From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, 21 Jan 93 (from Haluk)
Date: 22 Jan 1993 21:40:04 -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

-Mass killings reported by Tadzhik leaders
-Bosnian official rejects U.N. report on murder
-Bosnian Serb decision does little for peace process
-Karadzic must assent to peace plan, says Vance-Owen spokesman

Subject: Mass killings reported by Tadzhik leaders

        MOSCOW (UPI) -- In the Tadzhikistan civil war, dying down but not
over, hundreds of people have been found in mass graves, some of them
buried alive, a top Tadzhik official said Thursday.
        The conflict that has ripped the poor, mountainous ex-Soviet republic
apart forced 600,000 from their homes, many of them streaming across the
Afghanistan border.
        The war has destroyed the Tadzhik economy and prevented the newly
independent nation from embarking on the economic reforms under way
elsewhere across the former Soviet Union.
        Tadzhik officials in Moscow for talks told a news conference that
Islamic militants based in Afghanistan were largely responsible for the
violence.
        After the collapse of Soviet power, the democratic minority formed a
loose alliance with Islamic forces in an effort to oust the former
communists who have been running the country. Complicating this conflict
was the eruption of long-simmering violence among clans and along
regional lines.
        The leadership of Tadzhikistan has changed three times in the past
year, contributing to the chaos. The latest group of leaders to take
charge alleged that rebel fighters were training for renewed battles.
        Although many of the charges are fraught with a certain political
taint, most disturbing were reports of mass graves being uncovered.
        ``Today we are finding mass burials of people in Kurgan-Tyube who
were buried alive,'' Saidamir Zakhurov, chairman of the state security
committee, said of the southwestern Tadzhik province. ``Only yesterday
we discovered the graves of hundreds of people. All this has been
documented and established beyond any doubt.''
        No accurate death toll has been determined in the year-long explosion
of violence that has recently relented, giving the troubled republic a
chance to rebuild and heal its wounds, despite the unresolved political,
regional, ideological, religious and clan disputes.
        ``As of today, out of some 600,000 refugees, about 300,000 have
returned,'' said Prime Minister Abdumalek Abduladzhanov. ``As for the
refugees in Afghanistan, they are forced refugees. These people were
forced to leave by Islamic fundamentalists at gunpoint.''
        ``More than 2,000 have returned from Afghanistan along with 40,000
who were along the border,'' Zakhurov said.
        Tadzhikistan and Afghanistan have appealed for United Nations and
international assistance to help refugees and other war victims. ``The
first priority is medical supplies and food, also baby food and clothes,
'' Abduladzhanov said.
        Russia troops -- leftover Soviet soldiers and border guards -- patrol
the Tadzhik capital and the Tadzhik-Afghan border, but they have been
unable to stop the flow of arms into the republic from Afghanistan,
which is recovering from its own protracted civil war.
        Zakhurov said his state security apparatus ``and the prosecutors'
office and the Interior Ministry have started many criminal cases
against Islamic Party of Afghanistan fighters.''
        In addition to blaming Afghan militants for fueling civil strife in
Tadzhikistan, the Tadzhik leaders blamed, by name, key Tadzhik
democratic politicians for stirring up trouble.
        ``Before a new government was installed in Dushanbe (the Tadzhik
capital), those so-called democratic leaders fled to Moscow while most
of the fundamentalists are now in Afghanistan preparing fighters who
will then be sent to the country,'' Zakhurov said.
        Damage to the country totals $600 million, Abduladzhanov said.
Industry and farming came to a virtual halt and economic reform went
nowhere.
        ``I think a peacekeeping force would increase the chance of the
fragile peace holding,'' the prime minister said. Tadzhikistan has
sought peacekeepers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, but
politics stood in the way of creating and sending a C.I.S. force.
        Tadzhikistan's problems were to be discussed at this week's C.I.S.
summit in Minsk, Belarus.
=========================================================================
Subject: Bosnian official rejects U.N. report on murder

        UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic rejected
Thursday a U.N. investigation of the assassination of Bosnian Deputy
Prime Minister Hakija Turajlic this month while he was under protection
of U.N. peacekeeping troops.
        Turajlic was gunned down on Jan. 8 by a Serbian soldier when he was
inside an armored personnel carrier in a French-led convoy. Turajlic was
returning to Sarajevo from the Butmir airport.
        An investigation carried out by an envoy of Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali concluded that the assassination was ``the work of a
single assailant acting unilaterally.''
        Ganic told a news conference in New York that ``there is a tendency
to say that this was an act of a soldier who did not behave well. But
clearly that was a very well organized assassination. I hope the United
Nations will come up with all the details.''
        Boutros-Ghali gave the Security Council excerpts of the investigative
report, which was discussed by the council in a closed-door meeting
Thursday.
        Boutros-Ghali said the U.N. Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia
is not mandated to transport Bosnian officials and the ride given to
Turajlic was a ``courtesy'' act by the French soldiers in the convoy.
        He said UNPROFOR failed to follow standard procedures by accepting
the request to provide protection for Turajlic. He said U.N. vehicles
have been subject to inspection by Serbian forces between the airport
and the capital, Sarajevo.
=========================================================================
Subject: Bosnian Serb decision does little for peace process

        BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Bosnian Serb leaders may have voted to
accept the constitutional principles of the peace plan for Bosnia-
Herzegovina, but later statements showed the move to be a public
relations deception and that they remain intent on carving out a state
for merger into a ``Greater Serbia.''
        ``The agenda remains unchanged,'' said a Western diplomat. ``They
gave the game away afterwards. They have no shame.''
        Said another Western diplomat: ``The Serbs do not intend by any means
to give back territory. They do not intend to demilitarize, and they do
not intend to give up sovereignty, no matter the semantics of the
'parliament' decision.''
        International mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen are
apparently aware of the political chicanery, with spokesman Fred Eckhard
warning that Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic should be prepared to
accept the constitutional principles of their peace plan without
conditions when negotiations resume in Geneva on Saturday.
        Should Karadzic attach conditions, Eckhard said Thursday, the
conference would remain in the same deadlock that forced its suspension
on Jan. 12, leaving Vance and Owen no choice but to refer the issue to
U.N. Security Council action.
        That almost certainly would include military intervention in the form
of the enforcement of a U.N.-decreed ``no-fly zone'' over Bosnia and
further isolation of Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs' chief military,
political and financial patron, through a tightening of the economic
sanctions imposed on May 30.
        The nine-point constitutional principles are one element of the
three-part Vance-Owen peace plan, and their central theme is the
preservation of Bosnia-Herzegovina's integrity and independence.
        The former Yugoslav republic would be divided into 10 provinces
linked by a weak central administration. The 1.9 million Muslim Slavs,
1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman Catholic Croats
would each dominate in three provinces, with the 10th around Sarajevo
being neutral.
        The provinces would be largely self-ruling, but would have no powers
to make independent foreign policy.
        In accepting those principles on Wednesday, the so-called Bosnian
Serb parliament in theory agreed to abandon the quest to conquer a self-
declared Serbian state and join it to a ``Greater Serbia'' that also
would comprise neighboring Serbia, Montenegro and Serb-captured areas of
Croatia.
        But in reality the rhetoric that came from Karadzic and other Bosnian
Serb leaders after the ``parliament'' session provided wide evidence
that illuminated the hollowness of the vote.
        ``The Serbian Republic exists,'' Karadzic told reporters after the
meeting in his mountain stronghold of Pale. ``It will function as long
as the Serbian people want it to function.''
        Karadzic gave other proof as to his true intentions. It included a
call for changes in the Vance-Owen map of the boundaries of the proposed
provinces to provide contiguity between the three that would be Serb-
dominated.
        Without such contiguity, Karadzic would lose the vital land
``corridor'' that runs from the western border of Serbia, through Serb-
held northern Bosnia-Herzegovina to areas of Croatia captured by Serbian
forces in the 1991 Serb-Croat war.
        Only by retaining that ``corridor'' could ``Greater Serbia'' be
achieved. Vance and Owen have clearly shown they understand that by
proposing boundaries that place substantial parts of the ``corridor'' in
Muslim Slav- and Croat-dominated provinces.
        Karadzic and his ``parliament'' also confirmed a new ``government''
of their self-declared republic led by a self-styled prime minister,
Vladimir Lukic, who was even more categorical in outlining the Bosnian
Serbs' major goals.
        ``There is no more important job than finishing a project of the
statehood of the Serbian people,'' he said. ``That state will be
integrated with the other Serbian states as much as possible.''
        He said his first goal would be forging an ``economic and monetary
union'' between the self-declared Bosnian Serb state and Serbia,
Montenegro and Serb-held areas of Croatia.
        Said Stojan Cerovic, a political columnist with Belgrade-based
magazine Vreme: ``It is evident that they are not ready to accept the
substantial idea of the Vance-Owen program, which is a single Bosnian
state. All they have done is bought themselves a couple of weeks.''
        Cerovic and other analysts said the true aim of the ``parliament''
session was merely to portray the Bosnian Serbs as wanting peace and to
persuade Vance and Owen to resume the Geneva conference in hopes of
stalling the Western threats of military intervention and new sanctions
against Serbia.
        ``Karadzic will attempt to say that he has made concessions and that
it is up to the other sides now,'' said a Western diplomat.
        But, said another Western diplomat, Karadzic will ``have to realize
that the pressure is not going to come off and he will have to do
something serious.''
        If not, the diplomat continued, the Bosnian Serbs and their patrons
in Serbia will shortly face new international condemnation and actions.
=========================================================================
Subject: Karadzic must assent to peace plan, says Vance-Owen spokesman

