part of the 1,100-strong UN peacekeeping force in Macedonia since 1993. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake told reporters on 1 March that sending additional troops to Macedonia is being considered because of the danger of a widening Balkan war. "Macedonia becomes extremely important because of its ethnic mix and because of Greece's interest in Macedonia," Lake was cited as saying. U.S. officials fear that a possible Serbian move against Macedonia may lead to a Balkan war involving neighboring countries. -- Stefan Krause, OMRI, Inc. PAKISTANI DEFENSE MINISTER IN BOSNIA AND ALBANIA. Aftab Shaaban Mirani, during his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1 March, celebrated the Bajram holiday with the 3,000 Pakistani UNPROFOR soldiers stationed there and met with President Alija Izetbegovic. He is to arrive in Albania on 3 March for a three-day visit, Gazeta Shqiptare reported the previous day. Mirani is scheduled to meet with Defense Minister Safet Zhulali and will also visit Croatia. Meanwhile, Albanian President Sali Berisha said Tirana is ready to improve relations with Greece, despite the recent killing of two illegal Albanian immigrants by Greek border guards, Reuters reported on 1 March. Greek Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias will visit Albania on 13 March. According to Deutsche Welle's Albanian-language service on 1 March, the Greek government is preparing a law to regulate migration from Albania to Greece. -- Fabian Schmidt, OMRI, Inc. ================================================== TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS Ref: C32L0151 Date: 03/02/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader) Time: 05:02pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE Bosnian Serbs started a crack down yesterday on Muslim relief workers and announced a halt to aid deliveries by truck to Sarajevo. Police officers in Banja Luka detained Nijaz Karaselimovic, the local head of a Muslim charity; the agency said it had no word on his whereabouts, or those of about 50 others working for the group. Relief workers said last week that Bosnian Serbs had expelled more than 300 Muslims from Banja Luka. A U.N. aircraft was hit by gunfire for the third time in five days yesterday, and Bosnian Serbs said that they would not allow land convoys into Sarajevo for a week beginning Sunday. The city has about three weeks' worth of food in warehouses. Talks on exchanging prisoners in northwestern Bosnia mediated by the I.C.R.C. collapsed yesterday. (A.P./N.Y.T.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e t - Mar. 2, 1995 ========================================== 1995/The Times Mirror Company Los Angeles Times February 28, 1995, Tuesday, Home Edition Next Step; A Rumor of Renewed War; Across a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone, Serbs and Croats eye each other suspiciously in the Krajina region. What will happen if the peacekeepers start withdrawing? BYLINE: SCOTT KRAFT; TIMES STAFF WRITER SECTION: WORLD REPORT; PAGE: 2 VOJNIC, Croatia -- In this mountain village deep inside territory internationally recognized as Croatian, the uniformed Serbian rebels are on war alert, smoking cigarettes over their coffee and talking tough. "If the Croats want war, they'll get war," said a Serbian corporal, raising his eyes to catch a glimpse of the subtitled, afternoon American movie on Bosnian Serb TV. "But this time we'll do it properly." Across a buffer zone monitored by U.N. troops, though, the Croatian government is ready to gamble that such words are mere bravado. "There's such an overexaggeration of the military power of the Serbian forces," said Zoran Bosnjak, an adviser to Croatia's foreign minister. "It's just incredible the way it's exaggerated." Talk like that, on both sides of the front line, has the world worried. The Croatian government is determined to follow through on its promise to order 12,000 U.N. troops to begin moving out by the end of March from the zone between the Croatian heartland and the mountainous one-third of its territory still held by rebel Serbs. If the U.N. troops leave, military analysts figure, both sides will rush to seize mountaintops, river crossings and other strategic points in the 1.2-mile-wide, U.N.-held zone. Weapons caches now under U.N. guard will be opened. And a 10-month-old cease-fire will be doomed. An expanded war, a war that could easily spread throughout the Balkans, will be a trigger-pull away. "If the U.N. leaves," a U.N. official says, "it will be like pouring gasoline on glowing embers." The road to Vojnic illustrates the situation. Leaving Croatia, population 4.7 million, one passes the Croatian border police checkpoint. A mile later is the first U.N. checkpoint and, then, the armed Serbian militiamen who control entry to the place they call the Republic of Serbian Krajina. In this "republic," abutting the western border of troubled Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbian population, estimated at 300,000, lives under its own national flag and uses its own currency. Yet the international community considers the Krajina, as the region is known, part of Croatia. But the cost of the Serbs' declaration of political independence is evident everywhere. The 1991 Serbo-Croatian war, fought over this soil, left many towns in rubble. Many of the homes and businesses belonged to Croatians, killed or forced to flee during the fighting. Water plants have been shut down. Electricity is rationed. Telephone calls to the outside world aren't possible, except for those few with cellular phones. Most of the factories are shut. The prices for everything from toilet paper to gasoline are twice those in Croatia. And war never seems very far away. From the weedy town square in Vojnic, population 13,500, the latest shelling of Bihac, about 30 miles away in Bosnia, can be heard. Few here want a renewal of the war, but they fear it is inevitable. If the United Nations leaves, they know the Croatian government will try to retake its soil, forcing the Krajinans to live under the Croatian flag. A negotiated solution would be possible, but the Krajina leaders have refused to talk unless the United Nations promises to stay. Jadranka Ivosevic,18, a college student who has grown to her maturity in this conflict, believes that re-integration of the Krajina into Croatia will never happen by negotiation for one practical reason: "All our men are considered war criminals in Croatia, and they can never just surrender." Ivosevic is studying to be a teacher, taking courses in a college woefully short of water--and teachers. Her father, who supported the family working as a locksmith, in a local factory, lost his job when war closed the factory. Now he, like 50,000 of the able-bodied men in the Krajina, is a soldier, earning just $15 a month. "I have a question for you," Ivosevic