From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: U N says all sides violate human rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 10 Sep 92 05:29:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.20255
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

[ re-posted from SII w/o premission ]
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Subject: U.N. says all sides violate human rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:03:14 GMT

	UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- A U.N. human rights investigator charged
Wednesday that all warring parties in Bosnia-Hercegovina have committed
grave violations and proposed that peacekeeping troops be deployed to
cover the whole Balkan republic.
	Former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki warned that there is
a ``real possibility'' that violence involved in the Serb-led so-called
``ethnic cleansing'' activities will spread to Kosovo, Sandzak and
Vojvodina, the other ethnic regions in the former Yugoslavia.
	Mazowiecki, appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in
Geneva, visited Bosnia-Hercegovina last month to investigate allegations
of mass execution of Muslims and Croats by Serbian forces in their drive
to claim large chunks of the republic's territory.
	The investigator said his visits were limited by time and his
assessments were a ``diagnosis'' of the main problems existing in that
country with three distinct ethnic populations embroiled in a five-
month-old civil war.
	``Massive and grave violations of human rights are occurring
throughout the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina,'' Mazowiecki said in a
report to the U.N. Security Council.
	``Human rights violations are perpetrated by all parties to the
conflicts,'' he said. ``There are also victims on all sides. However,
the situation of the Muslim population is particularly tragic: they feel
that they are threatened with extermination.''
	Mazowiecki said he has obtained ``credible evidence'' that Muslims
and Croats were subjected to the ethnic cleansing campaign in both
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia. But on the other hand, Serbs in Croatia
have been also discriminated against, harrassed and maltreated and the
importance of human rights violations there cannot be underestimated.
	``There is credible evidence that some prisoners have died of torture
and mistreatment in both Croatia and the various parts of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, and at the present stage of this investigation it cannot be
ruled out that executions may have been carried out systematically in
other regions,'' he said.
	But he said allegations of systematic execution of Muslims and Croats
by Serbs in detention camps have been ``proven false'' by ``humanitarian
bodies'' in the Yugoslav territories.
	Mazowiecki proposed that the Security Council expand the mandate of
the U.N. Protection Force in Croatia to cover the whole territory of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. The 14,000-strong U.N. peace force was set up
earlier this year to put an end to the civil war in Croatia, but its
troops were called to provide security to the Sarajevo airport and to
escort humanitarian convoys.
	At the U.N. headquarters in New York, the death of two French
peacekeeping soldiers south of Sarajevo Tuesday was strongly deplored by
Secretary-General Boutros Ghali. France has also asked the Security
Council to meet urgently Wednesday to discuss the incident, which
occurred after a U.N. food convoy was reportedly ambushed.
	U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani said the United Nations has ordered
an investigation on the incident. He said Ghali may present next week a
plan to increase the strength of the U.N. peace force in Bosnia-
Hercegovina in order to deal with the war situation in that republic.