Subject: YDS 8/17 From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov) 17. AUGUST 1995. YUGOSLAV DAILY SURVEY C O N T E N T S : FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - KONTIC APPEALS TO DANISH GOVERNMENT TO UNFREEZE YUGOSLAV FUNDS REFUGEES FROM REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA - SERBIA, U.N. TO SET UP JOINT TEAM FOR TAKING CARE OF REFUGEES - ONE PERCENT OF SERBS DISPLACED FROM RSK ACCOMMODATED IN KOSMET - MOSCOW REJECTS ALBANIA'S PROTEST AGAINST SENDING REFUGEES TO KOSOVO - U.N. FORCE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT FATE OF 10,000 SERB KRAJINA REFUGEES FORMER BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA - BOSNIAN SERB ARMY GENERAL STAFF DENIES CROATS CAPTURED DRVAR - U.N. SPOKESMAN SAYS CROATIAN TROOPS CROSS INTO WESTERN BOSNIA - SPANISH MINISTER UNHURT AS BULLETS PEPPER HIS CAR IN SARAJEVO FROM FOREIGN PRESS - BOSNIA AS A FAILURE OF RECOGNITION, by George Kenny FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA KONTIC APPEALS TO DANISH GOVERNMENT TO UNFREEZE YUGOSLAV FUNDS C o p e n h a g e n, Aug. 16 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Prime Minister Radoje Kontic has appealed to the Danish Government to unfreeze Yugoslav funds in Danish banks for humanitarian purposes for Serb Krajina refugees. Kontic's letter to Danish Prime Minister Pol Nirup Rasmuzen was handed over to Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs Nielse Gelund by Charge d'affairs of the Yugoslav Embassy in Denmark Vladan Skoric, who informed the senior Danish official about the difficult humanitarian situation in which the Serb Krajina people found themselves following Croatia's aggression and about the measures taken and efforts invested by the Yugoslav Government to assist the refugees. Skoric asked Egelund that Denmark send humanitarian aid to the refugees living in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Association of Yugoslav clubs in Denmark on Wednesday appealed to the Danish Government, the E.U. and the U.N. to show full resoluteness in honoring international obligations to alleviate a great human tragedy which has be fallen the Serb Krajina people. REFUGEES FROM REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA SERBIA, U.N. TO SET UP JOINT TEAM FOR TAKING CARE OF REFUGEES B e l g r a d e, Aug. 16 (Tanjug) - UNPROFOR Belgrade Office head Yuri Myakotnik on Wednesday proposed the setting up of a joint team for making programs and plans for taking care of refugees which would include representatives of the Serbian Government and U.N. agencies. In a talk with Serbian Commissioner for refugees Bratislava Morina, Myakotnik said possibilities should be looked into for the possible return of refugees from Serb Krajina, the Serbian Ministry of Information said. Myakotnik promised he would intercede with international institutions for due deliveries of adequate humanitarian aid for the refugees in Serbia. Morina informed Myakotnik about the consequences of the exodus of Serbs from the Republic of Serb Krajina and the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe in Serbia, the statement said. ONE PERCENT OF SERBS DISPLACED FROM RSK ACCOMMODATED IN KOSMET P r i s t i n a, Aug 16 (Tanjug) - The number of refugees from the Republic of Serb Krajina who have arrived so far in Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet) is 1,536, i.e. only one percent of the displaced Serbs who have reached Yugoslavia, the Deputy Head of the Kosovo District and President of the Provincial Refugee Commission Milos Nesovic told the press on Wednesday. Nesovic said that the statements by the leaders of some ethnic Albanian political parties that Kosmet was being colonized again and that the arrival of refugees would cause tension in Serbia's southern Province were therefore malicious. The endeavors to provide accommodation to the refugees have been undertaken for humane reasons and not for political purposes as the Albanian press and extremist Albanian leaders maliciously claim, he said, stressing that personal and property safety were guaranteed to all citizens. Nesovic recalled that available accommodation for refugees in central Serbia and Vojvodina were already full beyond capacity, and stated that the Government would provide assistance to Serb Krajina refugees wishing to live and work in Kosmet. Nesovic added that at least 5,000 hectares of public arable land in Kosmet were uncultivated and that the unused property could be given to the refugees. MOSCOW REJECTS ALBANIA'S PROTEST AGAINST SENDING REFUGEES TO KOSOV O M o s c o w, Aug. 16 (Tanjug) - Moscow rejects Albania's protest to the U.N. Security Council against the sending of Krajina Serb refugees to Serbia's southern Province of Kosovo and Metohija. Official figures released in the Province's centre of Pristina on Wednesday say that just one percent (1,536) of the Serb Krajina refugees have been sent to the Province. Moscow described as unjustified and unacceptable an Albanian Minister's opposition to the arrival in Kosovo of people who had to leave their homes because of Croatia's aggression. Moscow said that Kosovo was an 'autonomous region of the Republic of Serbia, i.e. an inseparable part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.' 'All Albania's attempts to put the issue on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council are really unjustified and would have to be rejected,' an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry official told the Interfax news agency. The diplomat said that Tirana could be concerned only 'if Albanian population which is already there were jeopardized, - there are no such attempts.' U.N. FORCE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT FATE OF 10,000 SERB KRAJINA REFUGEE S B e l g r a d e, Aug 16 (Tanjug) - Spokesman for the U.N. peace force Belgrade Office Kiran Singh could say nothing on Wednesday about the fate of a convoy of 10,000 Serb Krajina refugees last seen at Lipovac off the Yugoslav border on Sunday. The U.N. Spokesman said that 'teams from UNCIVPOL (U.N. civilian police) as well as ICRC carried out separate patrols of the highway yesterday and reported that the highway was free from any refugee traffic, leave alone a massive figure of 10,000 people.' Singh said that 'a total of 770 refugees remain in U.N. facilities. 714 in the compound in Knin, 22 in Canbat-1 (Canadian battalion), 26 in Czebat (Czech battalion) and four each with Jorbat (Jordanian) and Kenbat (Kenyan battalions).' He said that cases of burning of Serb houses 'continue to be reported, especially in the area of Drnis (south of Knin in Serb Krajina overran by Croatia).' Spokesman for the ICRC Belgrade Office Pierre Taunsend told Tanjug on Wednesday that the ICRC's delegate in Okucani in western Slavonia who had travelled on the Zagreb-Belgrade highway through Croatia had seen no refugees. The delegate travelled the stretch of the road between Novska and Gradiska but saw no refugees, Taunsend said. He said the ICRC would continue to monitor the situation and try to learn more about the Serb refugees, because there was something strange going on. The ICRC delegation in Zagreb is trying to obtain the Croatian authorities' permission to check what is happening on the highway, Taunsend said. He added that the ICRC would continue, in cooperation with the U.N. Confidence Restoration Operation (UNCRO) in Croatia, its efforts to gain access to the critical stretch of the highway. ICRC reports indicate that there are 1,500 people in Knin needing aid, and the agency informs that it has parked a water tank for 350 people in a Knin school yard. FORMER BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA BOSNIAN SERB ARMY GENERAL STAFF DENIES CROATS CAPTURED DRVAR B e l g r a d e, Aug. 16 (Tanjug) - The General Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army on Wednesday evening denied reports by certain media that Croatian forces had entered the Serb town of Drvar in western Bosnia. A statement by the Information Service of the General Staff said Croatian artillery units attacked Drvar and the surrounding area 'with the objective of sowing panic among the population.' 'Croatian media report that their army entered Drvar, which is part of the propaganda activities aimed against the population of Drvar and surrounding villages,' said the General Staff statement. Serb military sources said Bosnian Serb Army units on Wednesday managed to repulse all Croatian attacks on the Glamoc and Grahovo parts of the front in western Bosnia, and 'neutralized all attempts by the enemy' to penetrate defense lines on the Bihac-Krupa sector of the front in northwestern Bosnia. Bosnian Serb Army units are 'firmly holding newly-reached lines' on the Herzegovina front in the south, and 'have full control over the entire front,' the statement said. On that part of the front, croatian long-range artillery units continue to shell civilian areas around Trebinje, the biggest Serb Town in that part of eastern Herzegovina. U.N. SPOKESMAN SAYS CROATIAN TROOPS CROSS INTO WESTERN BOSNIA B e l g r a d e, Aug 16 (Tanjug) - Spokesman for the UNPROFOR Belgrade Office Kiran Singh said on Wednesday that troops from Croatia had crossed into western Bosnia from Serb Krajina which they overran earlier this month and were heading for Glamoc and Grahovo. Singh said that Croatia was massing troops also around the coastal resort town of Dubrovnik, in whose hinterland in Bosnian territory, Croatian and Bosnian Serb troops have been battling for days. Croatian Aarmy Chief of Staff Gen. Zvonimir Cervenko threatened the Bosnian Serbs on Tuesday with a powerful offensive against Trebinje, the predominantly Serb-populated southern Bosnian town, about 20 km north of Dubrovnik. UNPROFOR Spokesman in Sector East (eastern Slavonia) Kirsten Haupt said that, after Croatia's offensive and occupation of the western part of Serb Krajina on Aug. 4, fighting had intensified in Sector East and the situation was tense. Asked if U.N. troops would be withdrawing from Sector East as they were from other sectors, Haupt said that any further withdrawals had to be approved by the U.N. Security Council. She explained that this Sector was yet to be discussed between the Croatian Government and the local Serb authorities, and that there would be no U.N. troop withdrawal until a solution had been found for Sector East. SPANISH MINISTER UNHURT AS BULLETS PEPPER HIS CAR IN SARAJEVO B e l g r a d e, Aug 16 (Tanjug) - Spanish Foreign Minister Javier Solana escaped unscathed as his car was hit by several rounds of gunfire on entering Sarajevo. Solana told Reuters that his car had come under gunfire en route from the airport to the city centre. 'There were three or four impacts into the car,' Solana said, explaining the car had been hit right after leaving the U.N.-controlled airport and entering the city. The stretch of the road between the airport and the Muslim-held Dobrinja locality, down which Solana was motoring, is close to the line of separation between Bosnian Serb and Muslim forces. Solana's visit coincides with a visit by E.U. peace envoy Carl Bildt, who arrived in the city somewhat earlier for talks with Bosnian Muslim leaders. FROM FOREIGN PRESS BOSNIA AS A FAILURE OF RECOGNITION by George Kenny W a s h i n g t o n, Aug 16 (The Washington Times) -Hawks who want to lift the United Nations arms embargo on Bosnia act like they have a monopoly on "principle", while denigrating opponents for arguing from "pragmatism". Would that hawks and doves show such neat differences, in this or any conflict. In fact, principled arguments apply to both sides. It doesn't help the debate one jot for hawks to flaunt an imagined moral superiority. Of such hubris the worst political mistakes often are made. The foundation of the hawks' argument is that Bosnia is a state, a Un member, with an inherent right under the UN charter - a kind of natural right - to collective self-defense. Hawks then go on to say because Serbs were the initial, most offensive aggressors (this isn't disputed), they forfeit a hearing. "We can't negotiate with internationally indicted war criminals". Hawks finally leap to a broad moral claim that victims of aggression in a general sense must be allowed to defend themselves. Their logic falls short of the mark on all counts. It transforms earlier motives for intervention - to stop aggression - into an argument for prolonging the war whatever the cost in human life. The critical question boils down to whether Bosnia is a state or a chimera. According to mainstream interpretation of international law, Western recognition - legally ambiguous at best - could be interpreted with much justification as belligerent intervention in an unresolved civil war. Traditionally, recognition of a separatist entity takes place only after the parent state has resolved outstanding issues with its offspring. If secession involves war, that means after the dust settles. During the American Civil War, for example, Washington would have contested foreign recognition of separatist entity takes place only after the parent state has resolved outstanding issues with its offspring. If secession involves war, that means after the dust settles. During the American Civil War, for example, Washington would have contested foreign recognition of the Confederacy. Similarly, if the Soviet Union's dissolution had been violent, Moscow might have taken as an act of war any Western recognition of the breakaway republics. Today, what state is prepared to recognize Chechnya? Recognition of Croatia and Bosnia seems less ambiguous only because so many states and institutions followed Germany's insistent lead on recognition, giving recognition a patina of legality it never deserved. There's no good, a priori reason to assume Europe or the UN will be disturbed by treating a single case of mistaken recognition as an aberration and withholding the right of self- defense, accorded established states. Indeed, that's what the international community is doing now, with no obvious ill-effect. Fully legitimizing that mistake, on the other hand, opens a can of worms regarding what the international community expect, or demands, from states unwillingly undergoing dissolution. What happens if the UN were to object to massive slaughter in the next civil war? Would the UN want another Bosnia-type peace-keeping force? Would it take sides? Whose side would it take? For what purpose? Our recognition of spurious claims should not become the policy template in an unsettled post-Cold War era when claims to self-determination are rampant. Recognition of Croatia and Bosnia wasn't in any measure a cool judgment of the merits of self-determination. Put simply, Western leaders used recognition as an ad hoc, politically biased policy tool to try to suppress widespread violence. The Serbian tragedy was to wreck an excellent case for self-determination by being first to resort to force as competing nationalisms collided, and by doing so in spectacularly