said to a foreign reporter. "Do you think the U.N. will withdraw?" It is the question on everyone's mind. The Croatian government says it would be willing to accept a different international deployment in this region, and the United Nations is trying to come up with some ideas. But U.N. troops standing between Croatia and the Krajina? Not a chance, Croatia says. The time has come to shake things up, the Croatian government thinks. High-ranking officials in the capital, Zagreb, believe that the U.N. presence has lulled the Krajina's leaders into a false sense of security, making them think that sovereign statehood is still an option. "The U.N. has been preserving a negative status quo," said Bosnjak, the Croatian Foreign Ministry official. "And we have to change some of the basic ingredients in this former Yugoslavian brew." Although Bosnjak says the Croatian government realizes a renewed war is possible, he doesn't consider it inevitable. "We will show a high degree of tolerance for small-scale provocations," he said. For many in the Krajina, the prospect of war, however distasteful, brings with it the hope of an end to their isolation. "This war will be the one that lasts until one of us capitulates," one Serbian soldier said. "This country of ours was difficult to create," said Milos Vucinic, secretary of the City Council here. "And now we're supposed to give it up to become second-class citizens in Croatia." Vucinic spoke in the City Hall, where stooped women carried satchels of firewood from office to office, replenishing the heating stoves. Behind him was a wall-sized map of the city and its many factories, now starved for lack of raw materials. A possible solution to the conflict was offered a few weeks ago in an initiative led by the U.S. and Russian ambassadors to Croatia. They drew up an autonomy plan that would allow the Krajina region substantial independence within Croatia, giving the Serbs here the ability to raise taxes and their own flag, among other things. The Croatian government accepted the plan as a basis for negotiations. But the Krajina Serbs refused to even look at it, demanding instead that the United Nations first agree to not withdraw. Now the Krajina Serbs are mobilizing for war. New trenches are being dug. Rifles are being cleaned. And reserve soldiers must have permission from their commanders to leave their towns. If there is a war, it will be much different from the 1991 war, analysts say. The Croatian government, whose army outmans the Krajina Serb army 2 to 1, has had three years to build up its arms. The rebels, though, remain well armed, and they recently signed a military cooperation agreement with the strong rebel army of Bosnian Serbs, formalizing a de facto alliance. Most analysts think the Croatian government is overestimating its military strength, though they acknowledge that government forces could win back at least some of the Krajina. The price in lives on both sides would be high, and Zagreb might even be the target of some shelling. But recent public opinion polls suggest that the Croatian people support their president, Franjo Tudjman, and are willing to run the risk of war. Tudjman "is a risk taker. He's gambling the Serbs won't attack, just like he did in 1991," said Ivo Banac, a Croatian intellectual and history professor at Yale. "He was wrong then, and he's wrong now." Meanwhile, U.N. officials in this part of the Krajina are nervously watching the Serbian military buildup. Before the latest rise in tensions, the United Nations had been heartened by the success of an economic agreement signed in December between Croatia and leaders of the Krajina. Thanks to that accord, an oil pipeline has reopened, cars with Croatian as well as Krajinan license plates are driving again on a U.N.-patrolled road in the Krajina, and one electrical generating plant is back on line. But talks to implement other parts of the accord have been suspended by the Krajina Serbs since mid-February, again in a bid to force the United Nations to remain. So far, the world body has taken no steps to withdraw, hoping to avoid doing anything that would panic the local population. When and if the withdrawal begins, probably with the help of North Atlantic Treaty Organization air power, U.N. officials think the Krajina Serbs might try to stop it by taking U.N. officials hostage or, in a more likely scenario, using women and children to block the roads. The United Nations hasn't always felt welcome here, of course. In the last two months, armed gangs have stolen 30 U.N. vehicles. The cars and trucks were repainted and driven around the region's small villages, obvious to everyone except, of course, the local police. The police started to act on U.N. complaints only when it appeared the forces might be leaving. "It's funny how things have changed," said James Kanu, the U.N. spokesman in Topusko, about 30 miles east of here. "A few weeks ago the people in the Krajina were saying we were useless. Now they're saying, 'Don't go.' " 1995/The Times Mirror Company ================================================= OMRI DAILY DIGEST No. 45 3 March 1995 A DEAL IN THE OFFING ON UNPROFOR IN CROATIA? The VOA, the BBC, and Reuters on 2 March all agreed that the chances are virtually zero that President Franjo Tudjman will reverse his decision to end UNPROFOR's mandate when it runs out on 31 March. It also appears unlikely that NATO or the WEU will accede to Tudjman's request to replace the international force on the front lines between Croatian troops and Serbian rebels with units of European or North American origin stationed on Croatia's internationally recognized borders with Serbia and Bosnia. Washington has now announced that Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke will go to Zagreb next week to explore alternatives. A Croatian Foreign Ministry official told Reuters that the Contact Group countries might supply border monitors and that this "would not require thousands...of troops. There are only about 20-25 important border crossing points that need to be monitored to prevent military interference from Bosnia or [rump] Yugoslavia." He made it clear, however, that such monitors could not be called UNPROFOR or be under UN control, since "Croatians now regard the UN banner as a symbol of international impotence and inertia in the face of the dismemberment of a UN member state by a rogue minority." Meanwhile in Belgrade, Nasa Borba on 3 March quotes Mihajlo Markovic, a top official in the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, as saying that "the Serbian people" could not sit idly by if Croatian troops massacred the Krajina Serb rebels. -- Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. IMPASSE IN BOSNIA. The Bosnian Serb leadership says it is trying to start direct talks with the Bosnian government, but the 3 March Los Angeles Times reports that the Muslims deny the story. The two sides differ over the substance of some recent remarks by President Alija Izetbegovic on the subject of possible negotiations. Finally, AFP said on 2 March that the Krajina Serbs have put a total ban on food convoys for the embattled town of Bihac, in northwestern Bosnia. -- Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. SERBIAN UPDATE. "It didn't sound like much... I didn't see any breakthrough," is how one unnamed US official in Washington summed up Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's counterproposals to recent Contact Group peace initiatives for the former Yugoslavia, Reuters reported. The remarks came in the wake of preliminary reports on the 2 March Contact Group talks in Paris. The same source added: "The problem is always the same. [Milosevic] wants more sanctions relief but he doesn't want to give anything in return for that. We can't accept that."-- Stan Markotich, OMRI, Inc. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e t - Mar .4 , 1995 ========================================== CHICAGO TRIBUNE Copyright Chicago Tribune 1995 DATE: Friday, March 3, 1995 PAGE: 31 SOURCE: Georgie Anne Geyer, Universal Press Syndicate. DATELINE: WASHINGTON U.S. MILITARY MUSCLE WEAKENS On my recent trip to the Middle East and Europe, nobody-not one person-asked me about the United States or the Clinton administration. New York Times columnist Flora Lewis found the same "bewildering" phenomenon in January at the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland. And this week, dramatized for the whole world to see, we can see why we are increasingly becoming, in Henry Kissinger's word, "irrelevant" as we move beyond the end of the Cold War toward the turn of the century. Point: In Somalia, where we sent troops in with such hope to end mass starvation 16 months ago, several thousand American troops were sent in again this week. Why? To fight to protect foreign policy interests? No, to escort UN troops out of that hopeless situation. (Meanwhile, even as the American troops began landing Monday, the vicious clan leaders of Somalia, backed up by their "technicals," waited outside the base to begin the war all over again.) Point: This same week, President Clinton announced it was likely he would send as many as 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Croatia and Bosnia this spring. Why? To punish the mass murderers of 200,000 people? To finally bring justice to that benighted region? No, if they go in this spring it will be to escort the UN troops out of that shameful chapter in history. (In Belgrade, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic rejected with ever more contempt Washington's most recent submission to him for a way to get it (not him) out of the situation. And Serb fighters were readying for a fourth spring of "ethnic cleansing," with perhaps a few attacks on the UN peacekeepers just for the hell of it.) Point: In Haiti, where American troops went last fall to return to power a democratically elected president, the main impression being given by our leaders is, not that the troops have done such a good job, but that we have to get them out as fast as possible, before anyone gets hurt. (And at the same time, the Ton Ton Macoutes and vicious "attaches," not having been disarmed, are waiting in the hills for everyone to leave.) In short, the picture we are giving to the world is that the United States' military doctrine is no longer, as the military always put it, "to seize, retain and exploit the initiative." No, today, we might better describe our purpose as to "try, fail, get out, and then get those other blokes out ." When the Clinton administration came in two years ago, advisers such as Anthony Lake reiterated that, yes, they knew they had been accidentally positioned by history to face this pregnant post-Cold War moment, similar to 1945. They said, don't be impatient; hey, it took time in 1945 to develop the Marshall Plan, NATO, the containment policy toward Russia. But the Clinton group not only has not come up with any policy toward this troubled world, but is completely stuck in its own passivity, contempt for American power and "therapeutic" attitude toward America's role in the world. Ten years from now, it would still have no policy for transforming the world except using the U.S. military as an itinerant police and rescue force. In short, the United States is indeed, as some of our generals have privately been warning, becoming self-neutralized. And so it is not any surprise that North Korea is calling Washington's bluff (the north has virtually backed down on taking a "safe" nuclear plant from South Korea. The administration's answer to that was to try to woo it further by calling off traditional war games with the south). It is no surprise that the Clinton administration continues to give the Russians more, and more, and more, no matter what they do. (At the moment, Russia is buoying up the Serbs, destroying Chechnya and tearing apart foreign oil deals with Moscow.) Meanwhile, the U.S. military is developing "flexible responses," the idea being to develop original ways to deal with ethnic wars, militias and street gangs. This is good, but . . . When American troops went into Somalia again this week, this time they were armed not only with guns, but with an unorthodox arsenal of wooden bullets, bean bag guns whose ammunition slaps the skin but doesn't penetrate it, and a sticky foam that literally glues adversaries to the ground. One might be forgiven for thinking sardonically of all the world's bad guys glued to the ground as we sailed away (the glue comes off only with a special American solution). Yet the situation is in truth even odder than that. "I think the whole nature of warfare is changing," Lt. Gen. Anthony C. Zimmi, commander of this new Somalia operation, said this week. "The military probably shouldn't fight it." Am I wrong in thinking that those incredible words could be a sister quote to Vietnam's "It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it"? --------------------------------------------- LA TIMES SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina--3/03/95 PURSUIT OF PEACE By TYLER MARSHALL, Times Staff Writer The Bosnian Serb leadership is seeking direct talks with the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to end the country's 3-year-old war, but their overtures have so far been rebuffed, authorities here say. The move comes after the Bosnian Serbs rejected the latest in a series of international diplomatic peace proposals and amid growing signs that renewed fighting could erupt on a large scale after the current four-month cease-fire, which is due to end May 1. In an interview Tuesday in the Bosnian Serb mountain stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo, Nikola Koljevic, the self-styled vice president of the rebel Bosnian