=======================================================

TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS      Ref: C1WM0716
Date: 01/27/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader)                     
          Time: 06:11pm \/To: ALL                               
                 (Read 11 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE



MAJ GEN Rupert Smith, British Army, arrived in Sarajevo
yesterday to become the new Commander of U.N. Protection Forces
in Bosnia. Smith, 51, is expected to keep a lower profile than
his predecessor, LT GEN Sir Michael Rose. Smith is known as a
soldier's soldier, and flew to Sarajevo aboard an Ilyushin
transport aircraft rather than a chartered U.N. business jet.
Smith was Commander of the 1st Armored Division in the Persian
Gulf War, and was most recently Assistant Chief of the Defense
Staff. He enlisted as a private in the Duke of Edinburgh
Regiment, and commanded a rifle company in 1978 in Northern
Ireland. There, he and a junior officer were wounded in a
carbomb attack. He was awarded a Queen's gallantry medal for
pulling the other officer free. (Roger Cohen/N.Y.T.)





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                    B o s N e w s  - Jan. 28-29, 1995 

===========================================



FRONTLINES, Bosnia and Herzegovina



        UN spokesman Paul Risley told reporters in Zagreb,
Croatia that tanks controlled by Serbs from Croatia had
re-entered the Bihac pocket in recent days, highlighting
mounting tension in the region.        UN spokesman Alexander
Ivanko said 66 artillery shell impacts had been reported in the
past 24 hours in the Bihac enclave around the town of Velika
Kladusa.        In Sarajevo, three explosions were reported at
about midnight Saturday in the city center which the UN said
might have been rifle-propelled grenades. The source of fire was
under investigation.        In the eastern enclave of
Srebrenica, Bosnian army troops were blocking 75 Dutch UN
peacekeepers from returning to their base, Ivanko said.        A
Croatian newspaper, Vecernji List, reported that government
troops backed by Bosnian Croats captured the village of Bugar,
nine miles northwest of the town of Bihac, on Thursday.

The rest of Bosnia has been generally quiet, but persistent
fighting in the Bihac region has undermined efforts to forge a
lasting peace.



Mediators Suspend Bosnia Peace Mission SARAJEVO, Bosnia and
Herzegovina



        International mediators Friday suspended their efforts
to reach a peace agreement in Bosnia.        The USA State
Department said the envoys made the decision to leave Bosnia
after the separatist Serbs refused to accept a peace plan put
forward by the five-nation "contact group." State Department
spokeswoman Christine Shelly said in Washington that 'contact
group' members "decided it was not productive for them to remain
in Bosnia and therefore took the decision to return to their
capitals."        Diplomatic sources in Sarajevo said USA envoy
Charles Thomas left Sarajevo Friday, while group members from
France and Britain would depart Saturday. Envoys from Russia and
Germany have already left.        A senior Western official
close to the contact group said that "a major problem was that
the separatist Serbs did not face a credible threat of military
force from NATO to make them compromise in the interests of
peace. They just don't have a real incentive to move now. The
problem is that there is no force in the equation. And I don't
see any political will among the major powers for the use of
force."        "As a matter of fact the problem seems to be more
of a linguistic one than anything else," Radovan Karadzic told
on Friday. "We are asked to say we accept the plan but after the
referendum we cannot do that," he said.        "The Contact
Group can't speak our language," Karadzic said. "The Muslims are
dictating the position of the Contact Group, and I don't think
the Contact Group has any future if that continues."        "The
army is involved in this whole thing," said George Grbic,
Karadzic's translator. "Politicians come and go, but the army
stays. We're willing to work loosely within the Contact Group
plan, but we can't consent to it, because of public opinion," he
added. "Everybody old enough to pick up a rifle is in the Serb
army."        A Serb official said the main reason for the
deadlock was the contact group's refusal to modify the peace
plan.



