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TITLE: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995

                     BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA


The United States formally recognized the Republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, one of six constituent republics of the former
Yugoslavia, as a sovereign state in April 1992, following a
free and fair referendum in which 63 percent of its voters
endorsed independence.  President Alija Izetbegovic heads the
multiethnic collective presidency of a parliamentary democratic
government elected in 1990.  Since 1992, approximately 80
countries, including the United States, have recognized the
Republic, which is a member of the United Nations.  Within days
of the Republic declaring its independence, elements of the
JNA, supported by Serbian nationalist militias, launched
attacks throughout northern and eastern Bosnia and Serbian
Democratic Party leader Radovan Karadzic declared the
establishment of the "Republika Srpska" or "Serb Republic."

Seventy percent of the Republic remained under Serbian
occupation throughout 1994.  The estimated number of dead
neared the quarter-million mark, while more than half of the
country's prewar population of 4 1/2 million continued to be
dispersed as refugees or displaced persons.  The Government of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, rebel forces, and representatives of
the international community wielded varying forms of authority
over various areas of the country during the year.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was constituted in
March and established in May, transforming the internal
structure of the territories with an ethnic Bosnian and
Croatian majority.  At year's end, the President of the
Federation (Kresimir Zubak) was a Croat and the Vice President
(Ejup Ganic) was a Bosnian Muslim.  Although the parliaments of
the Federation and the Republic differed slightly in their
makeup, the Prime Minister (Haris Silajdzic) and cabinet
ministers governed in the name of both the Republic and the
Federation.

The self-proclaimed "Serbian Republic" of Serbian Democratic
Party (SDS) leader Radovan Karadzic, headquartered in the
Sarajevo suburb of Pale, is the illegitimate occupation
authority of the 70 percent of the country's territory held by
the nationalist Serbs.  Although a "Serbian Republic"
parliament exists, the "government" is run by a small group of
military and civilian "authorities," dedicated to an extreme
nationalist ideology, who control an elaborate police and
security structure and an enormous army inherited from the
former Yugoslavia.

Another self-proclaimed authority, the "Croatian Republic of
Herzeg-Bosna," was the institutional wing of the Croatian
Defense Council (HVO) and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), as
well as a rival claimant to territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina
until the Washington Agreement in March, which led to formation
of the Federation.  It continued to exist through much of
western Herzegovina and some of central Bosnia as a provisional
Croatian authority within the Federation, pending formation of
cantons as prescribed by the Federation Constitution.

In August Bosnian army troops retook the territory of yet
another self-proclaimed entity, Fikret Abdic's "Autonomous
Province of Western Bosnia" (APWB), a pro-Serb Muslim enclave
within the larger Muslim enclave of Bihac.

The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia and
Herzegovina exercised limited authority in specific areas.
These included control of some border points and control of air
space and some overland movement, as well as police powers and
other quasi-governmental functions.

The Bosnian Army (ABH) is the military branch of the Republic.
It is a multiethnic fighting force, including predominantly
Bosnian Muslims, but also Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians of mixed
ethnicity.  It is basically a citizens' militia and suffers
from a lack of equipment and training.  The ABH generally
respected the Geneva Convention and citizens' human rights.
The ABH also has maneuver and commando forces, such as the 7th
Muslim brigade, the "Black Swans," other home-grown special
forces, and some foreign mercenaries of Muslim origin, who
called themselves "mujahidin."  These latter elements of the
ABH were accused of committing atrocities during the course of
the war.  Specifically, in 1994, mujahidin mercenaries, mostly
located in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, were accused of
unlawfully entering Croatian homes, vandalizing Croatian
property, and desecrating Croatian cemetaries.  A Turkish
battalion of UNPROFOR succeeded in stopping these activities.

The HVO was credibly accused of abusing human rights, though
HVO's behavior toward non-Croat populations has improved
somewhat since the signing of the Federation Agreements.  Some
local Croatian paramilitary units retained a considerable
criminal element, especially in areas such as Kiseljak, Vitez,
and Prozor.  The HVO also attracted a larger proportion of
mercenary elements, who were implicated in human rights abuses.

The Bosnian Serb army (BSA) is the military arm of the "Serbian
Republic."  Amalgamated in 1992 from Serbian paramilitary
bands, local rural militias, and elements of the JNA, it
continued its pattern of using terror tactics against Sarajevo
and other civilian areas within sniping or artillery range.
U.N. sources reported that in late summer the BSA cut off
utilities service to Sarajevo upon orders from the Serbian
military, a violation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC)
Resolution 900.  BSA forces regularly shot at, harassed, and
kidnaped UNPROFOR troops, frequently resulting in injury and
occasionally in loss of life, with the goal of disrupting
delivery of humanitarian assistance and coercing UNPROFOR into
cooperating with Serbian objectives.

The Bosnian economy, once dependent upon heavy industry, such
as construction, metallurgy, mining, hydroelectricity, and
forestry, largely came to a halt, both in federal and Serb-
occupied territories.  In July the Government switched to the
German mark as its official currency and in October "officially"
introduced the "Bosnian dinar"; however, the German mark remains
the de facto currency.  Most prewar industries no longer
function, either because of damage from fighting or shortages
of spare parts and supplies.  There is some agricultural
production in contiguous Federation territory, minimizing the
need for humanitarian food assistance there.  Serb-blockaded
Sarajevo, however, remains almost completely dependent upon
humanitarian assistance, as do Bihac and the eastern enclaves.
When the U.N.-protected road to the Sarajevo airport was opened
in June, Sarajevo began to experience a revival of commerce.
But when UNPROFOR shut it down on July 26 at the request of SDS
leader Karadzic, trade all but stopped again.  Serbs were able
to feed themselves in Serb-occupied territory, but lack of
markets and raw materials shut down most industry there as well.

In 1994 Serbian expulsions of mainly Muslims and Croats--what
has become known as "ethnic cleansing"--slowed but did not
cease.  In pursuit of the goal of ethnic cleansing, the Serbs
for more than 2 years have laid siege to cities,
indiscriminately shelled civilian inhabitants, withheld food
deliveries and utilities so as to starve and freeze residents,
executed noncombatants, ran detention camps in which they
executed some prisoners and subjected many inmates to inhumane
treatment, employed rape as a tool of war to terrorize people,
forced large numbers of civilians to flee to other regions,
razed villages to prevent the return of displaced persons, and
interfered with international relief efforts, including attacks
on relief personnel.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed
reports of substantial ethnic cleansing in the Bijeljina area
of northeast Bosnia, in Banja Luka in northwest Bosnia, and in
Rogatica, north of the Gorazde enclave.  Non-Serbs were lured
out of their homes by promises of transit out of Serb-held
territory and were then robbed and abandoned en route.  Men
were taken to work camps to dig trenches along the
confrontation lines and were used as human shields.  There were
credible reports that Serbian military and paramilitary groups
conducting ethnic cleansing acted at the behest of the "Serbian
Republic" leadership in implementing its policies.

The work of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal, established at The
Hague in 1994, is expected to document, assess, and determine
the culpability of alleged perpetrators of war crimes,
including the extent to which Serbian atrocities and genocide
were a matter of low-level loss of control or of high-level
policy.  In late 1994 the Tribunal began legal proceedings
against the first defendant, a Serb now living in Germany,
accused of being an officer and ordering summary excutions at
the Bosnian death camps in 1992.  The European Union's (EU)
Administrator's office continued to report Croatian expulsions
of Muslims from east Mostar and protested to Croatian
authorities.  Croats, on the other hand, complained that Muslim
pressure in Bosnian-held areas, in particular in Bugojno,
forced Croats to leave their homes.