Serb government, said he had already had preliminary contacts with members of the Muslim-led Bosnian government. "I'm trying to establish a cooperative relationship with influential Muslims at present," he said. "I think direct talks can help more to accelerate a final agreement. It will be much clearer in direct contact whether someone wants peace or war." He said the idea of direct negotiations came from Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic last week and that Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic agreed the next day, placing a 15-day deadline for a substantive response on how to move forward. But senior government officials here told a different story. Hassan Muratovic, a Bosnian government minister who has met with Koljevic in connection with cease-fire arrangements, Thursday denied that Izetbegovic had made any offer and rejected any prospect of direct talks. "We will never negotiate with them directly," he said. "The vehicle for a settlement remains the Contact Group plan. There is nothing better possible. We remain committed to it." That plan, drawn up by the Contact Group's five member states-Britain, Germany, France, Russia and the United States--calls for dividing the country geographically into a federation that would give 51% of the land to Muslims and Croats and 49% to minority Serbs. Bosnian Serb forces control about 70% of the country. The Bosnian Serb rejection of that plan, coupled with the apparent failure of the Contact Group to enlist Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to pressure his Bosnian Serb allies, appears to have exhausted diplomatic efforts to end the fighting. High-level contacts between Bosnian Serbs and members of the Bosnian government have occurred almost from the war's beginning but are not known to have ever turned into negotiations. While Koljevic did not elaborate on his recent contacts, he has participated in "airport talks," periodic meetings conducted since last December between Bosnian Serb and Bosnian government representatives at Sarajevo airport to establish and regulate the present cease-fire. Occasional Bosnian Serb-Bosnian government contacts also took place at the airport before the cease-fire. One diplomat also reported recent instances of high-level Bosnian Serbs contacting old Muslim acquaintances in Sarajevo in an attempt to start a dialogue. This diplomat and other analysts said the Bosnian Serbs believe that they now have as much of the country as they can hold, have given up trying to take Sarajevo and would like to negotiate a peace before the Bosnian government forces gain more strength. As a rebel group, they would also win credibility and status through direct talks with the internationally recognized Bosnian government. In his interview, Koljevic said negotiations should begin from a single starting point--assuring that, whatever the geographical division, both Serbian-controlled Bosnia and Muslim-Croat Bosnia would be "viable political entities." "We have a chance to make a geographical solution," he said. "Outsiders don't understand this." At the heart of such a solution, he said, is that a Muslim-Croat state would be guaranteed access to the sea in return for providing the Bosnian Serbs a corridor at least 10 miles wide connecting the two sections of Bosnia now controlled by the Bosnian Serbs. Meantime, on Thursday, five bullets pierced a U.N. plane on Sarajevo's runway--the fourth plane hit in six days. Bosnian Serbs also revoked permission for food shipments to reach Muslims in northwest Bosnia and harassed a Muslim charity, the Associated Press reported. Los Angeles Times ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e t - Mar. 3 - 4, 1995 ========================================== FRONTLINES, Bosnia and Herzegovina SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina Mar 2 More than 800 detonations were recorded by UN forces Wednesday along front-lines south and southeast of Velika Kladusa, and 342 blasts Thursday morning. Several people were seriously injured. Radio of Bosnia and Herzegovian also reported artillery and infantry attacks near Velika Kladusa and Bosanska Krupa area in the enclave. In central Bosnia, 15 people were injured on Wednesday night when the town of Travnik came under heavy shelling. One person was killed and another wounded by sniper fire in the Sarajevo suburb of Butmir on Thursday, Sarajevo radio reported. The radio said the shots were fired from separatist Serb positions in the early afternoon. UN military observers were barred from investigating a mortar suspected to be in the part of a southern Sarajevo suburb Dobrinja which is under control of separatist Serbs, in violation of an existing exclusion zone. The same applies to four other heavy weapons believed in Serb-held Rajlovac north of the capital. A UN cargo plane Ilyushin-76 was hit by five rounds of small arms fire while taking off from Sarajevo airport on Thursday, forcing the suspension of military and relief flights, but UN officials said they hoped to reopen the airport on Friday. 19 flights were scheduled for Friday, including 15 planes participating in the airlift. Situation in Bihac -- Evacuation From Gorazde SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mar 1) Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the UNHCR in Sarajevo, said permission for desperately needed aid convoys to cross Croatian Serb-held territory and reach the besieged Bihac pocket had been canceled by Serb authorities. A resupply convoy for the UN Bangladeshi battalion was unable to enter the pocket due to fighting Wednesday and had to turn back to Zagreb, said Chris Gunnes, a UN spokesman in Zagreb. Aid convoys scheduled to leave Zagreb, the Croatian capital, Thursday and Friday have been called off. Meantime, Tuesday's food convoy, which has been stranded close to Croat-Bosnian border for two days, will return to Zagreb, Janowski said. Only one convoy, carrying around 90 tons of food reached Bihac this week. UN spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward said Thursday that separatist Serbs did not allow a high-level UN military visit to the eastern enclave of Zepa on Wednesday. Red Cross officials in Sarajevo said separatist Serbs have failed for four weeks to give the go-ahead for a relief convoy from Zenica to go to Sarajevo. A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that a key reason for cancelling all UNHCR convoys to Sarajevo next week was the separatist Serbs' demand for an increased share in aid. They currently receive about one-quarter of the total. United Nations armoured vehicles ferried 62 Moslems from the Bosnian enclave of Gorazde to Sarajevo on Wednesday as part of an evacuation aimed at reuniting families and providing special medical treatment. It was the second such operation the Bosnian government and Serb forces had agreed on since the