From: Guven.Guzeldere%STANFORD.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (hq.ggg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News: Kurds, Bosnia, Serbian, Bush
Date: 19 Dec 1992 14:26:39 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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12/19  13 Killed In Kurd Clashes

   SIIRT, Turkey (AP) -- Thirteen people were killed in
clashes between security forces and Kurdish rebels in
southeastern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency
said Saturday.
   In one of the incidents, the rebels stopped two small
buses, ordered the occupants out, and executed eight village
guards among the passengers near Baykantepe in Siirt
province, the agency said.
   The government has armed a 30,000-strong Kurdish militia
of village guards to help combat the insurgents.
   The guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party frequently
attack the guards, whom they see as traitors.
   Three Kurdish rebels and two soldiers were killed in
separate clashes in Bingol and Sirnak provinceson Saturday,
Anatolia said. Two soldiers were reportedly wounded.
   PKK has been fighting since 1984 for self-rule in
southeastern Turkey, where about half the country's 12
million Kurds live.
   The PKK increased its attacks in the past month since
Turkey's army entered northern Iraq to attack rebel bases
there.
   The fighting has claimed more than 5,600 lives since
then.


12/19 New U.N. Bid At Bosnia Truce

   SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- A U.N. mediator
launched yet another round of talks Saturday among Bosnia's
warring ethnic groups, a day before elections in Serbia that
are considered crucial for this conflict and others in
former Yugoslavia.
   Heavy shelling and small-arms fire once again held up
relief deliveries to the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.
   The mediator, Lord Owen, hoped to get the rival factions
to honor promises of a cease-fire. But the meeting began
inauspiciously after fighting in Sarajevo throughout the
night.
   The participants included Bosnia's Muslim-led government,
Croats and rebel Serbs, along with U.N. peacekeeping
commanders.
   "We are still facing a lack of agreement or understanding
on the steps needed for the cessation of hostilities," U.N.
spokesman Adnan Abdulrazek said before the talks began.
   A cease-fire at the airport Friday allowed the evacuation
to France of a French army captain in critical condition
after being shot in the back at a U.N. checkpoint near the
airport. Abdulrazek said the shot was fired from Serb-
controlled territory.
   Bosnian Serb fighters have seized about 70 percent of the
former Yugoslav republic and have besieged Sarajevo for
eight months.
   They are believed to be backed by the nationalist
president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who is running for
re-election Sunday against Yugoslav federal Premier Milan
Panic, who has pledged an end to fighting.
   But many independent observers fear that even if
Milosevic loses, it would mean more war in the Balkans. They
say he is unlikely to give up power and might trigger even
more violence, perhaps in Kosovo, a Serbian province that is
predominantly ethnic Albanian.
   In Bosnia, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported that
clashes intensified Saturday in parts of Sarajevo and in
Foca, 30 miles to the southeast.
   Quoting Bosnian Serb military sources, Tanjug said
Muslim-led forces launched an offensive at Foca.
   Croatian Radio said Serbian artillery was attacking the
northern Bosnia town of Gradacac and surrounding villages.
Gradacac is 80 miles north of Sarajevo and about 15 miles
south of the Croatian border.
   At the United Nations on Friday, the 179-nation General
Assembly approved a resolution urging the Security Council
to drop its arms embargo against Bosnia. Government forces
say they are at a disadvantage against the better armed
Serbs.
   The General Assembly, voting 102-0 with 57 abstentions,
also called on the council to enforce a no-fly zone over
Bosnia and set up a war crimes tribunal. The resolution is
not binding, and the Security Council will not take up the
matter until next month.

12/19 Serb Militiaman Likely Deputy

   PRIZREN, Yugoslavia (AP) -- He's wanted for armed robbery
in Sweden and the U.S. secretary of state has identified him
as a possible war criminal. But among Serbs here, "Arkan" is
a hero -- and their likely choice for parliament.
   Deep in restive Kosovo province, raucous cheers and
nationalist chants greeted Zeljko Raznjatovic on a recent
campaign swing for Sunday's election.
   His candidacy underscores a mood of nationalist tension
between Serbs and the region's majority ethnic Albanians
that threatens to turn Kosovo into Yugoslavia's next brutal
conflict.
   "Rule No. 1 is to fight with honor for home, country and
Orthodox faith," cried Arkan, crossing himself in the
Serbian manner with the thumb and first two fingers of his
right hand. He had exchanged his usual black attire for a
wine-red civilian suit for the Wednesday rally.
   The crowd went wild. Proud fathers held up infants
dressed in Arkan-style fatigues. The stands were awash with
unfurled Serbian flags and posters of Arkan in combat gear -
- Arkan holding up his militia's symbol, a Tiger cub, or
Arkan in an old World War I Serbian army uniform.
   Similar posters could be seen this year in Serb
strongholds across war-torn Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
where his militia went in as shock troops to "soften up"
Croat- or Muslim-populated towns before Serbian forces
occupied them.
   And shock they did. The "Arkanovci" have been widely
blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Bosnia. Croat and
Muslim civilians refugees whispered the militia leader's
name in terror.
   Observers fear a new conflict in Kosovo would spread to
neighboring Albania and Macedonia, which would then drag in
Greece, Bulgaria and possibly Turkey.
   Raznjatovic has been wanted for years by Swedish
authorities, and this week U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger identified him as a possible war criminal.
   But among Kosovo Serbs, the Belgrade cafe owner is a hero
-- a warrior who has protected Serbs throughout former
Yugoslavia.
   "We Serbs want to live in the United States of Serbia --
that's what we are fighting for," Arkan shouted.
   He urged Serbian mothers to produce more children and men
to build more Orthodox churches.
   Mention of Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic, who
began his nationalist campaign in Kosovo, also drew a huge
cheer from spectators. Kosovo is considered the heart of
their medieval kingdom by Serbs who vow never to give it up
despite the fact that the territory is now about 90 percent
ethnic Albanian.
   Strident Serb nationalists are more popular here than
just about anywhere in Serbia.
   The name of Milosevic's challenger in Sunday's elections,
Milan Panic, was greeted with jeers and whistles. Panic has
sought negotiations with the Albanians.
   Kosovo's Albanian leadership looks set on a collision
course, reckoning with war no matter what happens, and
relying on their superior numbers to battle the heavily
armed Serb security forces.

12/19  BUSH AND MAJOR GO TO WORK ON BOSNIA

    By Peter Bale
    WASHINGTON, Dec 19, Reuter - President George Bush and
British Prime Minister John Major met on Saturday to work
out a basis for tougher Western military action in Bosnia
while protecting the flow of humanitarian aid.
    British officials travelling with Major said London and
Washington were moving closer together on how best to
toughen an air exclusion zone over Bosnia.
    "I think our positions are coming closer together," said
a senior British official at Camp David, the presidential
retreat.
    There was a building acceptance that internationl
pressure to confront Serbian aggression in Bosnia-
Herzegovina would lead to a United Nations Security Council
resolution to beef up the existing "no-fly zone" over the
territory.
    "That is the way the mood is," the official said.
    Britain has been concerned that the clamour for Western
action in Bosnia should not drag its troops there on U.N.
humanitarian duty into a ground conflict.
    But both Bush and Major on Friday made similar
statements at the White House emphasising the need to
preserve the flow of humanitarian aid into the former
Yugoslavia.
    "We reaffirmed our commitment to the unhampered flow of
humanitarian aid and to ending the violence there and to a
sound political solution," Bush said.
    The Camp David weekend is something of a farewell to
Bush by Major. The two men have developed a close working
relationship since Major replaced Margaret Thatcher two
years ago. Their bond was cemented during the Gulf War over
Kuwait.
    Officials said Bosnia dominated talks at the Maryland
retreat but that the two men also touched on Somalia, the
European Community, political upheavals faced by Russian
President Boris Yeltsin and Anglo-American investment.
    On Friday Major and Bush agreed to try and push the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
trade talks to a successful end by mid-January saying it
would boost the sluggish world economy.
    At Camp David, British officials said, Major would press
the British Airways PLC case to take an agreed 44 per cent
stake -- 21 per cent of it voting shares -- in USAir.
    But the British officials said they did not expect Major
to be able to break through the U.S. objections to the deal
so close to the January 20 transfer of power to President-
elect Bill Clinton.
    "I think the United States is fairly locked into a
particular course. I think the chances of getting changes
there are pretty remote. I certainly wouldn't be optimistic,
quite the reverse," said the British official from Camp
David.
    White House officials had no immediate comment on the
Bush-Major talks.
    Major and Clinton spoke for 30 minutes on the telephone
on Friday. The Democrat leader was unable to make time to
see Major on this visit but both sides have insisted that
was not a snub and had nothing to do with help Major's
Conservative Party gave Bush's Republicans during the
presidential campaign.
    The British government has also been criticised for
looking through its files on Clinton's student days at
Oxford University to check suggestions he had sought to stay
and Britain in order to avoid the Vietnam War draft.
    British officials said on Saturday that in fact such
checks might have helped Clinton by "stamping out this
ridiculous story that he applied for citizenship."
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:13327 talk.politics.mideast:23633 soc.culture.greek:11603 soc.culture.europe:10571 soc.rights.human:4554