repugnant fashion. Recognition in itself couldn't, as many Western diplomats had hoped, magically solve underlying questions of self- determination. To the contrary, because recognition automatically labeled Serbia an international aggressor, it closed off discussion of self-determination issues. Because the West focused so narrowly on the destructive consequences of Serbian nationalism, we forgot that responsibility for Yugoslavia's breakup accrues to the nationalist leaders of all its nationalist groups. It was illogical and unprincipled for us to later rationalize recognition based on our allocation of guilt, thus setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Issues of legitimacy go to the heart of the conflict. Its reasonable for us to take equally into account all demands for self-determination in the former Yugoslavia.We shouldn't confuse questions of procedural justice with our legitimate outrage a Serb behaviour. Unless and until the West reexamines recognition of Croatia and Bosnia, our biases will make negotiation far more difficult, if not impossible. And the consequence of no negotiation is obvious: more war. =============================================================== -- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me -- D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com =============================================================== Article 47054 of soc.culture.yugoslavia: Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!in2.uu.net!athos.cc.bellcore.com!nyquist!ddc From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov) Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna,soc.culture.croatia,soc.culture.europe,alt.current-events.bosnia Subject: YDS 8/18 Date: 18 Aug 1995 16:58:43 GMT Organization: Bellcore Lines: 261 Distribution: world Message-ID: <412gs3$sco@athos.cc.bellcore.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: nyquist.bellcore.com Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu soc.culture.yugoslavia:47054 soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna:32087 soc.culture.croatia:31089 soc.culture.europe:49626 alt.current-events.bosnia:11301 18. AUGUST 1995. YUGOSLAV DAILY SURVEY C O N T E N T S : FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - PAPOULIAS TO VISIT BELGRADE ON FRIDAY HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN YUGOSLAVIA - ICRC: GRAVEST EFFECTS OF HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN YUGOSLAVIA - ANOTHER RELIEF AID FLIGHT FOR KRAJINA SERBS LANDS AT BANJA LUKA REFUGEES FROM THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA - THE FATE OF PART OF KRAJINA SERB REFUGEES STILL UNCERTAIN, by Nikola Stanojevic THE E.U. AND PEACE PROCESS IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA - BILDT TO REMAIN EUROPEAN UNION MEDIATOR THE U.N. AND CROATIA - U.N. CRITICIZES CROATIA FOR ISOLATING MUSLIM REFUGEES THE U.S. AND CROATIA - UNITED STATES CALLS ON CROATIA TO GIVE UP MILITARY OFFENIVES FROM FOREIGN PRESS - SERB KRAJINA AFLAME AMID HATRED, REVENGE, PAPER SAYS FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA PAPOULIAS TO VISIT BELGRADE ON FRIDAY A t h e n s, Aug. 17 (Tanjug) - Greek Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias will arrive in Belgrade on Friday for talks with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on the latest developments in former Yugoslavia, the Greek Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. After Belgrade, Papoulias will visit Rome where he will confer with Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli. HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN YUGOSLAVIA ICRC: GRAVEST EFFECTS OF HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN YUGOSLAVIA B e l g r a d e, Aug. 17 (Tanjug) - The Belgrade Office of the ICRC said on Thursday that most of the refugees from Serb Krajina had crossed the border into Yugoslavia, so that the effects of this humanitarian crisis were the gravest in that country. According to Yugoslav Government figures, over 150,000 refugees from the Republic of Serb Krajina have entered Yugoslavia so far, of the total of 250,000 Serbs who had had to leave their homes because of Croatia's aggression on that Serb state. The ICRC statement said humanitarian situation was also critical in the region of Banjaluka (the main transit point for Serb Krajina refugees), where there were still about 30,000 refugees. The latest ICRC reports indicate that another wave of 10,000-15,000 refugees was expected to arrive in the area of Banjaluka, the town in the northwest of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Last week, the ICRC distributed more than 200 tons of aid for about 100,000 Krajina Serbs who had been moving toward Yugoslavia through the Bosnian Serb Republic, the statement said. The ICRC has so far visited 500 Serbs who have been imprisoned by the Croatian authorities, the statement said. It is making lists of civilians who remained in the wider area of Knin, the administrative center of the