From: draskovi@usc.edu (Zoran Draskovic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: YU
Date: 17 Aug 1992 23:03:40 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: girtab.usc.edu


  I AM-YUGOSLAVIA-INFIGHTING     08-16 0498

Allied Militias Squabble Among Themselves
By MAUD S. BEELMAN
Associated Press Writer

    MOSTAR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Competing aims and mutual
distrust have hampered the effectiveness of the two main Croat
militias and the Muslim forces fighting for survival in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
    The three forces - the Croat HVO, the mostly Croat HOS and the
predominantly Muslim Armed Forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina - are not
united in a defense against Serb militias seeking union with
Belgrade.
    Their distrust of each other recently erupted in a shootout
between HVO and HOS forces that left 10 people dead, including an
HOS general.
    That shootout was only the most graphic illustration of
infighting that has intensified since civil war erupted four months
ago.
    The three groups have different supporters and aims.
    -The HVO, led by Mate Boban, president of the Croat ``state'' in
western Herzegovina, is supported by Croatia's President Franjo
Tudjman and aided by the Croatian army.
    -The Armed Forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a predominantly Muslim
militia is under the nominal command of President Alija Izetbegovic
in Sarajevo.
    -HOS is the military arm of the extremist Croatian Party of
Rights. The group has been attracting growing numbers of Muslims,
who distrust the aims of HVO Croats and see their only chance in an
alliance with the highly trained and well-armed HOS. Muslims now
comprise 30 percent of HOS forces in Bosnia, officials say, up to
half in some areas.
    HOS, an arch-rival of Tudjman's, and some Muslims claim Boban
secretly agreed with Bosnian Serbs to carve the country into Croat
and Serb sectors, disenfranchising the Muslims, who comprised more
than 40 percent of the 4.3 million prewar population.
    At the very least, they contend, Boban's HVO is fighting only to
secure the western chunk of Bosnia where most Croats live. HOS and
Muslims say they are fighting for Bosnia's original border.
    Boban, in an interview, said the HVO had ``no other military
aims than to defend Croats. ... Some people call it
cantonization.'' But he added that he he was seeking autonomous
rights within a sovereign country for all three ethnic groups and
he denied cutting a deal with Bosnian Serbs.
    Ante Djapic, vice-president of the Croatian Party of Rights,
said HOS's goal was to help Muslims win the war, after which there
would be a plebescite to decide on union with Croatia.
    He accused Boban of seeking to exclude Muslims and to discredit
HOS by labeling it neo-Nazi.
    Black-clad HOS fighters are vulnerable to the accusation. They
wear the ``U'' emblem of Croatia's World War II Nazi puppet state.
Pictures of Croatia's World War II fascist leader Ante Pavelic
abound at HOS' Bosnian headquarters and soldiers greet each other
with the stiff-arm Nazi salute.
    Muslims, outgunned though not outnumbered by either Croats or
Serbs, see a postwar plebescite as their only chance for retaining
statehood.
    ``We ally with the HOS because they are for a united,
independent Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the HVO offer partition,'' said
Sead Vidimlic, a Muslim soldier in the Bosnian army in Mostar.
    But he acknowledged the fragmentation of defending forces made
the fight far more difficult.
    Standing before the grave of a former student, a Serb killed
defending the city, Vidimlic began to cry.
    ``Mostar is paying a big price for it,'' he said. ``No one here
died peacefully.''
    Alija, a Muslim who refused to give his last name, said Mostar
is plagued by three militias, each with its own police.
    ``The only thing to do is live in the shadows,'' he said.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia