From: trh%jack.sns.com%harvunxw.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News-Bosnia, Aid to Kurds, Algeria/Iran
Date: 17 Nov 1992 10:53:41 -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

JAJCE, A SYMBOL OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, LIES IN RUINS

    By Gordana Kukic
    JAJCE, Bosnia, Nov 17, Reuter - The once proud Bosnian
town of Jajce, captured by Bosnian Serbs last month, now
lies in ruins, symbolizing the destruction of Yugoslavia, a
country that was born here almost 50 years ago.
    Serbian flags flutter over the ramparts of the 200-year-
old minaret overlooking the town hall where on November 19,
1943 the partisans led by Communist Josip Broz Tito
proclaimed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the middle
of World War Two.
    The inscriptions: "To our allies U.S.S.R, England and
U.S.A." and "Long live TITO" remain intact on the walls, but
the former Yugoslav flag lies burned, tattered and torn on
the floor.
    "That Yugoslavia does not exist any more. It fell apart
even before we entered Jajce,"  Captain Slavko Culjic,
commander of the Bosnian Serb army units in the town, told
Reuters.
    For almost five decades Jajce symbolized the unity of
the six republics comprising the former Balkan federation
which broke apart in violence last year.
    Tens of thousands have been killed and some 2.5 million
left homeless in the fighting that started in Slovenia,
moved to Croatia and continued since April in Bosnia.
    Although not winning international recognition,
Macedonia has also proclaimed independence, leaving Serbia
and its tiny ally Montenegro to proclaim a new Yugoslav
state.
    Culjic said that about 8,000 Serb soldiers participated
in the final operation for Jajce without "any support from
the heavy artillery or aviation."
    But contrary to his words, the mainly Moslem old part of
the town was completely destroyed with most of its houses
razed to the ground by heavy artillery.
    The roof of the famous Esma Sultania Mosque, a unique
piece of Turkish architecture, has been blown up, but its
minaret, as if in a final act of defiance, still dominates
the town.
    In balance, a Serb Orthodox church also lies in ruins
and Culjic accuses the Moslems of destroying it on purpose.
    "It was expertly mined, you can see that by the debris,"
he said, adding: "No shelling could have done that."
    There is almost no shop window left intact, broken glass
crunches underfoot everywhere. The streets are littered with
debris and burned car wrecks.
    Culjic said there were not many civilians left when the
Serbs entered the town.
    "They left much earlier, especially the Croats," he
said.
    Most of the Moslems and Croats, accounting respectively
for 39 and 35 percent of Jajce's 44,000 pre-war population,
fled the Serb onslaught to nearby Travnik.
    Town mayor Dragan Milicic said only about 5,000 people
were left in the whole community of Jajce.
    There is no electricity nor water, and several cases of
dysentery have already been reported in the town.
    Milicic accused the Croats and Moslems of damaging the
nearby hydro-electric power plants.
    "They mined them before they left."
    Members of a U.N. reconnaisance unit in Jajce to chart
routes for humanitarian aid convoys confirmed one of the
plants was damaged on purpose.
    "It has been badly destroyed. The building was wilfully
destroyed. I will report what I have seen here to my
headquarters in Zagreb," Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gebort of
the Canadian battalion with the U.N. Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) told Reuters.
    The few people wondering the streets ransack empty
houses and flats, filling up their plastic sacks and bags
with anything they might find useful -- clothes, shoes,
washing powder, pillows, blankets.
    "Don't look at me," said a woman bent under the weight
of the heavy bag on her shoulders, adding: "Look at those
filling their cars and lorries. We are just the poor ones."
    "They say the old Yugoslavia was an error. I do not
know. It was good then. There was no war," a young woman
said.
    "Maybe this state will be an error too," Djuro, her 35-
year-old companion, said bitterly.
    "The thieves ruled us before and they are ruling us now.
We are all to blame for what has happened to us."