Christopher challenges Congress over Bosnia WASHINGTON USA



        Secretary of State Warren Christopher Thursday
challenged Congress to tell Bosnia's leadership directly how it
would follow up, with USA military support, any resolution to
lift the arms embargo on Bosnia.        At a House of
Representatives committee hearing, Christopher, who strongly
opposes a Republican bill to lift the UN embargo unilaterally,
invited representatives to explain their plans to Bosnian Prime
Minister Haris Silajdzic who plans meetings with members of
Congress during a visit to Washington next Monday through
Wednesday.         "What I ask all of you to do when you talk to
him, when he comes here, is to be frank with him, to be honest
with him as to what the Congress is likely to do," Christopher
told the International Relations Committee.         "If the arms
embargo is unilaterally lifted, and the Bosnians get in trouble,
will you send US troops to help him?  Will you send US aircraft
to pull them out of the situation?" the secretary of state
asked.        The scenario painted by the administration is that
UN peacekeeping troops in Bosnia would be withdrawn; the
separatist Serbs would overrun the Bosnian government; and the
United States would then be forced to aid the Bosnians first
with air power and then with ground forces.        Christopher
reiterated that the United States still wanted the United
Nations to lift the embargo, but noted that the other four
veto-holding members of the Security Council -- Russia, China,
France and Britain -- all opposed this.



UN -- War crimes tribunal prosecutors THE HAGUE, Belgium



        The UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal on Friday named
three senior lawyers who will present the prosecution's case at
trials. Chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone had appointed Eric
Ostberg of Sweden, Minna Schrag of the United States and Grant
Niemann of Australia as trial prosecutors. Ostberg, Schrag and
Niemann will present evidence and argue legal points before the
judges of the tribunal.        Before joining the tribunal,
Ostberg was chief public prosecutor for special cases and
financial cases in Stockholm. Schrag has previously served as an
assistant USA attorney and is a partner in New York law firm
Proskauer Rose Goatz Mendelssohn. Niemann was formerly deputy
director of public prosecutions for South Australia in Adelaide.
       Richard Goldstone and his stuff investigated 14 cases but
so far details of only two of them -- both involving atrocities
by separtist Bosnian Serbs -- have been made public.        The
cases to be heard by the tribunal will be the first
international war crimes trials since the trials of Nazi leaders
at Nuremberg 50 years ago. Trials are expected to start in the
first half of this year.



UN mounts "last" Sarajevo medical evacuation SARAJEVO, Bosnia
and Herzegovina



        The UN on Thursday mounted what it feared may be its
last medical evacuation from Sarajevo, saying the programme had
been crippled because donor nations had stopped giving funds.
Fifteen patients accompanied by 21 escorts boarded UN armoured
vehicles at the city's main hospital for the trip to the
airport, from where they were flown out for treatment in
Denmark, the only country currently providing beds.        A UN
doctor, Fausto Mariani, said that initial media interest in the
war had faded and this was reflected in a reduction of funds for
the medical evacuation programme from countries around the
world.        In August 1993, the programme received a boost
when the conscience of the world was pricked by the story of a
five-year-old girl, Irma Hadjimuratovic, who had been
languishing in a Sarajevo hospital with no water or electricity
after being injured in a mortar attack.        The then head of
the UN medical evacuation committee, Dr Patrick Peillod, summed
up the bitterness felt by many aid workers when he said: "I
don't think Sarajevo is a supermarket where governments can come
and pick the cases they want."        A UN official said the
amount of cash needed to keep the evacuation programme running
for the next six months amounted to no more than "a couple of
hundred thousand dollars."        Nine of the patients who left
on Thursday were children, seven of whom are in need of open
heart surgery. Four-year-old Fatima Durakovic was brought out of
the eastern enclave of Srebrenica three months ago with severe
heart problems. Two of the patients evacuated on Thursday were
girls from the separatist Serb stronghold of Pale just outside
Sarajevo.



UN Pullout; Krajina Peace Plan; Relations with Serbia ZAGREB,
Croatia



        Croatia's parliament on Friday endorsed president Franjo
Tudjman's decision to cancel the UN peacekeeping mandate in
Croatia after the end of March. The parliament expressed support
for the decision adding that it "must not be seen as the
acceptance of the war option, but is aimed at speeding up the
peace process in the interest of all nations involved."

