From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: News--Bosnian
Date: 6 Jan 93 01:54:41 GMT
Reply-To: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: spiff.gnu.ai.mit.edu
Status: RO
Originator: gwydion@spiff.gnu.ai.mit.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. 
 
 
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