current ceasefire accord took effect. UN officials referred to the operation as a medical and "social" evacuation as half of the group had requested to leave so they could join family members in Sarajevo. About 31 Serbs were also scheduled to be evacuated from Gorazde to nearby Serb-held territory on Wednesday, UN officials said. Izetbegovic speech on the Day of Bosnia independence SARAJEVO, March 1 Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic declared on Wednesday that Bosnia, ravaged by nearly three years of bitter and costly war, had been right to choose freedom over subservience to Belgrade. "We are confronting intolerance and hate with democracy and tolerance," said Izetbegovic, speaking at a ceremony marking March 1 as the country's date of independence. Serbia's drive to carve out a unified Serb state out of former Yugoslavia made war inevitable, even if Bosnia had remained within the federation, said Izetbegovic. If Bosnians had chosen to remain under Belgrade's government, they would be suffering and dying "on some other front lines against Croatia, Sandzak and Kosovo for the glory and greatness of Serbia." Izetbegovic called on Bosnians to defend the principle of a pluralistic state against their enemies who insist on "one- national, one-religious and one-party states." "By defending this principle...which makes civilisation possible, we shall be stronger every day and we shall save and preserve Bosnia," he said. "Every nation has its promised land. Our promised land is Bosnia. I call upon you to fight for it." USA names arbitrator for Bosnian Federation Washington, United States (Mar 2) The United States Thursday announced the appointment of a top international lawyer to arbitrate growing disputes within the Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia. The arbitrator, Roberts Owen, was State Department legal adviser during the Jimmy Carter administration in the late 1970s and negotiated the Algiers accords which resolved the 1979-81 crisis over USA diplomats held hostage in Iran. The appointment of Owen stemmed from a nine-point plan to shore up the federation agreed on by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, who mediated between the Muslims and Croats in Munich last month. The State Department said in a statement that Owen would be able to decide all matters referred to him by either side and his decisions would be binding on the parties and based on federation agreements, its constitution and "equitable principles". Holbrooke said he was still looking for a military expert to advise the federation and was also considering other ways to strengthen the federation, which has been seen as a potential anchor of stability in a Balkan crisis that officials fear is near to spinning out of control. Allied defence ministers to discuss Yugoslavia WASHINGTON, March 2 Defence Department spokesman Ken Bacon said that the situation in both war-torn Bosnia and in Croatia, where the government has ordered UN officials and peacekeeping troops to leave, would be discussed on the meeting of the USA, British, French and German defence ministers. A meeting begins on Friday. The brief Pentagon statement said that Defence Ministers Malcolm Rifkind of Britain, Francois Leotard of France and Volker Ruehe of Germany were visiting the United States as guests of USA Defence Secretary William Perry. Ghali: UN troops in Bosnia will have to go VIENNA, Austria (2 Mar) The UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested Thursday that peacekeepers in Bosnia would have to go if neighboring Croatia makes good on its threat to expel UN troops. Ghali, in Vienna for a seminar on UN peacekeeping, linked the continued presence of peacekeepers in neighboring Bosnia to Croatia's decision. He said it would be extremely difficult to supply and maintain links to UN troops in Bosnia if peacekeepers left Croatia and war flared there again. The USA is sending a high-level official to Croatia next week in another effort to convince Tudjman to revoke his decision, and British officials said other members of the Contact Group may go along too. "One of the things the Contact Group will agree is further action next week with Croatia, to get across the determination of the international community to keep UNPROFOR in Croatia," a British official said. Milosevic rejects peace-plan again WASHINGTON, March 2 The major power envoys comprising Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States met in the French capital on Thursday for what some officials have said is a make-or-break attempt to salvage their Yugoslavia peace plan following its rejection by Serbia. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said before the meeting took place that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had indicated he would make some counter-proposals, and that these would be discussed at the Thursday meeting. He also said the group's latest peace initiative was crucial because he feared arms shipments into Bosnia could lead to new fighting should diplomacy fail. But counterproposals by Milosevic to a major powers' peace plan for former Yugoslavia appear to be inadequate, a USA official said on Thursday. "It didn't sound like much...I didn't see any breakthrough," the official told Reuters after receiving a preliminary report of a meeting in Paris of 'contact group' representatives. More US troops in Macedonia WASHINGTON (2 Mar) The United States would consider bolstering its small force in Macedonia if UN peacekeepers are removed from Croatia, Pentagon officials said Thursday. Kenneth Bacon, Pentagon spokesman, said adding to the USA 500-member peacekeeping contingent is "on the table as a possibility at this stage." He declined to specify how many troops might be added and stressed that no decision to reinforce the USA presence has been made. He said the Clinton administration's goal is to get Croatia to allow the UN peacekeepers to remain. But a senior Pentagon official said Clinton administration officials are looking at the possibility of putting an entire NATO-led division in Macedonia. "We would only contribute about a third of that -a brigade," said the official, meaning about 3,000 soldiers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e t - Mar. 5, 1995 ========================================== THE NEW REPUBLIC "In Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Somalia, in Chechnya--the UN played a negative role or no role at all. In Bosnia especially, peacemaking has looked more and more like a kind of passive warmaking, and the reputation of the United Nations has forever been tarnished by it." 03/13/95 WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS A great debate on foreign policy is taking place in Washington, but it is not the debate that Washington thinks is taking place. The occasion is the passage by the House of the National Security Revitalization Act, which proposes to make into law the provisions of the Contract with America that treat America's duties beyond America's borders, with the objective of diminishing or denying those duties. "We don't want to be the patsy of the world anymore," Representative Dana Rohrabacher thoughtfully observed about the role that the United States has played in the world for the past half-century. "The nation has gone too far in the direction of globalism," Representative Dick Armey warned, "and we intend to correct that." The correction takes the form of congressional interference in the president's ability to place the troops of the United States under the command of the United Nations. For the Republicans, American participation in u.n. peacekeeping forces embodies the globalism that they despise. Their bill requires the administration to charge the United Nations for the costs of American support of its peacekeeping missions. Last year such costs (for the transportation of troops and equipment, for example) came to $1.7 billion. The National Security Revitalization Act, in short, is designed to make peacekeeping impossible by bankrupting it. The president and the secretary of state and the secretary of defense are all outraged, and are lobbying hard and threatening a veto. They believe that they are fighting the good fight, beating back the Republican tradition of isolationism in the name of the Democratic tradition of internationalism. They are half right. The Republicans (look who suddenly insist on micromanaging foreign policy from the Hill!) are indeed interested in an American withdrawal from the world. And there have been conflicts in the world in which u.n. peacekeeping missions have played positive roles: in Mozambique, in Guatemala, in Angola, in Macedonia. And yet the administration's enthusiasm for the peacekeepers from Turtle Bay is not altogether supportable. In those conflicts of the post-cold war world that are most representative of the post-cold war world--in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Somalia, in Chechnya--the u.n. played a negative role or no role at all. In Bosnia especially, peacemaking has looked more and more like a kind of passive warmaking, and the reputation of the United Nations has forever been tarnished by it. The falsity of the administration's opposition to the Republican bill does not end there. For Clinton agrees with Gingrich that the United Nations is the perfect symbol and the perfect instrument of globalism. The foreign policy of the Clinton administration has been largely a long, fitful, callow and occasionally dishonest subordination of the authority of the United States to the authority of the United Nations. It has called this multilateralism, when in truth it is a usurpation of American power--and this at a time when American power is just about all the power that is left to restrain, by its use or by the sincere threat of its use, the tribalisms and the authoritarianisms that are wreaking havoc in the world, and in some places wreaking genocide. For this administration, it is a matter of principle for America not to lead. So this is the debate that is taking place: the Republicans want the United States out of the United Nations because they do not want to project American power abroad, and the Democrats want the United States in the United Nations because they do not want to project American power abroad. In Washington, in 1995, there are no internationalists. The Republican assault on internationalism would be mischievous anytime. But turn inward, while Clinton is president? They really must be mad. ----------------------------------------------------- 03/05:EDITORIAL: SOMALIA MISSION FORCES MILITARY TO RETHINK STRATEGY By ERIC SCHMITT The Somalia experience hardened the Pentagon's opposition to sending troops on relief or peacekeeping missions unless the American forces had strict control or just a bit part. In Bosnia, Washington may commit American troops only to assisting a possible withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers, still considered a highly dangerous mission. c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The world's armed mission to aid Somalia came to an end on Friday when 1,800 marines steamed away from Mogadishu after one last firefight with the populace that previous American forces had come to help. But even before the departure of the U.N. troops and their American escort, the 26-month intervention had forced a new approach to the kinds of missions the U.S. military is likely to face in years to come. Indeed, a 12-hour battle in the streets of Mogadishu that left 18 Army soldiers dead in October 1993 - one that involved only a few hundred combatants on all sides - has in many respects had a bigger impact on military thinking than the entire 1991 Persian Gulf war. The most obvious result was the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia in March 1994, although the marines returned this week as promised to help with the U.N. pullout. More broadly, the operation forced the United States to adopt clearer rules for American participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions. It also encouraged the armed forces to develop new doctrines and tactics for the kinds of small-scale peace-enforcement and aid missions that American troops may be asked to join in the years ahead. Outside the administration, Somalia stoked increased hostility toward the United Nations in the Republican-controlled Congress and reinforced public pressure for a goal that many in the military consider unrealistic: casualty-free missions. "We learned a lot from that painful experience," Secretary of State Warren Christopher told a House subcommittee this week. The impact of Somalia can be traced through the missions that followed. The United States assisted the U.N. relief effort in Rwanda last summer, but only after Defense Secretary William J. Perry tightly circumscribed the military's role. The American-led military landing in Haiti last fall to restore the country's exiled president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was governed by an extraordinarily detailed plan with a firm exit date for the American troops. Within the administration, the Somalia operation is not considered a complete failure. The operation saved at least 110,000 lives - and by some estimates up to 250,000 - by distributing food in an East African nation devastated by famine and strife. "We leave the country in a lot better shape than we went in," Christopher said. Pentagon officials are proud of the efficiency with which its forces carried out that early mission - pacifying the country and distributing food. But those limited goals later gave way to a broader attempt under United Nations commanders at "nation building" that led to clashes between foreign troops and Somali militia leaders, like