Republic of Serb Krajina. Medical aid shipments for the Knin hospital continue, the statement said. ICRC delegates have visited the towns of Drnis, Gracac, Korenica, Teslingrad and Vrlika in Serb Krajina, which are now controlled by the Croatian Army. In eastern Slavonija, the only remaining part of Serb Krajina which Croatia has not occupied, the ICRC continues to bring in food for refugees from the region of western Slavonija which was occupied in May this year, and from the western areas of Serb Krajina. The medical center in Beli Manastir has received a shipment of surgical supplies and medicines for chronic diseases. ANOTHER RELIEF AID FLIGHT FOR KRAJINA SERBS LANDS AT BANJA LUKA B a n j a l u k a, Aug 17 (Tanjug) - A plane carrying 25 tonnes of food and medical supplies for Serb refugees landed late on Thursday at Banjaluka airport in the north of the Bosnian Serb Republic. The flight from Amsterdam was organised by the Medecins Sans Frontieres Charity which had sent a similar quantity of food also from Amsterdam a few days ago. On Wednesday, a transport helicopter of the UNPROFOR landed at Banjaluka airport with relief supplies for Krajina Serbs. REFUGEES FROM THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA THE FATE OF PART OF KRAJINA SERB REFUGEES STILL UNCERTAIN by Nikola Stanojevic Z a g r e b, Aug 17 (Tanjug) - The fate of some 10,000 Serb refugees from Banija and Kordun, who were last seen on the Belgrade-Zagreb highway on August 13, is still uncertain. According to unofficial sources a large part of these refugees are hiding in the Spacva forests near the Croatian-Yugosalv border. Information is hard to come by since representatives of social work centers in Croatian towns which are known to have so-called 'collection centers' refuse to provide information about the number of refugees the authorities prevented from proceeding further. Contacts with social workers in Sisak, where there are four centers holding some of those who were in the highway column, also yielded no results. In one of the centers, a sports hall in a local school, women, children and old men have been crowded together in appalling conditions. Hygienic conditions are terrible and the refugees were only given a blanket each and are sleeping on the floor, a regional Serb community reported. A large convoy of refugees from the Krajina towns of Vojnic, Vrgin Most, Topusko and a number of others, which was moving towards the highway, has been placed in three camps in Ivanic Grad. Others from the convoy were taken to Kutina where there are also three centers, unofficial sources report. It is unclear what the Croatian authorities plan to do with them. Are they trying to 'convince' them to return to their towns or is this an opportunity for the regime to select the refugees, although all those who wished to leave Croatia were promised to be able to do so. Krajina towns and villages have turned into ghost towns eventhough the Croatian regime media report cases of Serbs returning to their homes. Croatian Radio on Thursday reported that 'a group of Serbs' returned to Vrhovine, without saying where the group came from nor how many people were in it. The Croatian media failed to report about inscriptions on abandoned Serb houses saying 'occupied - Croatian defenders', or about the installation of refugees from the Banjaluka area in Serb houses in Okucani (western Slavonia). Several days ago in Okucani Cardinal Franjo Kuharic consecrated a plate with the name Alojzije Stepinac, the Catholic Archbishop who cooperated with the fascist government of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II, Croatian Radio reported. THE E.U. AND PEACE PROCESS IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA BILDT TO REMAIN EUROPEAN UNION MEDIATOR B e l g r a d e, Aug. 17 (Tanjug) - Spanish Foreign Minister Javier Solana on Thursday confirmed to reporters in Sarajevo that E.U. mediator Carl Bidlt would remain in that office. 'He's (Bildt) got the support of the E.U.,' Solana said. as Chairman of the E.U. Council of Ministers, Solana conferred in Sarajevo with Bosnian Muslim Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbej. After the meeting, Solana and Sacirbej held a press conference which was also attended by E.U. Commissioner for External Affairs Hans Van Den Brook. The Sarajevo Muslim Government on Thursday refused to have its officials meet with Bildt, saying he was mediating in a peace process which was 'dead.' Croatia also said ten days ago that it would no longer have anything to do with Bildt and the peace initiatives which he was representing. That was Croatia's answer to Bildt's severe criticisms of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman for Croatia's aggression on Serb Krajina. Bildt said Tudjman might be accused of war crimes. Muslim-controlled Radio Sarajevo said Sacirbej told reporters that his Government had never refused to have contacts with Bildt, but had merely expressed concern over certain statements he had given, adding that Bildt probably did not understand certain Muslim Government views on the situation in Bosnia. Van Den Brook said the developments in the recent weeks had changed the climate in which talks were proceeding so that this should also be taken into account. THE U.N. AND CROATIA U.N. CRITICIZES CROATIA FOR ISOLATING MUSLIM REFUGEES B e l g r a d e, Aug 17 (Tanjug) - The U.N. accused Croatia on Thursday of denying U.N. workers access to about 30,000 Muslim refugees from northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina who fled the area for Croatia earlier this month and were living in appalling conditions. 'The Croatian authorities are severely restricting our access to them at a time when the situation among these displaced people is deteriorating considerably,' news agencies quoted U.N. Spokesman Chris Gunnes as saying in Zagreb. The refugees are supporters of moderate western Bosnian Muslim politician Fikret Abdic, who opposes the policy of war pursued by the Government in Sarajevo headed by Alija Izetbegovic, and who in July proclaimed his republic of west Bosnia in the area under his control. Abdic's followers fled before onslaughts of Izetbegovic's loyalists to the Republic of Serb Krajina, which has since been invaded by the Croatian Army which displaced more than 250,000 Serbs. Gunnes told reporters that the Croatian authorities' denial of access to the refugees was a flagrant violation of an agreement signed by U.N. Special Envoy for former Yugoslavia Yasushi Akashi with the Croatian Government on Aug. 6. The 30,000 Muslim refugees are camping in makeshift shelters in poor conditions south of the town of Vojnic in the north of the Republic of Serb Krajina. Gunnes said there were sick people among the refugees, many of them camping out in the open, sleeping in cars and makeshift shelters. Spokesman for the UNHCR K.Janowski said that men of military age among the refugees feared they might be turned over to Izetbegovic's army. Anesty International has appealed to Croatian President Franjo Tudman not to force the refugees back to Bosnia, where they could face repression. THE U.S. AND CROATIA UNITED STATES CALLS ON CROATIA TO GIVE UP MILITARY OFFENIVES W a s h i n g t o n, Aug 17 (Tanjug) - The U.S. on Wednesday rather mildly called on Croatia to give up frequent military offensives against Bosnian Serbs, saying this ran the risk of causing the conflict to spill over. U.S. State Department Spokesman David Johnson said that now it was not the time for military offensives but for using the present situatation and settling the conflict through negotiations. Johnson told reporters that a political settlement was the only lasting solution. He said the U.S. had urged all the warring sides to refrain and secure their goals at the conference table. FROM FOREIGN PRESS SERB KRAJINA AFLAME AMID HATRED, REVENGE, PAPER SAYS B e l g r a d e, Aug 17 (Tanjug) - Special reporter of the Bratislava paper Pravda, one of the few foreign newsmen reporting from the ground, after touring Knin said in a text for the Belgrade daily Nasa Borba published Thursday that the situation on the ground was disastrous and that 'Krajina aflame testifies to hatred and revenge.' The daily said that the torching of houses was one of the safest ways to ban Serbs from returning to Croatia and that these instances occurred despite Croatian official policy's speaking of democracy, human rights and freedoms. The daily quoted the Slovak reporter as saying in his text (dated August 16) that he had managed to reach villages in southern Krajina where no settlement was left in one peace. 'The villages had either been burnt down already or were aflame the very moment we approahed them. Animal carcasses still lay on the road and the flame destroyed what was left of Serb houses. Croatian soldiers hung around the ruins taking away anything that seemed useful at all: refrigerators, washing-machines, tv sets, furniture,' the daily quoted the reporter as saying. He said that in a hamlet, he came aross a few old Serb men. Asked what they stayed there for after all, the villagers had gone away, an old man said he would have gone too, if he could. The reporter went on to say that in the streets of Knin he met two women who had spent a week in two U.N.-protected rooms crowded with 800 people. He quoted the women as saying that all of the 800 people had slept on the floor and there was no water but an hour a day. He quoted one of the frightened women as saying that she did not know where her children were and that she only hoped they were alive. The district of Knin where the woman had lived was buried under ruined and torched cars, said the reporter after touring the part of Krajina to which international organizations are being denied access. =============================================================== -- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me -- D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com ===============================================================