Generally, wartime conditions stalled the democratization
process in Bosnia, initiated in the ill-fated 1990 "free"
elections which brought about the victories of ethnic-based
parties.  The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) of President
Izetbegovic and the HDZ were the dominant parties on Federation
territory.  Opposition parties claimed that the SDA and HDZ
increasingly control the media and scarce jobs and housing.  In
Serb-held territory, the SDS, led by Karadzic, controlled both
the media and political activity, and did not permit dissent.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS*

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

Both Government and Federation Constitutions guarantee the
right to life.  There was no credible evidence that government
forces committed political or other extrajudicial killings.
Nor was there credible evidence in support of allegations of
Bosnian atrocities against the population of the APWB during
the overthrow of its leader Fikret Abdic; direct observation
suggested humane treatment of persons and property there.
Similar allegations of Bosnian atrocities committed in the
course of an early October commando raid outside of Sarajevo
also proved unfounded.

Military and paramilitary forces of the "Serbian Republic"
continued to terrorize Bosnian civilians through shelling,
sniping, and other military action (see Section 1.g.).  While
accurate statistics are difficult to obtain because Serbian
authorities do not cooperate with international human rights
groups, significant numbers of non-Serbs were killed in
Serb-run detention camps (see Section 1.c.).  Opposition to SDS
views also resulted in death.  Risto Djogo, a popular satirist,
was found mysteriously drowned in a lake near Zvornik on the
Serbian border, after a dinner with the notorious paramilitary
leader "Arkan."  While the official account claimed his death
was accidental, due in part to drunkenness, many Bosnians
strongly suspected that he was assassinated because he had run
afoul of Serbian President Milosevic.

     b.  Disappearance

Since the beginning of the war, 3,800 Bosnians have been
registered with the Bosnian Red Cross as missing.  The Red
Cross suspects the real number of missing could be more than
twice as high, given the inability of many Bosnian citizens to
come to the Red Cross to register those missing.  In addition,


* NOTE:  Although the United States and other friendly
governments actively are involved in helping establish
Federation governmental structures, all references to the
"government" in the report apply to the Government of the
Republic, not the Federation.
since some families were completely wiped out, many missing
citizens may simply have no one left to inquire about them.
The Red Cross believes these missing persons fall into
different categories:  Some have escaped but have failed to
contact relatives, some have been killed, and some remain in
work camps that the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) has not been able to visit.  The Bosnian Red Cross has
registered 83 cases of persons who disappeared and who were
last seen in 1994.  Although during the year the Bosnian Red
Cross registered a total of 928 missing persons, the majority
of those disappeared in prior years; their relatives had been
unable to register them until 1994.  The majority of those who
disappeared in 1994 came from Gorazde, Bijeljina, and the
vicinity of Sarajevo.

There was no resolution of the longstanding case involving the
disappearance of approximately 180 men from Hadzici in June
1992.  Pending information on the whereabouts of these men, the
Bosnian Government continued to detain for a second year
approximately 150 Bosnian Serbs in a grain silo in the nearby
town of Tarcin.  Five Bosnian Muslim community leaders in Banja
Luka were reported to have been arrested in late August by
local Serb "authorities."  There was no further word on their
welfare or location.  Local Bosnian officials in Bugojno have
yet to provide satisfactory information on the whereabouts of
26 prominent Croats who disappeared when the ABH took the town
in late 1993.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment.

The Constitutions of both the Government and the Federation
provide for the right to freedom from torture and cruel or
inhuman treatment or punishment, and there are no credible
allegations that the legitimate Government or its authorities
engaged in such practices in 1994.

In 1994 in Siroki Brijeg, HDZ militia severely beat a Croat who
was trying to establish an arm of the rightwing Croatian Party
of Rights.

Non-Serbs in Serb-held territory credibly reported they were
routinely beaten by the authorities.  For example, a retiree
from Prnjavor reported that military police entered his home,
beat him, then took him to the police station and continued to
beat him for several hours, breaking his ribs and teeth and
leaving him with a cracked skull.  In another case, a man
evicted from his home in Banja Luka was later arrested and
beaten at the local military police headquarters by the same
men who had evicted him.  Another case of serious abuse
involved the participation of medical professionals.  A Muslim
woman in Bijeljina was mistreated by hospital personnel while
giving birth to her first child.  She suffered terrible pain
for 3 months after delivery.  After fleeing to Tuzla where she
sought medical help, doctors discovered that her vagina had
been stitched with wire and the surgical needle and wire left
in her vagina.  According to the woman, the medical personnel
of the hospital in Bijeljina had threatened her that she would
suffer after her childbirth.  Three operations were required to
remove the wire and needle.  Doctors in Tuzla stated that the
use of these methods was unheard of in such medical
procedures.