the firefight that killed the Army Rangers. That experience hardened the Pentagon's opposition to sending troops on relief or peacekeeping missions unless the American forces had strict control or just a bit part. In Bosnia, Washington may commit American troops only to assisting a possible withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers, still considered a highly dangerous mission. While the Pentagon is dedicated to its strategy of fighting and winning two regional wars virtually at once, military officials complain that policy makers are committing troops to too many "operations other than war," like Haiti and Somalia. "Yes, it is a new world order and, yes, we need to engage in it, but there also need to be limitations," said a senior Defense Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Madeleine and Tony feel we should get involved in many more things than this building thinks," the Pentagon official continued, referring to Madeleine K. Albright, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, and Anthony Lake, the president's national security adviser. "Frankly, they would embroil us in many things we shouldn't be involved in." But Ms. Albright dismisses the Pentagon's caution. She contends that a new peacekeeping policy adopted last year aims not only to clarify the United States role in such missions, but to strengthen U.N. operations so the United States does not have to be the "911 force" for the world. "We now insist that tough questions about the cost, size, risk, mandate and duration of a peacekeeping mission be asked and answered satisfactorily before one is started and renewed," Ms. Albright told reporters last month. "That policy has resulted in fewer and smaller new operations, and better management of existing ones." But the Pentagon's reluctance is expressed even more strongly by the new Republican Congress. "Our armed forces didn't join to die for the United Nations," Rep. Jon Christensen, a Nebraska Republican, said during the House debate last month on the foreign-policy tenets of his party's legislative program. Some democrats, like Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. of Ohio, agreed. "The American public is fed up that Uncle Sam is called on to be the world's policeman," he said. ======================================================= TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS Ref: C33P2045 Date: 03/03/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader) Time: 08:34pm \/To: ALL (Read 21 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE An Il-76 chartered by the U.N. that was parked at Sarajevo Airport yesterday was pierced by five bullets. Flights to and from the airport have been suspended. The Bosnian Serbs revoked permission for aid convoys to travel to Bihac yesterday. Convoys from Zagreb yesterday and today were called off, and a convoy stranded for two days was called back. One convoy reached Bihac this week with 90 tons of food. (A.P./N.Y.T.) ============================================== OMRI DAILY DIGEST No. 47, Part II, 7 March 1995 This is Part II of the Open Media Research Institute's Daily Digest. Part II is a compilation of news concerning East-Central and Southeastern Europe. Part I, covering Russia, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and the CIS, is distributed simultaneously as a second document. CROATIA AND BOSNIA SET UP JOINT MILITARY COMMAND. International media on 7 March reported that the governments of Croatia and the Croatian-Muslim federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced a new military alliance the previous day. It is not clear whether this is a concrete measure or one of mainly symbolic value, but it comes three weeks after the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia took a similar step. The Boston Globe notes that Croatian Television ran the story about the Croatian-Muslim command in its 6 March newscast right behind one on talks between US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke and President Franjo Tudjman. The media speculated that Holbrooke had wanted to present new ideas to Tudjman on possible ways to extend UNPROFOR's mandate in Croatia, but Croatian sources later said that the two men talked only about what would happen when the peacekeepers left. In any event, Croatian Chiefof-Staff General Janko Bobetko's announcement that the joint command will "defend the Croatian-Muslim federation" is one more sign that a renewed conflict in the area may be in the offing. -- Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. MLADIC SAYS UNPROFOR MUST LEAVE BOSNIA IF IT LEAVES CROATIA. Bosnian Serb commander General Ratko Mladic said on 6 March that the peacekeepers are not welcome in that republic if Tudjman evicts them from Croatia, the BBC reported. Meanwhile in Brussels, the EU foreign ministers endorsed a British and French proposal to link talks with Zagreb on a future cooperation agreement to Tudjman's allowing UNPROFOR to stay. Germany, Austria, and the EU Commission had wanted to start talks without reference to UNPROFOR, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 7 March. In Bosnia itself, Vjesnik reported that Pale has levied a monthly per capita tax of about DM 200 on Bosnian Serbs working abroad. All sides in the former Yugoslavia have regularly "passed the hat" among the guest workers. And in London, Bosnian Foreign Minister Irfan Ljubijancic told the BBC that the West is wasting its time making political offers to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, because "the only language he understands is force." Nasa Borba adds that the minister warned that an expanded war is approaching. -- Patrick Moore, OMRI, Inc. CONTACT GROUP TO RESUME MEETINGS ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. Nasa Borba on 7 March reported that representatives of the international Contact Group will resume talks in Paris the same day in what appears to be a renewed bid to avert a new war in the former Yugoslavia. One unnamed British official, quoted by Reuters, summed up the mood by observing "The clock is ticking. . . . It's a question of getting all hands on deck." Meanwhile, a report by Thorvald Stoltenberg and Lord Owen states that the international sanctions monitoring team stationed along the SerbianBosnian border is running out of funds, which may force the operation to close down. -- Stan Markotich, OMRI, Inc. --- [As of 12:00 CET] Compiled by Jan Cleave The OMRI Daily Digest offers the latest news from the former Soviet Union and East-Central and Southeastern Europe. It is published Monday through Friday by the Open Media Research Institute. The Daily Digest is distributed electronically via the OMRI-L list. To subscribe, send "SUBSCRIBE OMRI-L YourFirstName YourLastName" (without the quotation marks and inserting your name where shown) to LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU No subject line or other text should be included. The publication can also be obtained for a fee in printed form by fax and postal mail. Please direct inquiries to: Editor, Daily Digest, OMRI, Na Strzi 63, 14062 Prague 4, Czech Republic or send e-mail to: omripub@omri.cz Telephone: (42 2) 6114 2114 Fax: (42 2) 426 396 Vladimir Vuksan vuksan@unm.edu --- ============================================ DATE= TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT NUMBER=2-175170 TITLE=HUNGARY / CROATIA (S-O) BYLINE=STEFAN BOS DATELINE=BUDAPEST CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS HAS WARNED FOR AN UNPRECEDENTED REFUGEE CRISIS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA WHEN U-N PEACE KEEPERS PLAN TO WITHDRAW FROM CROATIA ON MARCH 31ST. STEFAN BOS REPORTS FROM BUDAPEST THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE AT A CONFERENCE WITH DELEGATIONS FROM RED CROSS ORGANIZATIONS AND DONOR COUNTRIES. TEXT: A SPOKESMAN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS FEDERATION, ENCHO GOSPODINOV, SAYS AN ESTIMATED 200-THOUSAND NEW REFUGEES ARE EXPECTED TO CROSS INTO NEIGHBORING SLOVENIA IF U-N PEACE KEEPERS LEAVE CROATIA. HE ALSO EXPECTS THOUSANDS OF REFUGEES WILL TRY TO MAKE THEIR WAY INTO HUNGARY WHERE ALREADY MORE THAN SEVEN-THOUSAND MAINLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIND SHELTER BY HUNGARIAN FAMILIES. MR. GOSPODINOV SAYS THE WITHDRAWAL OF U-N PEACE KEEPERS MIGHT LEAD TO ALL OUT WAR. /// GOSPODINOV ACT. /// WE STILL HOPE THAT A CONFLICT CAN BE AVOIDED. BUT I CAN TELL YOU THAT TODAY, IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM WHERE WE HAD DISCUSSED THE SITUATION, THERE WERE NOT TOO MANY OPTIMISTS. /// END GOSPODINOV ACT. /// RED CROSS ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE REGION ARE LOOKING FOR SPONSORS TO ADOPT NEW REFUGEES. MR. GOSPODINOV SAYS SO FAR, RED CROSS OFFICIALS WERE NOT SUCCESSFUL IN CONVINCING THE CROATIAN GOVERNMENT TO EXTEND THE U-N MANDATE. (SIGNED) NEB / SB / BD-T/PT 07-Mar-95 8:33 PM EST (0133 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America ========================================= DATE=3/8/95 TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT NUMBER=5-19840 TITLE=BOSNIA FRONTLINE BYLINE=DOUGLAS ROBERTS DATELINE=SOKOLJE, BOSNIA CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: BOSNIA'S MUSLIM-DOMINATED GOVERNMENT IS IN THE MIDST OF A MAJOR PROGRAM TO REORGANIZE THE COUNTRY'S ARMED FORCES, IN ANTICIPATION OF ANOTHER ROUND OF FIGHTING AGAINST SERB FORCES IN A FEW WEEKS' TIME. BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT LEADERS SAY THEY ARE TRYING TO FASHION A CLASSICAL ARMY FROM A COLLECTION OF LOCAL MILITIA GROUPS. BUT DESPITE THE REORGANIZATION, THE MILITARY REMAINS VERY MUCH A CITIZENS' ARMY. V-O-A'S DOUGLAS ROBERTS REPORTS FROM THE VILLAGE OF SOKOLJE, IN THE HILLS NEAR SARAJEVO. TEXT: THEY SIT AROUND A WOODEN TABLE IN A MAKESHIFT COMMAND POST-- FOUR MEN AND A WOMAN FROM THE BOSNIAN ARMY'S SECOND BRIGADE, ASSIGNED TO DEFEND THIS FRONTLINE VILLAGE. ONE WAS A CONSTRUCTION WORKER BEFORE THE WAR. ANOTHER WAS EMPLOYED AT A FOOD-PROCESSING FACTORY IN WHAT IS NOW A SERB-HELD DISTRICT OF SARAJEVO. MINA IS THE YOUNGEST. BARELY OUT OF HER TEENS, SHE WORKS PART-TIME IN THE BRIGADE'S KITCHEN, WHILE CONTINUING HER UNIVERSITY STUDIES. A BURLY MAN IN HIS MID-50'S, SALKO KULOVATS, IS THE OLDEST. A FORMER VILLAGE COUNCIL LEADER, HE HAS SEEN BOTH HIS PARENTS, HIS SISTER, AND HIS SON KILLED DURING THE THREE YEARS OF WAR HERE. THE CONSTRUCTION WORKER, NOKTO ZIAD, HAS FOUGHT IN SOKOLJE FROM THE BEGINNING. /// ZIAD ACT -- IN SERBO-CROATIAN /// TWICE, HE HAS BEEN WOUNDED. HE LIFTS HIS SHIRT TO REVEAL THE SCAR FROM A SNIPER'S BULLET THAT PASSED WITHIN CENTIMETERS OF HIS HEART. HE FIRST WENT INTO COMBAT, DRESSED IN CIVILIAN CLOTHES AND CARRYING A HOME-MADE RIFLE. AN EXHIBIT AT THE SECOND BRIGADE'S SMALL MUSEUM FOCUSES ON THE ARTISANAL NATURE OF THE BOSNIAN ARMY'S WEAPONRY WHEN THE WAR BEGAN -- SHOTGUNS FASHIONED FROM STEEL PIPES, MOLOTOV COCKTAILS MADE FROM JUICE AND OLIVE OIL CANS. NOKTO ZIAD CARRIES A MACHINEGUN NOW, CAPTURED, HE SAYS, FROM A SERB SOLDIER. HE HAS RECENTLY BEEN ISSUED AN ARMY UNIFORM. AS THE WAR MOVES INTO ITS FOURTH YEAR, THERE IS NO DOUBT THE BOSNIAN ARMY IS BETTER EQUIPPED. WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION ARE GETTING IN, DESPITE THE U-N ARMS EMBARGO. SECOND BRIGADE COMMANDERS ARE RELUCTANT TO DISCUSS THE ISSUE. BUT, SAYS ONE OFFICER HERE, WE HAVE ENOUGH ARMS NOW. BUT OTHER RESOURCES ARE STILL LACKING. SOLDIERS ARE PAID IN CIGARETTES -- 30 PACKS A MONTH -- ALONG WITH IRREGULAR SUPPLIES OF FLOUR, VEGETABLE OIL, AND CANNED GOODS. NOKTO ZIAD'S WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN ARE LARGELY DEPENDENT ON HUMANITARIAN AID. SOMETIMES THEY JOIN HIM FOR MEALS AT THE SECOND BRIGADE'S MESS -- WITH ONLY BEANS, RICE, PASTA, AND BREAD AMONG THE ITEMS BEING OFFERED. THE ONLY MEAT WE SEE, HE SAYS WITH A WRY GRIN, IS IN MAGAZINE PICTURES. NOKTO ZIAD MANS AN OBSERVATION POST ON THE EDGE OF THIS HILLTOP VILLAGE, WATCHING THE MOVEMENTS OF SERB FORCES DUG IN BARELY 200 METERS AWAY. IT IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF THE VILLAGE, SOKOLJE. IT SITS ASTRIDE A ROAD LEADING FROM SARAJEVO TO MOUNT ZUC, ONE OF THE PEAKS THAT COMMANDS ACCESS TO THE CAPITAL. THE SOLDIERS OF THE SECOND BRIGADE HAVE FOUGHT OFF SEVERAL TANK-LED SERB OFFENSIVES HERE. THE VILLAGE HAS BEEN DUBBED THE SETTLEMENT OF HEROES. ONCE THE SERBS PENETRATED ABOUT 500 METERS INSIDE SOKOLJE. EVERY BUILDING BEARS THE SCARS OF BATTLE. MANY HOMES HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO RUBBLE. ALTHOUGH THERE HAVE BEEN NO MAJOR BATTLES HERE OVER THE PAST YEAR, SNIPER FIRE IS A CONSTANT THREAT. AND THE VILLAGERS HAVE DEVISED A NOVEL USE FOR THE UBIQUITOUS PLASTIC SHEETING SUPPLIED BY THE U-N'S REFUGEE AGENCY. INSTEAD OF USING IT TO REPLACE SHATTERED WINDOWS, HERE THE STRIPS OF PLASTIC ARE STRUNG UP ALONG THE ROADSIDE FACING SERB POSITIONS, TO SPOIL THE AIM OF THE SNIPERS IN THEIR TRENCHES BELOW. THE COMBATANTS HERE TRADE MORE THAN GUNFIRE. SAYS NOKTO ZIAD, SOMETIMES WE SHOUT INSULTS AT EACH OTHER, AND SOMETIMES THE SERBS EVEN INVITE US FOR CIGARETTES AND COFFEE. THE INVITATIONS ARE RARELY, IF EVER, ACCEPTED. BEFORE THE WAR, SERBS MADE UP ABOUT SEVEN PERCENT OF SOKOLJE'S POPULATION. AND NOKTO ZIAD SAYS MOST WOULD BE WELCOME TO RETURN -- AS LONG AS THEY PLAYED NO PART IN THE MASSACRES AND OTHER HORRORS THAT HAVE BEEN THE GRIM HALLMARK OF THIS CONFLICT. /// ZIAD ACT -- IN SERBO-CROATIAN /// SAYS MR. ZIAD, WE WANT TO MAKE BOSNIA AS IT WAS BEFORE. THAT IS WHY WE ARE FIGHTING. WE NEVER HAD ANY DIFFERENCES WITH THE SERBS BEFORE THE WAR, HE SAYS, AND WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER AGAIN. (SIGNED) NEB/DBR/SKH/JWH 08-Mar-95 7:39 AM EST (1239 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America