From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Bosnia News
Date: 23 Jan 1993 09:02:00 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

1/21/93 Report: Serbs Used Rape

   GENEVA (AP) -- Serb forces in Bosnia have regularly used
rape and harassment as part of their campaign to force
Muslims and Croats to flee their homes, Amnesty
International said Thursday.
   The human rights organization said that in some cases,
the violations were carried out "in an organized or
systematic way, with the deliberate detention of women for
the purpose of rape and sexual abuse."
   Amnesty International said all warring factions were
guilty of human rights abuses, but that Serbs carried by far
the most blame.
   "Incidents involving the sexual abuse of women appear to
fit into a wider pattern of warfare, characterized by
intimidation and abuses against Muslims and Croats which
have led thousands to flee or to be compliant when expelled
from their home areas out of fear of further violations,"
said the group, based in London.
   Bosnian Serbs have been widely accused of pursuing
"ethnic cleansing" campaigns to clear other ethnic groups
from areas the Serbs have seized. At least 18,000 people
have died in the Serbs' rebellion against a vote by majority
Muslims and Croats to make Bosnia independent from Serb-
dominated Yugoslavia.
   The European Community issued a statement Thursday urging
help for the victims of rape in Bosnia. "Rape has been taken
as a method of terror and a real instrument of war," the
statement said.
   Amnesty's legal officer, Nick Howen, said it was
impossible to estimate the true number of rape victims. He
said there was no evidence to back up the figure of 20,000
cited by the European Community.
   The group's report was based on interviews conducted by
Amnesty International investigators and work by other human
rights groups.
   Amnesty International cited testimony from Muslim women
in the northwestern town of Kljuc. It said eight women were
raped by a group of Serb irregulars, including one woman in
her mid-60s who was raped by three men.
   "Two of the women had their throats slit after the
rapes," the report said.
   The report also cites evidence given by a 17-year-old
Bosnian Muslim to a doctor in Zagreb, Croatia, that she and
23 other women were held by Serbs for three months and raped
repeatedly.
   Amnesty said it was unclear whether rape was explicity
singled out by political and military leaders as a weapon
against their opponents.
   "What is clear, however, is that so far effective
measures have rarely, if ever, been taken against such
abuses, and that in practice local political and military
officers must have had knowledge of, and generally condoned,
the rape and sexual abuse of women," it said.
   A U.N. team is currently in former Yugoslav states
gathering evidence on rights abuses, and European Community
investigators also are working in the region.

1/21 Fighting Rages On In Bosnia

   SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Serb warplanes
blasted the eastern town of Srebrenica twice Thursday, a day
after Bosnian Serbs agreed to a plan to bring peace to the
war-ravaged state, Bosnian television reported.
   And in Gornji Vakuf in central Bosnia -- where weeklong
Muslim-Croat clashes appeared to weaken their tenuous
alliance against Serbs -- Croats again attacked Muslim
positions, the broadcast said.
   The Serbs' decision to drop demands for a separate state
and consent to the peace plan may have been a tactic to buy
time and consolidate their military grip. Fighting has
intensified in recent days as each side has tried to
strengthen its bargaining position.
   On Thursday, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said
Serbs cannot accept the proposed division of Bosnia into 10
provinces without holding a referendum.
   "We have to be very patient while adopting the maps, and
we have to use a democratic way of setting up boundaries
between the new provinces," the Bosnian Serb news agency
SRNA quoted Karadzic as saying.
   Meanwhile, Bosnian officials rejected U.N. Secretary-
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's conclusion that a Serb
soldier acting alone in the killing of Bosnia's deputy prime
minister two weeks ago. Hakija Turajlic was shot on the road
to Sarajevo from the airport while traveling in a U.N.
convoy.
   "It was a very well-organized assassination," Bosnian
Vice President Ejup Ganic told reporters Thursday at U.N.
headquarters.
   In a Bosnian TV interview, Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris
Silajdzic said he was not optimistic about the Geneva peace
talks, saying he thought the Serbs would not abide by any
agreement.
   "For me, personally, any kind of drawing of maps is the
aggressors' achievement. So without any doubt we can see
that the aggressor, through the shedding of blood, has
achieved his goal," he said.
   In Washington, the incoming administration echoed
Silajdzic's pessimism, noting the ferocity of the fighting
and the fact that previous commitments have been broken.
   Richard Boucher, spokesman for Secretary of State Warren
Christopher, said his new boss supports the negotiating
process, but "expressed doubts about whether (peace) can
realistically be achieved."
   Fighting in Bosnian broke out in March after Muslims and
Croats declared independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
About 18,000 people have been killed, and probably many
more, since Serbs took up arms to crush the separatists.
   Seventy percent of the republic has been seized by Serbs,
who made up one-third of Bosnia's prewar population. Croats
occupy most of the remaining territory.
   Under the proposed peace plan, Serbs would control about
40 percent of the republic.
   On Wednesday, a self-proclaimed parliament of Bosnian
Serbs agreed to the international peace plan. But on
Thursday, Karadzic retreated, saying it would be up to the
Serb people to decide whether to accept a proposal that
denies the Serbs the right to leave Bosnia and join
Yugoslavia.


    ZAGREB - Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban said the
division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into 10 autonomous cantons
was the only way to achieve a peace agreement fair to all
three population groups there.
    In MONS, Belgium, NATO's commander in Europe said
military pressure could be used in former Yugoslavia only in
support of a political solution, not to force an end to the
conflict.

    SARAJEVO - Moslem-led government forces claimed to have
made significant advances in battles with rebel Serbs in
eastern Bosnia in renewed fighting a day after a key Serb
peace vote. In GENEVA, Amnesty International said women from
all sides of the Bosnian civil war have suffered sexual
abuse, including rape, at the hands of the three warring
factions, but Serbs were most guilty of the crimes. At the
UNITED NATIONS, Bosnia's U.N. envoy disputed an inquiry
commission's conclusion that a single Serb soldier acting
alone was responsible for killing Bosnian Deputy Prime
Minister Hakija Turajlic while under U.N. protection on
January 8.