From: mtaghavi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Amir Taghavi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian,soc.culture.turkish
Subject: U.S. has solid information on mass executions in Bosnia
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:33:20 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University


	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Credible witnesses have told U.S. officials they
saw Serbian troops slaughter more than 3,000 men, women, and children
last spring at detention camps in the Bosnian town of Brcko, the State
Department said Monday.
	Spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. officials recently received
reports from two survivors of the Serbian brutality who estimated 3,000
Bosnian Muslims were executed at Brcko during May and June.
	Although the administration was told previously of the mass
executions, he said the fresh reports are the first from witnesses.
	``These are the first eyewitness reports we've received of these
killings in the Brcko area,'' Boucher said. ``The previous information
that we had was either second-hand or some of the information that we
had raised questions about its credibility.''
	He said the information had been turned over to United Nations
authorities that are investigating Serbian atrocities in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, which has been under siege since March by troops from
Belgrade attempting to annex the nascent republic and ``cleanse'' it of
all Muslims and Croats.
	The United States has been discussing with its allies at the United
Nations a possible resolution calling for the establishment of a war-
crimes commission to prosecute such abuses of human rights, officials
have said. It would be similar to the one that oversaw the prosecution
of German Nazis at Nuremberg following World War II.
	The incident at Brcko would be a candidate for such an investigation.
	``We've been discussing a possible resolution with our allies,''
Boucher said. ``The resolution...would establish a war crimes commission
to look into the charges, establish the facts, and prepare for possible
prosecution of individuals who are found guilty.''
	Boucher said the administration hopes ``to table such a resolution in
the Security Council soon.''
	The two witnesses said the Brcko detention camps in northeast Bosnia-
Hercegovina were operated by Serbian militias and run by a Commander
Arkan and then a Commander Seselj, Boucher said.
	The witnesses claimed ``to have witnessed the spontaneous murders of
up to 50 prisoners at a time,'' he said.
	One witness told U.S. investigators that he transported bodies of
dead prisoners from a brick factory, which served as a detention camp,
to a local animal rendering plant for cremation, Boucher said.
	Both witnesses estimated in separate interviews with U.S. officials
that ``3,000 men, women and children were executed in Brcko in the May-
June period,'' he said.
	Information submitted by the administration last week to the United
Nations contains chilling accounts of the reported mayhem at Brcko. It
was given to the United Nations prior to administration interviews with
the two witnesses.
	A 38-year-old inmate at a nearby detention camp told investigators
she was taken to Brcko, ``where she saw 10 people being killed every day
with rifle butts and bottles,'' the report said.
	The woman said ``two prisoners were required to slap each other. The
one who didn't slap as hard was killed.
	``One time I saw them cut off the ears of the weak slapper, then cut
off his nose and then kill him by cutting his throat.''


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