BosNet Digest V5 #30 / Jan. 19, 1996

From: Nermin Zukic <n6zukic@SMS.BUSINESS.UWO.CA>

Bosnia-Herzegovina News Directory

CONTENTS

[01] MASS GRAVES IN BOSNIA, CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN SERBIA

Washington, The Hague - Pentagon estimates the number of mass graves in Bosnia to be higher than 2O. The Hague Tribunal deputy prosecutor, G. Blewitt announced excavating the graves as soon as possible, probably early this spring stressing that in the meantime is crucial to prevent the removal of evidence.

Brussels - NATO commander, the US gen. Joulwan says IFOR cannot watch the graves and prevent removing the evidence but can secure protection for civil groups guarding the graves.

London - Author of the book on the war in B-H "Seasons in Hell", journalist Ed Vulliamy ("La Stampa", "The Observer", "The Guardian"), released in "Guardian" the existence of concentration camps in Serbia where Bosniacs from east Bosnia, mainly from Zepa and Srebrenica were placed. In a hilly and lonely camp nearby the village of Sljivovica, 8O km from Bosnian border and 5O km southeastern from Uzice and another secret camp in Serbia, Mitrovo Polje, there are 8OO detained Bosniacs. Tim Butcher wrote about the camp Mitrovo Polje in "The Telegraph". 24 persons recoveringg in Irish capital of Dublin, have been released so far. The states ready to provide accommodation for the others are USA, Australia, Italy, France, Ireland, Belgium and Sweden and their release has been negotiated by ICRC and the Belgrade authorities for some time. Western govts. and ICRC, which knew about the camps, have not released the truth hoping for the solution to be reached by secret diplomacy. ICRC spokeswoman admitted ICRC's accepting Serb condition not to inform the public on the existence of the camps in FR Yugoslavia and in return, the ICRC officials were allowed to visit the camps every fortnight. As some of the detainees were maltreated and starved, ICRC mentioned in its internal report that "some abnormalities were observed". Camp at Sljivovica is placed in the former railway hangars. "The Guardian" reports the evidence stating the guards used to beat up detainees severely and for no reason. A survivor from Serbrenica, Safet Ilic says he fled from the town with 2,OOO more people, many of them killed in artillery and heavy machine gun fire. Some groups fled to the free B-H territory and some to Serbia. They were arrested in Serbia and put to concentration camp. Before they left eastern Bosnia, many had been cought up, slaughtered with knives, axes or fire arms. Karadzic's Serbs had a mobile torturing device: a blade cutting the victim's chest while his legs were tied up against the chair. Delegation of the Hague Tribunal is sent to Dublin to record the evidence of the former detainees of Serbian camps. Belgrade does not let the Hague Tribunal approach to the places in question. /end/ A.S.

[02] CIA ESTABLISHED INTELLIGENCE NETWORK IN B-H

[03] ANOTHER TWO MASS GRAVES - DISCOVERED

Washington - US decided to accept 214 Bosniaks who, after the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa, had been detained in Serbian camps and give them refugee status. "It is horrible that those people besides being captured during the bloodshed in Srebrenica had to spend at least another two months in Serbian detention camps under dreadful condition", said State Department spokesman N. Burns. Burns emphasized that at least 8OO men out of 8O OOO people who have been expelled from their homes after the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa had been taken to Serbia. (end) S.K.

[04] DONATION FOR MACHINE FOR IDENTIFICATION OF VICTIMS - ESSENTIAL

[05] ON CRIMES COMMITTED IN "KRAJINA" STOLEN

[06] FROWICK ON ELECTIONS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

[07] ANOTHER BOSNIAN SERB ARRESTED IN GERMANY

[08] UNHCR: THREE STAGES FOR THE RETURN OF REFUGEES

[09] WHAT A CITY LOOKS LIKE AFTER SERBS CLEANSE IT

Visit to squalid Srebrenica, once home to Muslims killed in July

By Jonathan S. Landay
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SREBRENICA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Five months after their troops defied the world and blasted their way into Srebrenica, thousands of Serb refugees have resettled in what was once a U.N.-declared "safe area" for Muslims.

One food store, a post office, and the Calypso Cafe, where local Serb police find shelter from the cold, appear to be the only working businesses in the wreckage of this town. All of the factories and mosques have been blown up, mounds of rotting garbage and hulks of rusting cars litter the sidewalks, and the icy air echoes with chain saws and axes hewing firewood for heating and cooking.

Four American journalists, including this reporter, on Tuesday paid the first unhampered visit by Western reporters to Srebrenica since Bosnian Serb forces last July stormed the former safe area as the international community stood by and watched.

Under the command of the Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb forces expelled some 40,000 Muslims they had besieged and bombarded for more than three years. Another 3,500 to 5,500 Muslims, according to a U.N. report, are missing. They are believed to have been massacred while escaping and buried in up to six mass graves in the surrounding region.

The area is part of the operational area of the 20,000-member U.S. contingent of the NATO Implementation Force, which is policing the U.S.-brokered Bosnia peace settlement. The U.N. War Crimes Tribunal tomorrow intends to ask IFOR troops to secure the grave sites until spring, when they plan to exhume the sites.

Bosnian Serb leaders have denied the allegations of massacres. But Milan Markovic, a Serb native of Srebrenica who helped Serb forces overrun the town in July, acknowledges otherwise.

"Look at those hills. They used to be covered with trees, but the Muslims cut them down," he says, pointing to surrounding slopes denuded of firewood during three winters of siege. "They ruined this town. It used to be pretty. So, we killed them, we killed them all."

The town resembles an urban wasteland. Every house and building has been scarred by shrapnel. Dogs nose through the rubble. Refugees have made less damaged homes habitable with plastic sheeting and materials taken from unsalvageable residences. They obtain electricity by jerry-rigging wires to street lights that turn on only once every few days. Running water is also intermittent.

"It's bad here. There's worse. But it's really bad," says Simo, a grizzled refugee from the Muslim-controlled town of Bugojno. "I have no job and no chance of getting one."

Many refugees are from Shipovo and Mrkonjic Grad, towns in northwest Bosnia that fell in October to a Bosnian Croat assault that helped turn the tide of the war against the Bosnian Serbs.

Simo says that officials in Shipovo and Mrkonjic Grad directed residents to go to Srebrenica, the site of a famous medieval silver mine. He says he has seen no international humanitarian aid since he arrived here some months ago.

No one knows how many refugees have resettled in this town. But it is obvious the number has begun growing with the arrivals of Serbs from Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo that are due to revert to federation control in mid-March. Trucks and cars filled with household goods and bearing license plates from "Serb Sarajevo" sit along sidewalks or grind along Srebrenica's ash-blackened streets.

"I came from Vogosca today," one man says, referring to a northern suburb of Sarajevo. "I can't stay there. We have no securrity from the Muslims. I had no other place to go but here."