In government prisons, access to prisoners being held for
criminal offenses is adequate, according to human rights
lawyers.  Prisoners of war (POW's) are kept in the same jail
facilities as common criminals, as well as in military prisons,
contrary to the Geneva Convention.

Both Bosnian and "Serbian Republic" authorities allow the ICRC
access only to "conflict-related prisoners."  This term is not
to be confused with that of prisoner of war as defined by the
Vienna Convention.  In particular in Serb-held territory, "Serb
Republic authorities" routinely detain non-Serb civilians for
use in exchanges for Serb POW's.  This practice constitutes
another form of "ethnic cleansing."  Approximately 500
acknowledged "conflict-related prisoners" on both sides are
being detained in jails, prisons, and some 15 to 20 camps on
the Serbian side and 10 camps on Federation territory.  Both
Bosnians and Serbs deny the ICRC access to prisoners accused of
common crimes.

The best known Bosnian-run detention facility is the grain silo
in Tarcin (see Section 1.b.).  Relief workers who have visited
the grain silo state that, although it is an unacceptable
detention facility, those held there are fed, clothed, and in
reasonably good health.  The detainees are forced to labor in
the local agricultural fields.  According to credible sources,
in addition to Tarcin, the Bosnian Government also allegedly
runs 9 or 10 other detention facilities for Serbian
conflict-related prisoners.

According to recently exchanged Bosnian prisoners of war, the
BSA allegedly regularly engages in torture, including use of
electric shocks.  During its November offensive against Bihac,
the BSA humiliated Bosnian prisoners in front of television
cameras, ridiculing them and forcing them to chant pro-Serb
slogans.

The Karadzic Serbs continue to hold non-Serb military personnel
and civilians in from 15 to 20 detention camps.  According to
government sources, the ICRC has access to some but not all of
these camps, as Serbs also differentiate between "conflict-
related" and other prisoners and deny access to the latter.

According to a reliable source, the forced labor camp
"Rasadnik" outside of Rogatica continued to function through
April 1994.  The Serbs denied access to the camp, claiming that
it was not related to the conflict.  The camp has held up to 50
prisoners who worked as prison labor in the stockyards.  There
reportedly were approximately a dozen murders at this camp at
the hands of camp officials; one was confirmed in 1994--a
prisoner from Gorazde was reportedly beaten to death in front
of his fellow prisoners following the Serbian assault on
Gorazde in May.  A reliable source reported that in 1994
"Rasadnik" officials raped five women from this camp, also
following the Gorazde assault--two of whom were teenage girls
from Gorazde, two were young women, and one a woman in her
fifties.  Most of the prisoners from this camp were transferred
to Kula Prison outside of Sarajevo in the spring, and some were
freed in the October prisoner exchange.

The Kula Prison houses the Serbian poet, Vladimir Srebro.  In
1992, shortly after the invasion began, Srebro walked from
Sarajevo to Ilidza to protest the actions of the Karadzic
Serbs.  He was quickly arrested and sentenced to 10 years in
jail for being an "enemy of the Serbian nation."  Released Kula
Prison inmates report Srebro is regularly tortured and his
health has seriously deteriorated.  However, he refuses to sign
a document swearing his allegiance to the "Serbian Republic."

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile.

In September the Bosnian police in Hrasnica detained 100 Serbs
boarding a bus for an "organized trip" to Serb-controlled
Ilidza.  The Bosnians accused the Serbs of trying to avoid
military service and civil defense duties and of attempting to
"depart illegally" from Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Women,
children, and the elderly were released fairly quickly, but men
of military age are allegedly still detained in jails in
Hrasnica and Sarajevo.  Bosnian authorities deny the existence
of a jail in Hrasnica and have not allowed access to the
prisoners held in Sarajevo, saying they are imprisoned for
"civil offenses."  However, some Bosnian officials admit these
men are being kept for future POW exchanges.

