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OMRI Pursuing Balkan Peace, No. 27, 96-07-09
From: Open Media Research Institute <http://www.omri.cz>
Pursuing Balkan Peace
No. 27, 9 July 1996
CONTENTS
[01] TOP CANDIDATES FOR BOSNIAN ELECTIONS ANNOUNCED.
[02] OSCE MAY BAN BOSNIAN SERB PARTY FROM ELECTIONS.
[03] PLAVSIC IN BELGRADE.
[04] RUMP YUGOSLAV MILITARY OPENLY BACKS MLADIC.
[05] IFOR FORCES SERBS TO WITHDRAW WEAPONS.
[06] FINNS MATCH WITS WITH SERBS.
[07] DID THE ALLIES KNOW ABOUT SREBRENICA ALL ALONG?
[08] HEARINGS ENDING AGAINST KARADZIC AND MLADIC.
[09] HAGUE TRIBUNAL CALLS FOR ARREST OF KARADZIC, MLADIC.
[10] ISLAMIC MILITANTS STILL IN BOSNIA?
[11] TENSIONS BREW BETWEEN SARAJEVO AND LJUBLJANA.
[12] MOSTAR ELECTIONS: A VICTORY OF THE NATIONALISTS.
[13] THE KARADZIC CASE: SPLITTING THE WESTERN CONSENSUS?
[01] TOP CANDIDATES FOR BOSNIAN ELECTIONS ANNOUNCED.
SDS candidate Plavsic, who has just visited Milosevic (see below), will face
at least six additional candidates in the election for president of the
Republika Srpska, Nasa Borba reported on 8 July. Parliament speaker Momcilo
Krajisnik will be the SDS candidate for the Serbian seat on the joint
presidency with the Croats and Muslims. In the Croat-Muslim federation,
federal President Kresimir Zubak will run on behalf of the Croatian Democratic
Community (HDZ), while Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic will head the list
for his Party of Democratic Action (SDA). The SDA has also registered a
candidate to run for the presidency of the Republika Srpska, namely Abid
Djoric, a native of Srebrenica. -- Patrick Moore
[02] OSCE MAY BAN BOSNIAN SERB PARTY FROM ELECTIONS.
The OSCE head of mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Robert Frowick, said he will
use his authority as supervisor of the September elections to bar the SDS from
the vote if Karadzic remains its chairman, Onasa reported on 8 July. This
reflects a growing consensus among international officials in Bosnia that the
Dayton treaty's ban on indicted war criminals holding public office extends to
their taking any role in public life. The international community's High
Representative Carl Bildt is increasingly becoming the odd-man-out because he
has been willing to accept Karadzic's withdrawal from the presidential race as
sufficient. AFP quoted Bildt as saying that Frowick would have to overturn a
28 June decision by the OSCE on the elections if he intends to ban the SDS
from the race. Frowick said he is willing to take the "risk" of the elections
collapsing if the SDS is excluded. -- Patrick Moore
[03] PLAVSIC IN BELGRADE.
That party's presidential candidate Plavsic meanwhile met on 4 July with
Milosevic, Tanjug reported. She left the session saying publicly that the RS
authorities would comply with the terms of the Dayton treaty, observing "now
we are trying to involve all institutions and resources, needing to catch up
for lost time, so as guarantee planned progress in implementing the Dayton
peace accord. This is what we are working on in the Republika Srpska."
According to SRNA reports, Plavsic also stressed that the SDS will partake in
upcoming elections, owing to the fact that it has an allegedly "unique
platform." Hinting that at least some of the discussions with Milosevic might
have focused on the likelihood of some basis for cooperation between the SDS
and members of the Milosevic-backed Socialist Party of the Republika Srpska
(SPRS), Plavsic remarked: "Any [electoral] coalition between the SDS and the
SPRS, or for that matter any party, is out of the question. The SDS will go
into elections alone, and on [the basis] of its own program." -- Stan
Markotich
[04] RUMP YUGOSLAV MILITARY OPENLY BACKS MLADIC.
But the Bosnian Serb leadership has friends in the Serbian capital who are
more reliable than Milosevic. A group of 126 rump Yugoslav army officers
signed a letter which was sent to Milosevic and which contained the demand
that under no circumstances should Belgrade permit Mladic's extradition to The
Hague. On 3 July SRNA, citing the Belgrade weekly Nedeljni Telegraf, said
the officers had sent their message to Milosevic ten days prior. The letter
claims that Mladic's appearance at The Hague would constitute "yet another
great defeat against the Serbian nation" and says "the tribunal was
established to completely humiliate the Serbs and for that reason extradition
of General Mladic should be prevented." Finally, the BBC noted that the chief
of the rump Yugoslav General Staff, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, did not sign the six-
page letter. -- Stan Markotich
[05] IFOR FORCES SERBS TO WITHDRAW WEAPONS.
Back on the ground in Bosnia, Mladic's men have had other concerns of their
own. Bosnian Serb troops removed heavy guns and vehicles from a NATO-approved
collection point near the Serbs' military headquarters at Han Pijesak on 5
July. IFOR then sent 250 ground troops, plus 20 aircraft and attack
helicopters to back up its demands that the Serbs put the weapons back. A
tense atmosphere resulted, and the Serbs for the first time threatened to
shoot down IFOR helicopters, AFP reported on 7 July. IFOR's commander, Adm.
Leighton Smith, telephoned Milosevic. On 6 July villagers jostled U.S.
soldiers, thinking they had come to arrest Mladic, the BBC stated. Later that
day, the Serbs withdrew their weapons and IFOR left the area. One of the key
lessons in the conflict that has often been forgotten by the international
community is that firmness and a clear willingness to use force produce
compliance. -- Patrick Moore
[06] FINNS MATCH WITS WITH SERBS.
Meanwhile, others have been gathering evidence that might be used against
Mladic and Karadzic in The Hague. Bosnian Serb police on 2 July barred the way
to Finnish forensic experts who wanted to examine the remains of Muslims lying
in a field on a hill near Srebrenica, where the worst atrocity in Europe since
World War II took place after the town fell on 11 July 1995. The Serbian
authorities had earlier given the Finns permission to enter the area. The BBC
said that a Serbian vehicle had been carting off any weapons lying about and
that the incident was yet another humiliation for the international community
at the hands of the Serbs. Subsequent attempts by the Finns to continue their
work proved equally futile, but they later simply ignored the Serbs and
managed to recover nine bodies, the International Herald Tribune reported on
6 July. -- Patrick Moore
[07] DID THE ALLIES KNOW ABOUT SREBRENICA ALL ALONG?
Just a few days later, experts from the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia exhumed the first body from a mass grave at Cerska near
Srebrenica on 8 July, the BBC reported. The 20-strong team hoped to determine
whether those buried there and elsewhere were victims of a massacre. The Serbs
claim that any dead Muslims fell in the fighting for the town and in an
alleged internal conflict between the Muslims themselves. AFP quoted the
French daily La Croix as saying, however, that U.S. spy satellite and U-2
photos at the time clearly showed that a massacre of Muslim males by Serbs was
taking place, and that these pictures were readily available to NATO allies on
13 July. The first photos showed "men standing, surrounded by other men with
weapons. The following image showed them lying dead on the ground." The U.S.
and its allies have claimed that what little they know about the deaths came
from testimony and photos taken later. -- Patrick Moore
[08] HEARINGS ENDING AGAINST KARADZIC AND MLADIC.
In The Hague itself, investigator Irma Oosterman told the court about the
Serbs' systematic and deliberate policy of rape, Reuters reported on 2 July.
Sexual crimes were carried out against women as young as 13 and also against
males as part of the program of ethnic cleansing. Her testimony came in the
context of the hearings against Karadzic and Mladic in an effort to keep up
the pressure for their arrest and extradition. On 6 July the BBC stated that
witnesses to the Srebrenica massacre gave testimony, and that one said that he
actually saw Mladic present at the killings. This story is in keeping with eye-
witness interviews in press reports that emerged soon after the fall of the
town. -- Patrick Moore
[09] HAGUE TRIBUNAL CALLS FOR ARREST OF KARADZIC, MLADIC.