        A plan for a political settlement between the Croatian
government and its rebel Serb minority, drafted by international
mediators (a group called the "Zagreb four" -- USA, Russian, UN
and European Union envoys,) is to be presented on Monday. A
Western diplomat in Zagreb said that the plan is a "starting
point for negotiations."        The plan is the final stage of a
three-phase process of normalising relations between Croats and
Serbs that started last March with a truce and was followed by
an economic agreement which is still being implemented.       
Details of the plan have not been disclosed, but it envisaged
the return of Serb-held Krajina areas to Croatian control while
giving the Serbs considerable cultural and political autonomy
and guaranteeing their human rights.        Initial Croatian
reaction was reserved. Foreign Minister Mate Granic said that
parts of the plan concerning the degree of Serb autonomy were
unacceptable. Krajina Serbs were also likely to reject the
proposal putting them under Zagreb's rule -- something they have
fought against for four years.        Work to finalise the plan
was hastened by Croatia's decision to eject 12,000 UNPROFOR
troops on March 31.        Diplomatic sources in Zagreb said the
USA ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, sugested that a
reduced number of troops -- 6,000 to 7,000 -- should be
stationed on front lines. A source close to Tudjman said such a
proposal was unacceptable to Croatia, which wanted all foreign
forces to leave the country and was prepared to accept only
international observers monitoring the ceasefire and human
rights.

        Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said on Saturday his
country and Serbia might establish formal relations this year
and thereby greatly improve prospects for peace in former
Yugoslavia.        "I am convinced this year can bring about
optimal solutions, in terms of normalisation of Croat-Serb
relations," Tudjman was quoted as saying by Croatia's HINA news
agency. Last week Tudjman announced that his foreign minister,
Mate Granic, would soon travel to Belgrade for normalisation
talks.



Serbs refuse access to jailed Bosnian journalist SARAJEVO,
Bosnia and Herzegovina



        Bosnian Serb forces have refused to let UN officers
visit a Bosnian journalist, Namik Becirbegovic, they are holding
prisoner after whisking him away from a UN vehicle in Sarajevo
on Thursday, a UN spokesman, Alexander Ivanko, said on Friday.  
     Beceribegovic was taken from a UN Protection Force armoured
personnel carrier by separatist Serb soldiers at Kasindolska
checkpoint between the airport and the city on Thursday.       
Ivanko said Russian UN soldiers in the vehicle had violated UN
procedure on transporting journalists to and from Sarajevo
airport, by opening the door of the transporter to allow
soldiers to check identification and baggage.        "They
should have not opened the APC door which they did. The
passengers were asked for a baggage check. The officers present
in the APC should have refused any baggage check which they
didn't."        The Russians were not threatened before opening
the APC door. "I think we will see some disciplinary action come
from this incident," he added.        "At first we will try to
get the journalist freed. As a possible follow-up we will raise
the issue of having free access to the airport without any
checking of passengers on UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force)
shuttles," Ivanko said.



Yugoslavia: Seselj released; Can Croatia win over Krajina?
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia



        Hundreds of cheering supporters greeted hardline Serbian
nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj when he was released from
jail on Saturday after serving four months for criminal
offences.        "Slobodan Milosevic is a communist bandit, the
greatest criminal and the greatest traitor to the Serbian
people," Seselj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, told a
news conference hours after his release from jail.        "There
will be neither freedom nor democracy until his neo-communist
regime falls," said Seselj, who also accused government
officials of plotting to have him "liquidated."       
Surrounded by bearded members of the Serbian Chetnik movement
waving a black skull-and-crossbones flag bearing the motto
"freedom or death," Seselj roared defiance of Milosevic.       
The West suspects Seselj of war crimes as a leader of
paramilitary units said by human rights groups to have killed
and expelled Moslems and Croats from lands taken by Serb forces
in Bosnia in 1992-93.

        Senior military analysts in Belgrade, retired army
general Radovan Radinovic, said he believes that despite its new
and sophisticated weaponry the Croatian army could not beat the
Krajina Serbs into submission.