In parts of the Bosnian Federation where curfews were in force
(such as Sarajevo), violators were subject to arrest and
detention overnight.  They typically had access to a telephone
but were not released until the next morning, at the end of the
curfew period.

Both sides typically held POW's for exchange.  Several hundred
were traded by each side during the course of the year, the
largest exchange taking place on October 5 when 295 Serbs were
released in exchange for 166 Bosnians.  As is the case with the
majority of these exchanges, Bosnian civilians from ethnically
cleansed areas of Serb-held territory were exchanged for
Serbian POW's.

The Kula Prison outside of Sarajevo has approximately 60
prisoners, mostly from ethnically cleansed areas of eastern
Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as Rogatica.  These civilians were
kept in the Kula Prison pending U.N.-brokered POW exchanges.
Bosnians argue that UNPROFOR is assisting with ethnic cleansing
because it accepts the "exchange" of ethnically cleansed
Bosnian civilians for Serbian POW's.  A Western relief worker
based in Serb-held Bosnia noted that one of the main goals of
ethnic cleansing in 1994 was to have a readymade pool of
non-Serbs to exchange for Serbian POW's.  Serbs running the
Kula Prison told relief workers that the civilians held there
are not being detained but rather are kept in the facility
pending release to the Bosnian Government, because "there is no
hotel in this area."

Over 10,000 Bosnians in 1994 were victims of ethnic cleansing,
including over 6,000 in the Bijeljina region from July through
October (many at the hands of paramilitary "colonel" Vojkan
Djurkovic), hundreds more from Prijedor and Banja Luka in the
spring and summer, and more than 100 people from Rogatica in
early October, 2 weeks after U.N. Special Representative Akashi
had protested directly to "Serbian Republic" leader Karadzic.
Statistics as of late September reveal the extent of the
planned removal of non-Serbs from Serb-held territory.  An
estimated 80,000 non-Serbs remained in Serb-held northeastern
Bosnia, compared to 837,000 living there before the war; only
10,000 non-Serbs remained out of a prewar 300,000 in eastern
Bosnia; and just 17,000 non-Serbs remained in the area of Banja
Luka and Prijedor, where there were 537,000 in 1992.

In the course of these expulsions, Serbian agents typically
coerced property owners into handing over property titles,
robbed them of their money and belongings, demanded "fees" to
pay for their transport into exile, and seized military-age men
for detention in "work camps," such as one in Lopare where over
200 were held for forced labor.  The ICRC has been consistently
denied access to the Lopare camp.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial.

The Republic's Constitution establishes a regular judicial
hierarchy based on municipal courts, which have original
jurisdiction in most civil and criminal cases, and cantonal
courts, which have appellate jurisdiction over the canton's
municipalities, as well as three federal courts
(Constitutional, Supreme, and human rights).  The Constitution
provides for open and public trials.  Judges are appointed for
terms which end upon their reaching age 70, and administration
of the judicial branch is managed internally.  The judiciary's
independence extends to the investigative division of the
criminal justice system, as the Constitution also establishes a
judicial police force that reports directly to the courts.
These principles appeared to be practiced in areas under
Bosnian Government control.

The legal system is designed to guard against discrimination
against ethnic minorities by ensuring adequate diversity of
representation on the bench, although there have been
allegations that the ruling SDA and HDZ parties are "stacking
the courts."  The court system for the most part uses the same
criminal code used by the former Socialist Republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina.  The Constitution provides for the right to
fair criminal proceedings.  There is a functioning appealate
system and the accused has the right to legal counsel.

