From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News--Bosnian
Date: 28 Dec 1992 13:43:12 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

12/27 MOSLEMS ATTACK SERB TOWN, GENEVA TALKS PROGRESS

    By Kurt Schork
    SARAJEVO, Dec 28, Reuter - Moslem forces claimed they
had "liberated" a large area around the Serb-controlled town
of Bratunac, near the Bosnian-Serb border, just as
negotiators debating peace for Bosnia reported progress in
Geneva.
    Moslem-controlled Sarajevo radio said Moslem forces had
seized 28 square km (11 sq miles), including several
villages, in the Bratunac district. It said that 50 Serbs
were killed, weapons and ammunition seized and new front
lines fortified.
    Serb media had also reported heavy fighting in the area,
scene of fierce battles in which Moslems have overcome the
usually superior Serb forces, with many civilians killed, in
recent weeks.
    But a Reuter television crew that visited the area on
Sunday found no evidence of fighting.
    Fighting was reported elsewhere across the former
Yugoslav republic, including the northern Serb "corridor"
town of Gradacac, which was hit by two Serb missiles,
according to Sarajevo radio.
    In Geneva, Bosnian peace talks resumed with some talk of
progress. Bosnia's Moslem President Alija Izetbegovic and
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman tried to hammer out a
common vision of how the republic should look
geographically.
    The two presidents, accompanied by senior ministers and
aides, met together with mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord
Owen, co-chairmen of the Geneva conference on former
Yugoslavia.
    Tudjman told reporters that the two sides had come "much
closer" during the day and would meet again on Monday.
    France and the United States toughened their line in the
debate over whether to intervene militarily to stop fighting
in Bosnia, especially to enforce a "no-fly" zone aimed
primarily at Serbs.
    French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said for the first
time that France could accept using firepower against Serb
airstrips if authorised by the United Nations.
    "The first (U.N.) resolution, which has been adopted,
concerns the no-fly zone. Now a second resolution has to be
passed...so the first one can be respected, which means
force being used against planes, and possibly against
airstrips so that the infractions cease," Dumas told France
2 television.
    U.S. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft said he
hoped for agreement soon on the no-fly zone.
    In an interview on NBC television, Scowcroft said the
Bush administration would prefer a U.N. resolution that
allowed attacks on Serbian air bases.
    "We feel it ought to be done in the most efficient way,
which is to take out aircraft on the ground rather than to
chase helicopters up and down the valleys," he said.
    U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who flew
to Geneva for nuclear arms talks with Russia, said on Sunday
the United States was still pressing for military
enforcement of a no-fly zone over Bosnia to begin on January
1.
    He told reporters he believed the United Nations
Security Council would pass its long-delayed resolution by
the end of this week, though he could not be sure.
    Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic issued a statement
saying the Serbs were not flying combat missions and asking
for a "political solution." He also denied that his troops
had attacked British soldiers serving with the U.N. in
Bosnia.
    British U.N. troops came under mortar fire twice within
hours on Saturday, an army spokesman said, adding that the
mortars were fired from the direction of Serb positions. One
officer and two civilians were hurt.
    "British officers in U.N. forces were attacked by Moslem
forces, not by Serb or Croat units," Karadzic said in a
statement telephoned to Reuters in London.
    "Serbs still consider the British as their old allies
and would never attack them." He added: "British soldiers
will always be secure through Serbian territory."


12/27 SERBS SWITCH TO MISSILES, BOSNIAN LEADERS TALK

    By Kurt Schork
    SARAJEVO, Dec 27, Reuter - Bosnian Serb forces fired two
missiles into the besieged northern Moslem town of Gradacac
on Sunday while Bosnian and Croat leaders met in Geneva
seeking to negotiate a peaceful end to the war.
    Sarajevo radio said two Luna R-65 surface-to-surface
missiles hit the town on Sunday morning amid heavy shelling
and an infantry assault. The radio said it was not known if
there were casualties.
    Fighting was also reported to be heavier on joint Moslem
and Croat lines around nearby Serb-held Brcko.
    Both towns lie on a strategic corridor across northern
Bosnia linking Serbia with areas of Croatia now controlled
by ethnic Serbs.
    The Serb-besieged Bosnian capital Sarajevo, frozen in
temperatures well below zero Centigrade, was relatively
quiet.
    British United Nations troops in Bosnia came under
mortar fire twice within hours on Saturday, an army
spokesman said.
    In the first attack, near the eastern town of Tuzla, an
officer and two civilians were wounded. In the second, on a
road dubbed "Bomb Alley" near the eastern town of Kladanj,
Serb forces fired three mortar bombs at a convoy of four
British Warrior armoured troop carriers. There were no
casualties.
    Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic issued a statement
in London saying that his forces could not be responsible.
    "British officers in U.N. forces were attacked by Moslem
forces, not by Serb or Croat units," he said.
    "It first happened deeply in Moslem territory and it
happened particularly because Great Britain is opposing
military intervention in Bosnia. Serbs still consider the
British as their old allies and would never attack them."
    He added: "British soldiers will always be secure
through Serbian territory."
    United Nations officials in Sarajevo said they suspected
that large quantities of food aid were being diverted by
armed factions and had launched an enquiry.
    "It is our experience people aren't getting the amount
of food they are supposed to get," Peter Kessler, a
spokesman for the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters.
    Another U.N. official said that French general Philippe
Morillon, who commands U.N. Protection Forces (UNPROFOR) in
Bosnia, had not decided whether to move his personal
headquarters out of Sarajevo in response to recent mortar
bomb attacks.
    The building came under direct mortar fire on Christmas
eve morning, slightly wounding one U.N. soldier. A second
volley of mortar bombs hit it on Christmas morning.
    Negotiators trying to work out a way for some of
Sarajevo's population to leave failed to agree on one plan
brokered by European Community negotiator Lord Owen. Bosnia
said the plan, which would allow 500 Croats, 500 Moslems and
500 Serbs to leave the city, was based on ethnicity and thus
unacceptable.
    Bosnian peace talks resumed in Geneva. The former
Yugoslav republic's Moslem President Alija Izetbegovic and
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman tried to hammer out a
common vision of a post-war Bosnia seen as vital to a new
round of peace talks.
    The two presidents, accompanied by senior ministers and
aides, met together with mediators Cyrus Vance and Owen, co-
chairmen of the Geneva conference on former Yugoslavia.
    Tudjman told reporters that the two sides had come "much
closer" during the day and would meet again on Monday.
    Under Vance and Owen's draft, Bosnia would be a loosely
decentralised state cut up into between seven and 10
autonomous regions -- a notion both the Croats and Moslems
have in principle accepted.
    Izetbegovic, Tudjman and Yugoslav federal President
Dobrica Cosic were due to hold separate meetings with U.N.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in Geneva on Monday.
    And in Belgrade, the debate over the fairness of last
Sunday's election was renewed, a day after opposition
Serbian presidential candidate Milan Panic gave in and
congratulated the winner, incumbent Slobodan Milosevic.
    The opposition Democratic Movement of Serbia (DEPOS)
said the votes of soldiers had not been counted and that a
large number of envelopes sealed by the army were found in
the municipal building in the northern Serbian city of Novi
Sad. It said this was reason enough to annul the results.