Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:11:12 CST
From: <U15231@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Serb Drive 'Borders on Genocide'




The Washington Post, Jan 20. 93

        U.S. Human Rights Update Asserts Serb Drive 'Borders on Genocide'

By John M.  Goshko, Washington Post Staff Writer


The "ethnic cleansing" campaign pursued by Bosnian Serbs to drive
Muslims and other ethnic groups from their homes in Bosnia-
Herzegovina has resulted in murder, torture, rape and starvation
on a scale that "dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi
times," the State Department said yesterday in its annual human
rights report.

"It borders on genocide," Patricia Diaz Dennis, assistant secre-
tary of state for human rights, said in describing the efforts of
Serb irregular forces, aided by Serbia and the Serbian-controlled
Yugoslav army, to bring most of Bosnia under their control.

Yesterday's report was the 17th such annual study for Congress
about the human rights situation in 189 countries. It was the fi-
nal report of President Bush's four years in office and was
released one day before President-elect Clinton's new State
Department team assumes responsibility for integrating human
rights into U.S. foreign policy.

"The balance sheet of human rights practices had many negative
entries in 1992," said Dennis, noting the abuses that have
resulted from civil war between ethnic and religious groups in
many areas of Europe, Africa and Asia.

But she also pointed to the U.S. military intervention in Somalia
to "break the stranglehold of warlords threatening food and medi-
cal relief operations . . .  as a defining moment in the role
that human rights and humanitarian concerns can play in world af-
fairs."

In the last few years, most interest in the annual reports has
focused on Russia and other now-independent republics of the
former Soviet Union, Israel and the Arab-populated territories
under its occupation, China, Latin America and the Middle East.
This year, though, the bloody Balkans civl war has attracted the
most attention.

The State Department already has sent five reports describing
atrocities in Bosnia to the United Nations in hopes that they
might provide the basis for a special war crimes commission. In
summarizing these earlier efforts, the annual report said, "Limi-
tations of space and the standardized format used in this report
make it difficult to detail the true scope and horror of the
atrocities committed by Serbian forces."

It said that, to a lesser extent, Bosnia's other main population
groups - the Muslims and Croats - have committed violations
against other ethnic groups. But, it added, "the atrocities of
the Croats and Bosnian Muslims pale in comparison to the sheer
scale and calculated cruelty of the killings and oth-"So-called
ethnic cleansing was practiced by Serbian forces in Bosnia on a
scale that dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi times.">

-State Department>human rights report>

er abuses committed by Serbian and Bosnian Serbian forces. . . .

"The policy of driving out innocent civilians of a different eth-
nic or religious group from their homes, so-called ethnic cleans-
ing, was practiced by Serbian forces in Bosnia on a scale that
dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi times."

It said the Serb tactics, aimed primarily at civilians, included
mass and individual executions, torture of prisoners, systematic
shelling and starvation by siege of cities and deliberate, mass
rape of Muslim women. By the end of 1992, the report concluded,
more than 25,000 people had been killed and more than 1.5 million
others displaced from their homes in Bosnia.

Among other findings in the report were:<Human rights practices
in China remained repressive and far below international stan-
dards during 1992 despite Bush's policy of trying to bring about
improvements through dialogue and persuasion rather than punitive
measures such as trade sanctions. In particular, the report cited
continued persecution of pro-democracy advocates, torture and
mistreatment of prisoners.<

Last year "did not see the same degree of wide-scale political
violence" in Haiti that claimed between 300 and 400 victims fol-
lowing the September 1991 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aris-
tide. However, the report added that failure of Haiti's military
rulers to investigate made it difficult to determine how many
political killings occurred.<

Israeli security forces killed 158 Palestinian Arabs in the occu-
pied territories in 1992, and at least 45 were victims of under-
cover units whose members are disguised as Palestinians. The re-
port noted that some human rights groups charge that the Israeli
units targeted some Palestinian activitists for execution. It
also noted that Israel, pleading the need for self-defense
against extremists, has continued the widely condemned practice
of expelling Palestinians, including the 415 who were deported to
Lebanon Dec.  17.<

Iraq had "an abysmal record" of mass executions, torture, repres-
sion of minority groups and denial of any semblance of democra-
cy.<

No executions for political beliefs were reported in Syria during
1992. However, it is widely believed that the government contin-
ues to execute detainees in secret and the fate of hundreds de-
tained in previous years is still unknown.
_____________________________________________________________________________


Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna