YDS 9/12

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

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

12. SEPTEMBER 1995. YUGOSLAV DAILY SURVEY

C O N T E N T S :

FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - SERBIAN PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC RECEIVES MEDIATOR STOLTENBERG - FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER INVITES HIS YUGOSLAV COUNTERPART TO PARIS - YUGOSLAVIA PROPOSES INT'L CONFERENCE ON EXPELLED KRAJINA SERBS

BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA - KARADZIC: NATO ATTACKS ARE ENDANGERING PEACE PLAN - MLADIC-JANVIER TALKS FAIL, NATO ATTACKS RENEWED - MLADIC-JANVIER MEETING: NATO IGNORED CHIRAC'S GUARRANTEES

NATO MASSIVE AIRSTRIKES ON SERB TERITORIES IN BOSNIA - NATO LAUNCHES MASSIVE AIRSTRIKES ON BANKALUKA REGION - NATO CONTINUES BOMBING SARAJEVO, BANJALUKA AREAS - NATO PLANES BLAST RED CROSS FOOD STOREHOUSE IN KALINOVIK (HERZEGOVINA) - MORE NATO ATTACKS ON BOSNIAN SERBS

INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS ON NATO AIRSTRIKES AGAINST SERBS IN BOSNIA - RUSSIA DEMANDS NEW CONSULTATION IN U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL - RUSSIA CONDEMNS ESCALATION OF CONFLICT IN BOSNIA - RUSSIA DEEPLY DISCONTENT WITH RESUMED NATO BOMBINGS - BELARUS CRITICIZES NATO AIR STRIKES AGAINST BOSNIAN SERBS - ITALY'S AGNELLI: LONG-TERM NATO BOMBING COULD BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE - GREECE REGARDS AS ABSURD THE RESUMED NATO ATTACKS ON SERBS IN BOSNIA

AFTER CROATIA'S AGGRESSION ON SERB KRAJINA - ZAGREB AGGRESSIONS REDUCE THE NUMBER OF SERBS TO TWO PERCENT

FROM FOREIGN PRESS - NATO ACTION REACHES RISKY POINT - CLINTON PERSONALLY ENDORSED TOMAHAWK MISSILES AGAINST SERBS IN BOSNIA

FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

SERBIAN PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC RECEIVES MEDIATOR STOLTENBERG B e l g r a d e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on Monday received Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia, Thorvald Stoltenberg. Milosevic and Stoltenberg continued exchanging views as part of consultations aimed at boosting the negotiating process and speeding up the quest for an overall political solution to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. The talks were attended also by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic.

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER INVITES HIS YUGOSLAV COUNTERPART TO PARIS B e l g r a d e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - French Foreign Mininster Herve de Charette on Monday invited his Yugoslav counterpart Milan Milutinovic to a meeting in Paris on Sept. 21, official French sources have said. The AFP news agency quoted a Ministry Spokesman as saying the invitation followed a meeting of the Croatian and Bosnian Muslim Foreign Ministers and de Charette, held in France.

YUGOSLAVIA PROPOSES INT'L CONFERENCE ON EXPELLED KRAJINA SERBS G e n e v a, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - A Yugoslav delegation for humanitarian questions Monday arrived in Geneva with the aim of internationalizing the problem of exodus of more than 160,000 expelled Serbs from Krajina. We propose the holding of an international conference solely devoted to the problems related to expelled Serbs from Krajina, said the Head of the Yugoslav delegation, Federal Government Minister and Coordinator for Humanitarian Questions, Tomica Raicevic. He stated the hope that this conference would be held by the end of this month in Geneva. He pointed out that Yugoslavia, which was under sanctions, could not resolve the problem of the large number of refugees. Two-three years ago, about 500,000 refugees arrived to Yugoslavia (from the former Yugoslav Republics Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), and the problem of refugees became even more severe at this time when a wave of over 160,000 expelled Serbs from Krajina arrived. 'We are grateful for the international relief aid sent so far, but it is insufficient and we believe it must become more pronounced,' said Raicevic. In the next two days, the Yugoslav delegation was expected to meet with top officials of international humanitarian organizations. The delegation would hold talks at the ICRC, followed by UNHCR, UNICEF, the WHO and the High Commissioner's Office for Human Rights.

BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA

KARADZIC: NATO ATTACKS ARE ENDANGERING PEACE PLAN B e l g r a d e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - President of the Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) Radovan Karadzic on Monday threatened to withdraw from peace talks begun in Geneva three days ago because of NATO attacks on the Bosnian Serbs. 'In the light of the continuing attacks, at the receiving end of which are mostly civilians, the Republika Srpska may well have to reconsider its further participation in peace talks,' said Karadzic in an open letter to U.S President Bill Clinton, Russia's Boris Yeltsin and Britain's John Major. 'NATO has declared war on the Serbs,' said Karadzic. In the letter, Karadzic said it was incomprehensible that the international community could invest so much effort into peace talks while at the same time sending jets and missiles against a party to that process, said Reuters.

MLADIC-JANVIER TALKS FAIL, NATO ATTACKS RENEWED B e l g r a d e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - Talks between Commanders of the U.N. force in former Yugoslavia Gen. Bernard Janvier and of the Bosnian Serb Army Gen. Ratko Mladic were not successful, the French Defense Ministry said Monday. A brief statement said the meeting had been held on Sunday afternoon and that Gen. Mladic had rejected Gen. Janvier's proposals, AP reported from Paris. The meeting, which was most probably held in the town of Mali Zvornik in the west of the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, had been organized and announced by French President Jacques Chirac on Sunday. Chirac said NATO would suspend air strikes against Serb targets' for several hours' to enable the meeting to take place.

MLADIC-JANVIER MEETING: NATO IGNORED CHIRAC'S GUARRANTEES B a n j a l u k a, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - NATO ignored promises by Paris and failed to stop air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs on Sunday afternoon during a meeting between Bosnian Serb Army Commander Gen.Ratko Mladic and U.N. Commander for the former Yugoslavia Gen.Bernard Janvier. The Bosnian Serb Army Command said on Monday that Gen.Mladic demanded from Gen.Janvier that NATO stops its bombardement during the meeting, but that the French General did not manage to secure this. On Monday Mladic demanded that Janvier inform the world that NATO had put itself above the U.N., that it had changed the mandate of the U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia and had simply sided with the Muslims and Croats by razing civilian targets, and the economic and military potentials of the Bosnian Serb State Republika Srpska. Mladic demanded that the air raids stop for the duration of the talks and cited international laws under which all combat operations should be halted during negotiations. The Bosnian Serb Army said that French President Jacques Chirac had agreed to this and publically given his guarrantees. The Bosnian Serb Army said that NATO ignored Chirac's demands and carried out new massive aerial attacks on Republika Srpska at 3:15p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:45 p.m. and 4:50 p.m. local time, thus making Gen.Janvier late for his meeting with Gen. Mladic. The meeting was delayed until 5:30 local time. The meeting was then again cut short to enable Janvier to secure a temporary end of the air strikes, the Bosnian Serb Army said. Hawever, at 7:15 p.m. local time, NATO warplanes destroyed the television and telecommunication system Stolice on Mt. Majevica, in northeastern Republika Srpska. The Bosnian Serb Army said that at 8:00 p.m. Janvier informed Mladic he was unable to stop the NATO planes and that the decision to resume the air strikes was made without consultation with him and the U.N. Command. After this, the Mladic-Janvier meeting was called off. Janvier promised to immediately leave for the U.N. Headquarters in Zagreb to secure the halting of the air raids and create new conditions for the continuation of the talks.

NATO MASSIVE AIRSTRIKES ON SERB TERITORIES IN BOSNIA

NATO LAUNCHES MASSIVE AIRSTRIKES ON BANKALUKA REGION B e l g r a d e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - The Bosnian Serb Army Command has said there are many dead and wounded after Sunday evening's massive NATO airstrikes on the region of Banjaluka. The majority of the wounded civilians remain buried under the destroyed buildings. The bombs hit the water supply system, electric power lines, cut telecommunication links and damaged other infrastructure facilities in this city in the northwest of Republika Srpska. The Bosnian Serb Army issued a statement at 1:00 a.m local time saying that the massive blitz on the Banjaluka region started on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. local time. The statement said that waves of dozens of warplanes dumped 500-1,000 kg bombs and missiles. The area had been hit by 13 Toamhawk cruise missiles fired from missle cruiser USS Normandy stationed in the Adriatic. The Bosnian Serb Army said that on Sunday NATO stepped up its air raids and that under cover of these attacks, as well as those by the U.N. Rapid Reaction Force, the Muslim-Croat troops had launched offensives on several fronts. On Sunday NATO warplanes continued pounding civilian facilities in the region of the towns of Nevesinje, Srbinje (former Foca) and Gorazde, as well as the hydroelectric power plant in Visegrad, close to the Yugoslav border. On Sunday afternoon NATO provided direct air support to the Muslim troops in the Mt. Majevica and Kalesija fronts in northeastern Bosnia and launched four assaults on the Serb settlements in the region of Sekovici.

NATO CONTINUES BOMBING SARAJEVO, BANJALUKA AREAS B a n j a l u k a, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - NATO warplanes early on Monday continued air strikes against Bosnian Serb civilian and military targets in the areas of Sarajevo and Banjaluka, the biggest Bosnian Serb town in the West, the Bosnian Serb Army General Staff said. Since it started attacks on Bosnian Serbs on August 30, NATO has carried out about 2,800 air strikes, reconnaisance and support flights, destroying civilian targets throughout Republika Srpska. NATO bombings had killed and wounded many people, burying many civilians under the rubble and still making their number difficult to determine.

NATO PLANES BLAST RED CROSS FOOD STOREHOUSE IN KALINOVIK (HERZEGOV INA) B i l e c a, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - NATO planes continued Monday airstrikes against Serb parts of Herzegovina, the Serb Command said. A squadron of about ten NATO bombers dropped early Monday morning several dozen rockets and heavy bombs on the small Herzegovina town of Kalinovik. Civilian residential and other buildings were hit, some of them razed to the ground. A number of civilians, including women and children, have been wounded in the air strike on Kalinovik. The water supply and power network have been completely destroyed in the town and surrounding settlements. Besides military facilities, a Red Cross food storehouse was destroyed. Certain places in Herzegovina have come under carpet bombing, razing many facilties to the ground. NATO airstrikes are followed by artillery attacks by the Croatian Army, especially from the Trebinje area. The Herzegovina Command Corps said that the objective of the airstrikes is to test the resolve of the Serb defense and to inflict as many casualities as possible to Republika Srpska army units.

MORE NATO ATTACKS ON BOSNIAN SERBS S r b i n j e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - NATO warplanes attacked civilian targets around Srbinje (former Foca) in southeastern Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) at 3 p.m. (1300) Monday, Bosnian Serb military sources have said. Bombings of several localities occur in waves, involving dozens of aircraft, said the sources. Residential and other buildings have been hit. A morning attack on Trovrh, around Gorazde, a U.N. 'Safe Area', from 10.50 to 10.57 (0850-0857 gmt), destroyed a civilian target, the Banjaluka Information Center said.

INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS ON NATO AIRSTRIKES AGAINST SERBS IN BOSNIA

RUSSIA DEMANDS NEW CONSULTATION IN U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL N e w Y o r k, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - A new consultative session of the U.N. Security Council will be held on Monday evening at Russia's request to discuss the bombing of Serbs in Bosnia and options for settling the dramatic situation there. The request was made after NATO bombed and launched missiles from warships in the Adriatic on Bosnian Serbs, said U.N. sources.

RUSSIA CONDEMNS ESCALATION OF CONFLICT IN BOSNIA M o s c o w, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - The Russian Federation Monday night condemned the escalation of NATO's military engagement in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the bombing of the Bosnian Serb Republic territory with Tomahawk cruise missiles. A Foreign Ministry statement said in this way NATO had significantly exceeded the framework of the U.N. mandate given it. It said the impression was that NATO was turning Bosnia into a testing ground for defining its 'new role' in the European and world affairs. A statement by Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev was issued in Moscow according to which the prospects of holding an international conference on settling the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina have become realistic and that to achieve this it was necessary to stop the actions against the Bosnian Serb Republic. Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev talked on the phone Monday with U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry. Grachev informed Perry about Moscow's official stands regarding the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and described NATO raids and attacks by the Rapid Reaction Force against Serb targets as unacceptable. To ignore Russia's views about ways to settle the conflict was unacceptable and NATO's new escalation of military activity could result in the spreading of the conflict outside the borders of the former Yugoslavia, warned Grachev.

RUSSIA DEEPLY DISCONTENT WITH RESUMED NATO BOMBINGS B r u s s e l s, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - Russian Ambassador to Belgium Vitaly Churkin said here Monday that Russia was profoundly dissatisfied with the continued NATO bombings of Serb targets in Bosnia, because the Geneva accord had made a satisfactory progress in the overall peace process in this former Yugoslav republic. Twelve days after bombings of Serb targets in Bosnia, Russia has not seen any headway towards peace, and the situation is even worsening, Churkin told newsmen after a two-hour meeting of NATO Council Ambassadors. Russia does not see any use in intensifying tensions in Bosnia caused by bombing the Bosnian Serb Republic, in which now also included are Tomahawk missile attacks from distances of several hundreds of kilometres against the targets that are very far from the U.N.-designated safe areas, he added. Churkin announced that a new round of talks on Bosnia, with the participation of the same actors from Geneva, could be resumed in Moscow. If the parties to the conflict agree to a cease fire, this will be the best for the development of the peace process, but the condition for such an accord is NATO's ending its bombings of Serb positions, said Churkin in conclusion.

BELARUS CRITICIZES NATO AIR STRIKES AGAINST BOSNIAN SERBS B e l g r a d e, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday condemned NATO air stikes against Bosnian Serbs, saying he could not understand the reasons for their launching. Lukashenko was speaking in Chisnau, Moldova, after arriving on a two-day official visit, Reuters news agency reported. 'My attitude towards the NATO strikes is extremely negative,' Lukashenko said.

ITALY'S AGNELLI: LONG-TERM NATO BOMBING COULD BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE R o m e, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli on Monday informed her E.U. colleagues that she feared that a long-term bombing of Bosnian Serb lines might be counterproductive to the set peace goals. Briefing the Italian press on the E.U. ministerial meeting held in Santander, Spain, on Sunday, Agnelli said all E.U. member countries were disturbed by and concerned about the Russian Parliament's request to President Boris Yeltsin that the sanctions against Yugoslavia be unilaterally lifted and the partnership for peace arrangement with NATO rejected. Agnelli said the Duma (the Russian Parliament Lower House) decision clearly indicated that the Russian public condemned the developments in the former Yugoslavia, in particular the bombing of the Bosnian Serbs. She said the E.U. regarded as vital Russia's presence in the Bosnia peace process.

GREECE REGARDS AS ABSURD THE RESUMED NATO ATTACKS ON SERBS IN BOSN IA B e l g r a d e, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - Greece characterized as absurd a continuation of NATO air strikes on Bosnian Serb positions following an agreement on the principles of solving the Bosnia crisis made in Geneva on Friday. Greek Government Spokesman Evangelos Vinizelos said Greece was against any military solution for Bosnia, understanding as 'absurd a continuation of air attacks while the peace process is underway,' the French AFP news agency said. Vinizelos assessed that the Geneva agreement of the Foreign Ministers of the F.R. Yugoslavia, Croatia and the Sarajevo Muslim Government had proved initial results were beginning to come from the efforts towards a political settlement of the Bosnia crisis.

AFTER CROATIA'S AGGRESSION ON SERB KRAJINA

ZAGREB AGGRESSIONS REDUCE THE NUMBER OF SERBS TO TWO PERCENT Z a g r e b, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - Milan Djukic of the Zagreb-based Serb National Party said Monday that Croatia's Aug. 4 aggression on Serb Krajina had reduced the number of Serbs living there to only two percent. Speaking for the Monday edition of the Novi List daily published in the Croatian seaport of Rijeka, Djukic, Party President, said the ethnic cleansing that had ensued was not the result of a concurrence of circumstances, but was carefully planned by Croatian authorities. Djukic said it was evident that the Croatian national programme, which is the programme of the governing Croatian Democratic Union, was to solve the Serb issue 'for good... but not in a way that would secure a solution to the political and economic status of Serbs in Croatia, recognising them ae equal citizens of Croatia'. 'Serbs in Croatia were to be annulled so that there were no more of them or so that there was the smallest number of them possible,' he said. The military actions against Serb Krajina dubbed 'lightning' and 'storm' (the former referring to Croatia's aggression on Western Slavonia on May 1-2 and the latter to its aggression on southern and northern parts of Serb Krajina in early August) were planned to this end, he said. For more than four years Croatia has been trying to deceive the international community that it has been hoping for a political solution, he added. Judging by what Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said in what Djukic called 'a speech of hatred' that he delivered while travelling by train from Zagreb to Split via Serb Krajina, it is evident that Croatia does not expect Serbs to return there, Djukic said. Serbs will be sporadically allowed to return to their homes which is also part of the ethnic cleansing plan, he said. Croatian opposition leader Stipe Suvar said last week that the ethnic cleansing of Serbs would soon be brought to a close, saying that at this point 130,000 Serbs at the most lived in Croatia, while at the time when Croatia was an entity within the six-member former Yugoslav Federation about 700,000 Serbs had lived there, including those who declared themselves as Yugoslavs. Suvar told a Slovene paper that this meant that the number of Serbs in Croatia had been reduced to 2 from 12 percent of the total population, adding that none of the nationalist movements in Europe had been so successful in ethnic cleansing as the one in Croatia.

FROM FOREIGN PRESS

NATO ACTION REACHES RISKY POINT L o n d o n, Sept. 11 (Tanjug) - NATO war action against the Bosnian Serbs has escalated to a very risky point, British military analysts assessed on Monday, pointing out that western allies would decide later in the day whether to take this risk. BBC assessed that western political leaders were to take a decision on NATO's further punishing Bosnian Serbs. If, as in recent days, this decision was left to military commanders, then the entire world might be involved into a great tragedy in Bosnia, said BBC. NATO actions, especially the use of 13 Tomahawk missiles, whose new block-3 type was first used in the attack on Sunday evening on Serb targets in western Bosnia cannot be regarded any longer as pressure on the Serbs in the interest of peace, but what is concerned is the intention to destroy their military potential completely, news commentators assessed.

CLINTON PERSONALLY ENDORSED TOMAHAWK MISSILES AGAINST SERBS IN BOS NIA N e w Y o r k, Sept 11 (Tanjug) - U.S. President Bill Clinton had personally endorsed the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles in a punitive mission against Serbs in Bosnia, The Washington Post daily said Monday. The paper said that Clinton's approval was sought by NATO Southern Force Commander Admiral Leighton Smith while consent to this end came also from Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili. The New York Times invoked on Monday Pentagon sources as saying that the U.S. military top was considering the possibility of usingin visible F-117 bombers against Serbs in Bosnia.

- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me --