        GENEVA (UPI) -- The Geneva peace talks on Bosnia-Herzegovina will
promptly return to deadlock if the Bosnian Serbs refuse to accept
without conditions the proposed framework of a new constitution, the
spokesman for mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen said Thursday.
        ``The co-chairmen will ask (Bosnian Serb leader) Radovan Karadzic for
a one-word answer -- namely 'Yes' -- when the talks resume on Saturday,''
spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.
        ``If he attaches conditions we will be back where we were before,''
Eckhard said.
        His comments came a day after the so-called parliament of the self-
declared Serbian state in Bosnia-Herzegovina voted to accept a nine-
point document setting out the basic principles of a new constitution
for war-ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        The principles -- one portion of a three-part Vance-Owen plan --
exclude the ``state'' Bosnian Serbian forces have been fighting since
late March to rip out of the former Yugoslav republic of 1.9 million
Muslim Slavs, 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman
Catholic Croats.
        Instead, Bosnia-Herzegovina's integrity and independence would be
preserved, although it would be divided into 10 largely autonomous
provinces linked by a weak central government. Each ethnic group would
dominate in three provinces, and the 10th around Sarajevo would be
neutral.
        In accepting those principles, the Bosnian Serb ``parliament''
stipulated that Karadzic would still insist on the right for self-
determination.
        And, he and other senior leaders issued statements diametrically
opposed to the principles they voted to accept, insisting that they
would maintain their ``state'' and pursue their ultimate goal of merging
it in a ``Greater Serbia'' with Serbia, Montenegro and Serb-captured
areas of Croatia.
        Eckhard said that Vance and Owen remain set in their rejection of
Karadzic's demand for the inclusion in the constitutional principles of
either preambular paragraphs or footnotes permitting the establishment
of a Serbian state within a state.
        ``Karadzic knows that this remains the case,'' Eckhard said. ``There
must be unconditional acceptance of the principles.''
        Karadzic's initial refusal to accept the principles led Vance and
Owen on Jan. 12 to declare a suspension in the Geneva talks. They said
they would refer the entire matter to the U.N. Security Council for
further action.
        Such action would probably include a resolution on military
intervention in the form of the enforcement of a U.N.-decreed ``no-fly''
zone and new sanctions against communist-ruled Serbia, the Bosnian
Serbs' main patron.
        That same position would persist if Karadzic returns to Geneva on
Saturday with a demand for changes in the proposed constitutional
principles, Eckhard said.
        Eckhard said that as long as Karadzic accepts the principles
unconditionally, he, Bosnian Muslim and Croatian leaders and other
participants would begin work on a draft map of the 10 provinces.
        That will be ``a very difficult process,'' Eckhard conceded,
requiring several rounds of negotiations.
        The Vance-Owen map would leave the Bosnian Serbs without a border
with Serbia -- something that Karadzic is expected to insist on in order
to achieve his ultimate aim of ``Greater Serbia.''
        The Muslim Slav-led Bosnian government also reject the map, saying it
gave too much territory to the Serbs. But, it accepted the
constitutional principles. The Bosnian Croats said they could accept the
entire plan if the others do likewise.
        Eckhard reiterated that the peace plan is a package -- the
constitutional principles, the map and an military disengagement
agreement -- which must be accepted as a whole.
        The co-chairmen, he said, expect the same players as before to be
present on Saturday.
        That would mean Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnian Croat
leader Mate Boban, Karadzic, President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia,
Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia
and Montenegro President Momir Bulatovic.
            _
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