Then on 8 July, prosecutor Mark Harmon criticized the international community
for failing to arrest the two key criminals and demanded international arrest
warrants for them. The BBC said on 8 July that the current warrants apply only
to a handful of countries. Those states include Serbia, however, where the
authorities have repeatedly turned a blind eye to Karadzic's and Mladic's
presence. The prosecutor added that rump Yugoslavia should be reported to the
UN Security Council for its failure to arrest the two, Reuters noted. Nasa
Borba quoted Harmon as stressing that the tribunal was not condemning "the
Serbian people." -- Patrick Moore
[10] ISLAMIC MILITANTS STILL IN BOSNIA?
Returning to military affairs, the Clinton administration recently said that
foreign Islamic fighters have finally left Bosnia-Herzegovina (see ), but on 7
July the Washington Post reported that "several hundred" are still there.
According to the Dayton agreement, all foreign troops were to have left in
January, but many Iranians and other fighters from the Muslim world stayed on
in central Bosnian villages. The Post said that some had obtained Bosnian
citizenship through forced marriages to local women, that they had seized
homes and apartments, and that they constitute a paramilitary guard for
President Alija Izetbegovic's Party of Democratic Action. The paper linked the
unpublicized visit to Bosnia of CIA director John Deutch on 5 July to
Washington's concern about a possible threat to U.S. forces by the militants
in the wake of the recent terrorist attack on an American base in Saudi
Arabia. It is not clear if the Post story will affect U.S. plans to begin
training the Bosnian army in a program contingent upon the foreigners'
leaving. -- Patrick Moore
[11] TENSIONS BREW BETWEEN SARAJEVO AND LJUBLJANA.
On the diplomatic front, Bosnian Premier Hasan Muratovic, speaking on Bosnian
television on 6 July, suggested that relations between his government and
Slovenia's were strained. He noted specifically that the introduction of visa
requirements for Slovenian citizens, effective 10 July, was taken as a
retaliatory step. AFP quoted Muratovic observing: "This is our reciprocal
measure because of Slovenia's sudden and unprovoked decision to introduce
visas for our citizens. You know that Slovenia is a transit country for many
of us and that these are going to be very expensive for our citizens because
many of them cannot afford to pay for them." Muratovic also said that economic
relations between the two countries would suffer due to the visa dispute,
stopping just short of calling for a boycott of Slovenian products. "In any
country in this type of situation, companies and citizens are loyal to their
government. After this kind of decision why should our citizens buy Slovenian
goods in shops if they can buy products of other origin? I believe that
citizens and companies will react to this until Slovenia suspends the visa
regime for our citizens," he said. -- Stan Markotich
[12] MOSTAR ELECTIONS: A VICTORY OF THE NATIONALISTS.
Elections, however, have been the big story, including those that just took
place in Herzegovina's largest city. The Mostar vote has been widely regarded
as a trial run for the Bosnian ballot slated for the fall. The issue has been
whether the election could serve to break down the ethnic polarization
resulting from the war, especially from the Croat-Muslim conflict of 1993. The
Muslims, moreover, hoped to regain a strong place in the city government
through the ballot box. The Croats, for their part, wanted the elections to
help them consolidate what they won in the war and give the Herzegovinian
Croats at least one sizable city they can call their capital.
The Croats, however, seem to be disappointed, for now at any rate. According
to Onasa on 2 July, the mainly Muslim List of Citizens for a United Mostar led
by East Mostar's mayor Safet Orucevic won 28,505 votes for the City Council.
The Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) got 26,680 votes, while the third
largest force -- a list of anti-nationalist parties of Jole Musa -- received
only 1,937 votes. Two Croatian right-wing radical parties received 619 and 386
votes, respectively. The two main parties each gained the absolute majority in
the three districts located on their respective sides of the divided city. The
press figures include ballots from Oslo, Stockholm, Bonn and Bern, but there
are no official results so far. This is because the HDZ has lodged complaints
over alleged irregularities in Oslo and Stockholm, and no final figures can be
issued until all such challenges have been dealt with.