ISLAMIC STATES CALL SECURITY COUNCIL INEFFECTIVE ON
YUGOSLAVIA
    By Evelyn Leopold
    UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16, Reuter - As the Security Council
introduced a resolution on Monday to plug loopholes in
sanctions against Yugoslavia, Islamic states accused the 15-
member body of ineffectiveness for failing to stop the war
in Bosnia and refusing to lift its arms embargo for Moslems.
    The council began a major debate on Friday, which
continued on Monday, on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina with
big powers concentrating on tightening sanctions.
    But Islamic states, such as Iran, Pakistan and Jordan,
unsuccessfully argued for weapons sales, embargoed to all
former Yugoslav territories, to be allowed for Bosnian
Moslems so they could defend themselves against heavily-
armed Serbs if the U.N. continued to rule out military
intervention.
    Iran told the council that "history is full of instances
(where) all options are wrong" but one had to choose the
lesser of two evils.
    Arguing for the right of Moslems to buy arms, ambassador
Kamal Kharrazi quoted from letters of French philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre saying purity was a luxury for monks.
    "The Security Council is neither effective nor is it a
monk," he added.
    Iran was caught in September attempting to smuggle
weapons into Bosnia together with relief supplies.
    The resolution, expected to be adopted either late on
Monday or on Tuesday, includes an Austrian proposal that
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali "study the
possibility" of creating safe havens for civilians in
Bosnia.
    But it is not clear whether such zones will be set up
formally. U.N. officials have expressed scepticism that
protected areas are feasible without thousands of additional
troops or if they would evolve automatically as new peace-
keepers came to Bosnia.
    The main thrust of the resolution, drawn up by the
United States, Britain, Russia, France and Belgium, imposes
a naval embargo on the Adriatic Sea and the Danube River,
which would allow states to stop and search ships and fire
across their bows if they refuse.
    The resolution tightens up sanctions procedures on
shipping goods across Serbia and Montenegro, the only two
republics left in the Yugoslav federation.
    Shipments of oil, petroleum products, coal, energy-
related equipment, iron, steel, other metal, chemicals,
rubber tyres, cars, aircraft and motors cannot transit
Yugoslavia without the council's sanctions committee being
notified.
    The United States has presented a detailed report of oil
flowing to Yugoslavia, naming shipping companies or
flagships from Greece, Malta, Italy, and Egypt violating the
embargo.
    Sanctions were imposed on May 31 to punish Belgrade for
fomenting war in Bosnia, where over 14,000 people have died.
    European nations and Canada are sending thousands of
infantry troops and other peace-keepers to Bosnia this month
to escort humanitarian supplies.
    Lord Owen, co-chairman of the Geneva Conference on
Yugoslavia, warned on Friday that it was necessary to keep
the threat of force alive, even as a last option.
    He told a news conference he "strongly believed" it
would be dangerous to do otherwise. He said U.N. officials
were able to negotiate a no-fly zone over Bosnia precisely
because Serbs knew that U.S. President George Bush was
prepared to enforce it.

    - - - -11/16/92

    ANKARA - Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel said Turkey's
military operations in northern Iraq had largely destroyed
the power of separatist Turkish Kurds based there.

ALGERIA REDUCES LINKS WITH ``HOSTILE'' IRAN

    ALGIERS, Nov 16, Reuter - Algeria, accusing Iran of
interference and hostility, is to cut its diplomatic staff
in Tehran and has told the Islamic republic to cut its
mission in Algiers to the same level.
    The Algerian Foreign Ministry, in a statement on Monday,
said the embassies would be at a "symbolic" level only.
    "For more than a year, the Islamic republic of Iran has
led a campaign of interference and open hostility against
Algeria and its institutions," it said.
    Iran has long supported Algeria's outlawed Islamic
Salvation Front (FIS) which came close to winning
parliamentary power in pursuit of its aim of putting
Algeria's 26 million people under Islamic law.
    Last January, Algeria cancelled a general election which
the then-legal FIS was expected to win, sparking harsh
criticism from Tehran and leading to the recall of both
countries' ambassadors.
    "This campaign culminated by taking an indecent
character...on the occasion of the tragic death of President
Mohamed Boudiaf which saw a senior Iranian dignitary
publicly rejoicing and making apologies for the crime," the
ministry statement said.
    Boudiaf was assassinated last June. The man named as his
killer, Lembarek Boumaraf, said he acted for religious
motives but did not belong to any fundamentalist movement.
    Extremists linked to the FIS are blamed for killing more
than 160 members of the security forces since a state of
emergency was imposed last February in response to
fundamentalist unrest that followed cancellation of the
elections.
    Earlier on Monday, an Algerian newspaper urged the
government to take action against the Iranian embassy,
terming it a "nest of spies" working with the FIS.
    El Watan said Iran's mullahs, using Sudan as a staging
post, lost no opportunity to export their revolution to
create Islamic states, focusing first on Algeria and Egypt.
    "Believing that Algeria would be the starting point to
achieve states governed by Sharia (Islamic law), they
especially encouraged the FIS, advising it and providing it
with the neccessary means to take power."
    This included training Algerian fundamentalists in
terrorism at camps in Sudan, it said. Khartoum has denied
such charges.
    The criticism of the Iranian mission coincided with wide
coverage, including in the government newspaper El
Moudjahid, of a British newspaper report saying Iran had
promised the FIS $5 billion when it won power.

YUGOSLAVIA

   UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The Security Council voted Monday
to authorize a naval blockade on the Danube River and the
Adriatic coast to tighten economic sanctions on Yugoslavia.
It said force could be used to back up the blockade.
   The council cited Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which it
has previously used to enforce embargoes and bans on
international weapons trade with Iraq and Libya.
   The resolution prods Bulgaria and Romania to patrol the
Danube, which flows along their borders. But it wasn't
immediately clear to what extent Western or other
governments were willing to get involved in enforcement of
the sanctions.
   NATO and the European Community's Western European Union
each has five frigates along the Adriatic, but they were
previously not authorized to inspect vessels.
   "I think we should move from surveillance to
enforcement," Willem van Eekelen, the Dutch secretary-
general of the Western European Union, said in Helsinki
earlier in the day.
   The vote on the resolution was 13-0, with China and
Zimbabwe abstaining because they felt the Serb-led
government in Belgrade had no real control over the Bosnian
Serbs, whose acts have been most sharply attacked by the
international community.
   "The Security Council must adopt firm measures to deal
with the problem," said Russian Ambassador Yuli Vorontsov.
"Bosnia-Herzegovina has been devastated."
   Twenty-seven nations supported the resolution, led by
Islamic countries backing the Muslim-led government of
Bosnia. They denounced Belgrade for fomenting war, capturing
vast territories in Bosnia and Croatia, and driving out non-
Serbs in a vicious "ethnic cleansing" campaign.
   Serbian forces have occupied about 70 percent of Bosnia.
Most of the rest is held by Croat militias, with only
Sarajevo and a few other towns still held by the Muslim-led
government.
   Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Jordan and other Islamic
countries wanted the council to lift the arms embargo on
Bosnia so it could rearm and acquire heavy weapons, but the
council refused.
   The council refused.
   Yugoslav Foreign Minister Ilija Djukic said the war in
Bosnia is a civil and ethnic war fought by paramilitary
groups not controlled by Belgrade, and by foreign
mercenaries, Muslims brought in by Islamic nations.
   "Sanctions are hitting the most vulnerable part of the
population" in Serbia and Montenegro, he said, including
more than 300,000 Bosnian refugees.
   The resolution's main thrust is to close off loopholes in
the economic embargo on Serbia and Montenegro adopted May
30, and the ban on arms supplies to all the former Yugoslav
republics, in force for more than a year.
   Until now, ships moving up the Danube have not been
boarded and searched. Port authorities merely radio the
captain to ask what is in the cargo and where it is bound.
After that, on the ship goes, often all the way to Belgrade.
Other ships unload at Montenegrin ports on the Adriatic.


   SAYID SADIQ, Iraq (AP) -- Cold rain heralds the start of
a winter in northern Iraq -- and new suffering for 3.5
million Kurds trying to sustain their de facto state.
   In December, the first snows could block roads and leave
them without food and fuel.
   U.N. agencies and Western governments are scrambling to
provide relief. But in the Kurdish town of Sayid Sadiq,
about 35 miles southeast of Sulaymaniyah, there is a sense
of impending disaster.
   "If you don't give us a hand, we die this winter," said
Hussein Abdurrahman, a middle-aged Kurd who has lost a leg
to a land mine.
   His two daughters were mixing mud with straw to smear on
a reed scaffolding and build a shelter for the family of
nine.
   The settlement was one of about 4,000 Kurdish communities
damaged or destroyed by Saddam Hussein's forces. Hastily
reconstructed with U.N. assistance before last winter, the
town of 30,000 people is still surrounded by thousands of
tents.
   Abdurrahman's small son was busy hawking Iranian kerosene
on the roadside. The family set up this "business" by
selling remaining belongings -- including vital blankets.
   "We have no fuel to cook," Abdurrahman said in an
interview earlier this month. "Well, nothing to cook
either," he added, causing the circle of onlookers to burst
into laughter.
   The Baghdad government has cut off the already limited
supplies of food and fuel to the north, causing prices to
skyrocket.
   Turkish trucks, engaged in an illegal trade of cheap
Iraqi diesel, were hauling supplies from Turkey. But Turkish
Kurdish rebels, angered by the Iraqi Kurds' attempts to move
them away from their sanctuaries, block the traffic.
   Iranian kerosene is sold in Sayid Sadiq for 100 times its
cost before the Iraqi blockade. Unable to pay, people look
for substitutes.
   Cars and old women carrying loads of wood fill the
streets, and the hills are becoming stripped.
   An Oct. 22 accord between the United Nations and the
Iraqi government gave the green light to a crash relief
program, but the needs keep increasing.
   Relief officials say the villagers have some survival
skills, but they fear for the residents of towns, many of
whom have already sold virtually everything they own.
   Muhammad Hadi, an official of the World Food Program last
month said 33,000 tons of food would be distributed to
750,000 Kurds from December through March. Last week, the
WFP announced a stepped-up program to benefit 450,000 more
people in central and southern Iraq. It said 49,000 tons of
food worth $22 million, would be distributed. Shipment of
the first 15,000 tons was to start this week.
   The U.S. Congress has appropriated $43 million for
relief, and the European Community has allocated $20
million.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish