From: pavlovic-milan@yale.edu (Milan Pavlovic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.croatia
Subject: Re: Humanitarian aid for Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
Date: 20 Dec 1992 21:44:09 -0500
Organization: Yale University Science & Engineering UNIX(tm), New Haven, CT 06520-2158
NNTP-Posting-Host: minerva.cis.yale.edu

In article <BzL7rI.H1B@ecf.toronto.edu> blazic@ecf.toronto.edu (BLAZIC Joseph R) writes:
>In article <1h32qmINN5bq@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> pavlovic-milan@yale.edu (Milan Pavlovic) writes:
>>Therefore, I just want to ask the Croats on this net:
>>how much longer do you guys plan to do this sort of thing - you beg for money
>>and help and then you use it to buy Leopard tanks, MIG planes, and other
>
>What have _you_ been smoking?  This really is quite amusing.  Been reading
>too much Slobodni Tjednik (or Serbian equivalent of) tabloids, have we? :-)

  Is that so?  Andrej embarrassed you back in May on this same issue, and I
find great pleasure in doing the same now.  Here's something for you to think
over next time before you open your mouth:

  From "The Washington Post", published on June  24, 1992.
Reprinted without permission, for "fair use" only.
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              Sarajevo Sees Relief In Croats' Advance; 
            Artillery Called Threat to Serbs' Siege Guns


By: Blaine Harden


   Croat forces in Bosnia's three-sided civil war have moved modern German-made
artillery within range of the Serb  tanks  and heavy guns that have been
shelling this besieged capital for 11 weeks, according to senior advisers to
the Bosnian government.

   The Croats began sporadic shelling of the Serb militia command center in the
mountains outside Sarajevo several days ago, according to Izet Serdarevic, a
political adviser to Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. "They started last
weekend just so [the Serbs] would be a little scared," said Serdarevic, who
added that the Croat batteries fired from Mt. Iganan, southwest of the city,
toward the Serb headquarters in Pale -- a distance of about 15 miles.

   Another adviser to Bosnia's Slavic Muslim-led government said the advancing
Croats would soon be in a position to knock out much of the Serb artillery and
tank force whose relentless shellfire has left more than 2,000 civilians dead
and thousands wounded in Sarajevo. The Croat forces -- apparently drawn chiefly
from Bosnia's 16 percent Croat minority -- are within 30 miles of Sarajevo,
according to Bosnian government advisers and Western journalists.

   One adviser, a specialist in artillery who asked not to be identified
further, said the Croats are equipped with self-propelled 205mm Messerschmitt
field guns, which he described as "the best howitzer in the world."

   He said 150 of the howitzers, mounted on tracked vehicles and aimed by
state-of-the-art computerized targeting systems, were purchased in  Germany
four months ago by the government of neighboring  Croatia  and have since made
their way to Bosnian battlefields. The howitzers, the adviser said, are highly
accurate to a range of about 17 miles.

   It was the Croat forces' new-found artillery dominance last week that 
allowed them to blast Serb batteries out of the heights above Mostar, a 
Croat-majority city in Hercegovina, the Bosnian republic's southern region. 
Croat militiamen in that city told the Associated Press last week that their 
114 artillery pieces routed the Serb forces from Orlovac Hill, a strategic 
overlook from which the Serbs had controlled, besieged and devastated Mostar 
for more than two months.

   Croat armored brigades also are said to be on the attack in southern Bosnia
-- using artillery against the Serb-held city of Tribinje, from which Serb
artillery has been shelling the historic Adriatic port of Dubrovnik across the
border in  Croatia.

   Officially, the government of  Croatia  denies that any of its troops are in
Bosnia-Hercegovina. But Bosnian officials say a number of high-ranking Croatian
officers are advising the Croatian Defense Council of Hercegovina, a
well-organized force of about 15,000 Bosnian Croats fighting to blunt a
three-month-old campaign by Serb militia forces that has given them control of
more than two-thirds of the republic.

   The Bosnian government announced a military alliance with  Croatia  last
week, saying the agreement would give them access to Croatian weapons. Bosnian
officials say they turned to  Croatia  because the United States and other
Western governments refused to help them fight back against the Serb forces, 
who have been armed and supported by the hard-line nationalist regime of 
neighboring Serbia and the Serb-led Yugoslav army.

   "The Croatian Defense Council is the only well-organized and well-equipped
military force fighting against the Serbs," said one Bosnian government 
adviser. "Our own territorial defense is still trying to organize itself."

   Although the Bosnian government has requested whatever military help the
Croatian government can provide, there is widespread concern among officials in
Sarajevo that the ultra-nationalist regime of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
will demand a high political price for its military help. "Militarily, Sarajevo
could be quickly liberated by the use of Croat artillery," said an adviser to
the Bosnian Foreign Ministry. "The political problem is what is going to happen
when  Croatia  liberates us."

   Officials here say they expect that Bosnia's Croat minority will demand
increased representation in the government as the quid pro quo for liberating
Sarajevo. Serdarevic, the political adviser to the Bosnian president, said
today that "the influence of the Croats will certainly be bigger" if their guns
save Sarajevo.

   "We will have to be very grateful. But anything is better than what is
happening now, anything is better than the Chetniks," said Serdarevic, 
referring to the encircling Serbs by a name used by Serb guerrillas during 
World War II and by paramilitary units from Serbia that have been involved in 
recent fighting in both Bosnia and  Croatia.

   The Serb forces that have overrun Bosnia -- creating a refugee flood of more
than 1.3 million people, more than one-fourth of the republic's population --
are equipped with a huge arsenal of  tanks,  artillery and aircraft that was
handed over to them by the Yugoslav army.

   The United States and other Western countries hold the government of Serbia
responsible for starting the war here and for equipping Bosnian Serbs -- who
account for a third of the republic's population -- with an arsenal that has
allowed them to savage Slavic Muslim towns and villages. More than 7,000 people
have been killed in the conflict -- most of them Muslims, who make up 44 
percent of the population.

    Croatia  began making large weapons purchases in the past six months, after
losing about a third of its territory last year in a ground war with Serb
insurgents who -- like the Bosnian Serbs -- were powerfully backed by Serbia 
and the Yugoslav army. Bosnian government advisers say  Croatia  has armed and
equipped about 80 infantry brigades of 1,200 men each and outfitted two armored
units with about 150 tanks, including modern German-made Leopards.
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Regars,
Milan Pavlovic
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		M A C E D O N I A    I S    G R E E K 
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Xref: sparky soc.culture.croatia:56 soc.culture.turkish:13007