An EU official who did not want to be identified told OMRI that the suspicion
is that the Croats are stonewalling in order to prevent both the publication
of the results and the formation of a city council with a majority from
Orucevic's list.
The HDZ's apparent attitude seems to have been prompted by the EU
administration's decision on 7 July to declare the elections valid, despite
irregularities. The HDZ had called for an election re-run after 26 more votes
than voters were found in the ballot box in Bonn, where 4,045 mainly Muslim
refugees cast their votes. Despite these irregularities, EU-appointed city
ombudsman Constantine Zepos agreed to take the votes from Germany into the
general calculation, thereby declaring the Bonn balloting valid.
The HDZ's anger, however, seems to be aggravated by the fact that it won a
majority of voters actually in Mostar while the foreign returns tilt the
balance in favor of Orucevic's list. The HDZ had won 25,936 votes in Mostar
while Orucevic's list received only 22,377 votes there. The foreign returns,
however, gave the HDZ only 744 votes, while Orucevic's list got 6,128 votes
and may gain 21 out of 37 seats in the city council. No other party apart
from these two is likely to gain a seat.
These results are a disappointment for the HDZ which had first welcomed the
returns as a "victory of peace, tolerance and the spirit of the Dayton
agreement," apparently expecting a larger share of representation on city
council. Onasa on 2 July quoted a HDZ official as arguing that the Dayton
agreement has "offered the possibility to both nations [Croats and Muslims] to
preserve their religious, cultural and national particularities," and that
"the two nations are also connected through trade, infrastructure and
capital objects. There will be no Berlin Wall in Mostar."
Orucevic also praised the ballot and said it would "lead towards the triumph
of reason and a united Mostar." He went even farther in his predictions and
said that "Mostar has been and will remain a town of three nations and this
victory has shown that no one has all exclusive right to Mostar."
The international community's deputy High Representative Michael Steiner
likewise expressed his satisfaction after the vote and pointed out that
"absolute freedom of movement was established in the whole town during
election day, and what happened at the polling stations, under conditions
given, was unquestionably professional." He concluded that "these are good
signs which show the elections could be held in Bosnia with minimal conditions
obtained. That is a great incentive for the elections set for 14 September,
and I am very glad because of what I have seen."
But flattering words cannot eliminate lingering doubts over Mostar's future,
especially among the anti-nationalists. The Social Democrats said the polls
had become a census of the city's inhabitants along ethnic lines. An EU
official, who did not want to be named, told AFP that the Mostar elections
indicate that the deep ethnic divide in Bosnia is likely to remain after
September's nationwide ballot. The official also pointed out that "the vote
did not give a fair choice to the different candidates" and concluded: "I
don't know why the September elections are likely to be any better. This is a
fake success.... The result is that the division of the town has been
legitimized." During the election campaign opposition parties, especially in
the west of the city, had nearly no access to mass media which was dominated
by the nationalists.
Social Democrat deputy leader Senad Avdic said that "the magnitude of the
national ghetto in Mostar is so immense, that not even the City Council will
be able to work on Mostar's reintegration." The apparent obstruction by the
HDZ gives clear hints that these problems have already begun.
Meanwhile, administrator Ricardo Perez Casado asked Brussels to extend the EU
mandate after it runs out on 23 July, and a EU ministers meeting will decide
the issue on 15 July. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt
made clear that "prolonging the European Union action in Mostar remains
subordinate to pursuing the reunification process in the city." -- Fabian
Schmidt
[13] THE KARADZIC CASE: SPLITTING THE WESTERN CONSENSUS?
"Wild Boys," once read war graffiti on the OSCE headquarters in Sarajevo; a
similar slogan was also sprayed onto a wall of the quarters of Carl Bildt, the
High Representative. For locals, these two words always seemed a perfectly
appropriate label, indicating the tendency of foreign representatives to make
impulsive decisions without really understanding the situation on the ground.
The tag never seemed more justified than it does now. The international actors
in the Bosnian drama appear to have forgotten their scripts and now stumble
across the stage contradicting each other with badly improvised lines. This
unplanned act of a play originally written in Dayton might still contain some
unexpected twists.
Suddenly, the collective body known as the "international community" appears
to consist of individuals who seem to have decided to preserve their personal
dignity and to break from the consensus to which the Bildt faction stubbornly
clings. The issue threatening to tear things apart is the role of Radovan
Karadzic in Republika Srpska political life.
The Dayton agreement explicitly states that war criminals cannot hold "public
office." When Karadzic delegated several of his duties to Plavsic, Bildt
stated that the transfer of just "some powers" was unacceptable. But he did
not go on and press for Karadzic's exclusion from politics. In the High
Representative's interpretation, the "public office" clause applies
exclusively to government posts.
Many others disagree, insisting that the leadership of the ruling party in a
totalitarian state essentially controls all public power. After Bildt told the
G-7 leaders in Lyon of Karadzic's resignation, OSCE mission head Robert
Frowick opined that indicted war criminals should also be removed "from
positions of ongoing political influence." The G-7 agreed and then demanded on
29 June that the Bosnian Serb leader "renounce definitively and immediately
all public functions." The use of the term "functions" could be seen as an
attempt to end the furious debate about the Dayton term "public office."
Speaking the same day in Sarajevo, George Soros also declared his deep anger
about Bildt's interpretation and asked: "Do any of you remember who were
Stalin's presidents?"
On 30 June, Bildt announced: "As of today, Mr. Karadzic cannot exercise any
public functions or public powers as president." But, only a few hours later,
Plavsic declared that Karadzic "remains president, and I am the vice
president." The next day, the newly elected SDS council unanimously approved
Radovan Karadzic as the party's election candidate. In its evening news, Pale
TV broadcast Karadzic's threat that, in case the SDS does not receive two-
thirds of the vote, the Serbs may again be forced to take up arms.
Bildt spent much of the morning of 2 July in Pale, talking to Plavsic; she
later told journalists that all problems had been solved. Bildt said he felt
"that all presidential powers were transferred." But later that afternoon,
Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Gojko Klickovic told BiH TV: "Radovan Karadzic is
the president of the Republika Srpska until the elections." Accordingly, Pale
TV continued to speak of Karadzic as president, supported by another Bildt
statement that he did not particularly care about titles.
Confusion continued to dominate over the next few days, as the OSCE's Frowick
agreed with Bildt's rebellious deputy, Michael Steiner, that Karadzic's SDS
role was clearly a public function. The U.S. State Department also recommended
that the OSCE not accept the SDS list of candidates if Karadzic remained the
party's leader. After three days of silence, on 4 July, Bildt's spokesman
Murphy made a remark that conflicted with all previous statements, including
his own 1 July comment that Karadzic's leadership of the SDS violated the
spirit of Dayton. Bildt, said Murphy, would recommend the acceptance of the
SDS with Karadzic as head, because he still held the opinion that this was not
a public office. The journalists present at the press conference jumped off
their seats. Once again, Bildt had contradicted his own deputy, the OSCE
chairman, and now also the U.S. State Department (see ). The Sarajevo press
requested the presence of Bildt, Steiner and Frowick to discuss their clearly
stated differences. None appeared in the following days.
Private talks with international representatives in Sarajevo clearly show that
Bildt has maneuvered himself into an increasingly isolated position. The new
consensus among the majority of international representatives in Sarajevo is
that the Dayton agreement cannot be the last word when its phrasing was not
carefully enough reviewed. The plain fact is that the chair of the SDS is of
immense political influence, whether it is a "public office" or not. Yet the
Serbs appear to have made up their minds: Plavsic for president, but Karadzic
as party leader.
There are no easy answers. A ban of the SDS would probably lead to an election
boycott in the Republika Srpska, and therefore to invalid overall results. It
is a very open question whether the international community will move on the
Karadzic situation when its highest priority remains holding the scheduled
elections. -- Yvonne Badal in Sarajevo
Compiled by Patrick Moore
This material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media
Research Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in
Prague, Czech Republic.
For more information on OMRI publications please write to info@omri.cz.
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