According to international relief workers based in Pale, the
Bosnian Serbs, for the most part, use the same criminal code as
that of the Republic for trials of common criminals.  It is
unlikely, however, that there are any non-Serb judges serving
on Serb-held territory, reducing the possibility of a fair
trial for non-Serb defendants.  In late October, Bosnian Serb
television reported the establishment of "drumhead courts," in
which local military or police commanders had the right to
arrest and punish civilians and military personnel guilty of
"spreading disinformation about the 'Serbian Republic.'"  These
commanders were authorized to kill offenders on the spot or
sentence them to forced labor on the front lines, without
benefit of a trial.  This measure was directed primarily at
soldiers who refused to fight or males who refused to be
mobilized.  According to a reliable observer, deserters were
shot after drumhead court procedures even before the policy was
announced.  An eyewitness reported that in July a soldier was
shot in front of his unit for "failure to fight."

The Bosnian Government does not hold any political prisoners.
The Serbian authorities hold poet Vladimir Srebro (see Section
1.c.) as well as a journalist charged with terrorism in October
in the "Tajfun affair," an alleged conspiracy against the
Karadzic regime.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence.

The Republic's Constitution provides for the right to privacy,
protection of the family and of children, and property.
Governmental respect for these rights was the rule rather than
the exception in 1994.  Bosnian authorities attempted to
monitor communications that impinged on military or other
national security concerns.

Local Serbian authorities in Serb-occupied territories in
Sarajevo, such as Grbavica, instituted a policy of summarily
confiscating the property of mixed-marriage couples with sons
who had either fled abroad or to Federation territory.
According to a credible observer, Serbian authorities in
Grbavica threatened to confiscate the property of a mixed
Serb-Muslim family whose son fled from Grbavica to
Bosnian-controlled Sarajevo and who was dating a loyalist Serb,
if the son did not return to fight for a "Greater Serbia."
There are five other mixed families living in the same building
with sons who have fled, who also were threatened with having
their property confiscated unless their sons acceded to the
draft.

The persistence of the Serbian policy of ethnic cleansing
constituted sustained arbitrary interference with family and
home.  Serbs continued to enter Bosnian and Croatian homes in
Serb-held territory without search warrants.  In the towns of
Banja Luka, Bijeljina, and Rogatica, the pattern of ethnic
cleansing usually began with unauthorized entry into non-Serb
homes by the BSA, Serbian police, or other paramilitary forces
who demanded weapons and threatened residents with violence if
they did not leave.  In the village of Janja, in the Bijeljina
township, Serbs regularly placed Serbian refugee families in
Muslim homes, forcing the owners to live in one room.  In
general, in Serb-occupied Bosnia, police powers were intrusive
and only minimally restricted by law or custom.  Letters
carried through Serbian lines were regularly opened.

In addition to forcible eviction, extortion, and robbery,
Bosnian Serb authorities routinely harassed and terrorized
non-Serbs in Serb-held territories by breaking into homes with
dynamite and threatening to blow up the occupants; by
destroying graveyards so that deceased family members had to be
buried in family gardens; and by destroying farm animals and
crops to starve out the population.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

Bosnian government forces are under orders to honor the Geneva
Convention and subject to discipline if they violate it.
Allegations of official abuse have not been substantiated with
credible documentation.  For example, although the ABH's
success in subduing the rebel Muslim insurgency in Bihac led by
Fikret Abdic resulted in the flow of almost 20,000 persons into
Serb-held Croatian Krajina in August, there was no credible
evidence of human rights abuses committed by the Bosnians.

Although Serbian officials in Pale also claim to honor the
Geneva Convention, international observers agree that the
Serbian forces continue to violate the terms of the Convention
on a massive scale.

The BSA continues to target noncombatant and populated areas in
order to maintain a constant atmosphere of terror and
vulnerability.  Standards of wartime behavior are dictated by
the Geneva Convention, but UNPROFOR must nevertheless negotiate
with Serbian forces to seek their adherence to these
standards.  Frequently, these negotiations involve issues, such
as sniping at civilians, that are explicitly cited as
unacceptable in UNSC resolutions.  The Serbs routinely violate
even these agreements.  Some acts routinely committed by the
Serbs, (e.g., sniping at civilians) not only constitute
ordinary crimes (for example, murder when the sniping results
in death) but also violations of the Geneva Conventions, with
the result that those who order the act can be prosecuted,
along with those committing the act, before national courts as
well as the War Crimes Tribunal.