In an interview published on Friday in the Belgrade weekly NIN
he said Croatia's limiting factor was having an unfavourable
base for marshalling a big force to assume the main thrust of an
attack on the Krajina Serbs' mountain headquarters at Knin.     
  According to the London-based International Institute for
Strategic Studies, Croatia has at its disposal an army of
110,000 troops, with 170 tanks, 900 artillery pieces and 20
aircraft, including helicopters.        The IISS also says
Krajina has 50,000 troops but 240 tanks, 500 artillery pieces,
12 combat aircraft and six helicopters.        "The balance of
manpower would have to be three and even five to one in favour
of Croatia and it would have to include elite forces to capture
and hold ground. Croatia does not have them in sufficient
numbers," Radinovic said.        He said the third factor is
Krajina's capability to strike out with artillery and missile
systems on all major Croatian towns except for the port of
Rijeka.        Authorative sources in Belgrade, speaking on
condition of anonimity, said that, in the event of an assault on
Krajina, the Bosnian Serb army would step to help its ethnic
kin.        "The Bosnian Serbs have been praying for years for
the war to expand and involve Serbia which has the single
decisive factor they lack-- the manpower. They hope that in the
event of such a war Milosevic would succumb to the pressure by
the Serbian nationalists and join the fray which, given Serbia's
superiority in manpower and equipment, could decisively shift
the balance of power also in Bosnia and Herzegovina."



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                    B o s N e w s  - Jan. 29, 1995 

==========================================

CHICAGO TRIBUNE Copyright Chicago Tribune 1995

DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 SECTION: NEWS SOURCE: From
Tribune Wires DATELINE: PALE, Bosnia and Herzegovina



                `NO MOVEMENT' IN BID TO RESTART BOSNIA TALKS



   Efforts to persuade Bosnia's warring factions to resume peace
talks came to a screeching halt Friday when Bosnian Serbs
refused to budge.   Mediators from the USA and four other
countries at the forefront of peace efforts had been conducting
feverish negotiations with Bosnian Serbs and their rival, the
Muslim-led government, for more than a week. But planned talks
with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic were canceled, and USA
representative Charles Thomas left Sarajevo on Friday after
remarking, "There's no movement here."   No movement toward
peace-but many steps, however, away from a four-month truce that
began Jan. 1.   Government and Serb forces were locked in fierce
machine-gun exchanges around the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo for
three hours Friday morning, the worst cease-fire violation there
this year.   Heavy fighting also continued in the northwestern
area around Bihac, where the two sides resumed combat in recent
days. UN officials reported 580 detonations in 24 hours around
nearby Velika Kladusa.   Thomas, the USA envoy, and
representatives of Russia, France, Britain and Germany-the
so-called Contact Group-had been trying to find the right words
that would allow Bosnian government and Serbs to resume
negotiations.   "The Contact Group can't speak our language,"
Karadzic said. "The Muslims are dictating the position of the
Contact Group, and I don't think the Contact Group has any
future if that continues."   The Contact Group has been peddling
a peace plan that would give a Muslim-Croat federation 51
percent of Bosnia and leave Serbs, who now control about 70
percent of Bosnian territory, with 49 percent.   The federation
accepted the plan last summer. Serbs originally rejected it,
then said they would use it as a basis for negotiation after the
Contact Group said changes were possible if both sides agreed.  
But the Bosnian government wants Serbs first to sign the peace
plan as is before negotiating any changes.   State Department
spokeswoman Christine Shelly said in Washington it was "way too
early to conclude that the Contact Group is finished" but there
would be "a pause now" in the efforts of the group. 



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                    B o s N e w s  - Jan. 30, 1995 

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	It would be naive to expect a very different performance from

	Rose's British successor, Gen. Rupert Smith. Similarly, it

	would be naive to expect better guidance from the UN.



1/30:EDITORIAL: ROSE AND HIS ORDERS

c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service



Gen. Sir Michael Rose, whose one-year tenure as U.N. commander
in Bosnia ended last week, had a thankless assignment. He was
supposed to protect civilians in Bosnia's besieged cities, but
had neither the mandate nor the means to repulse their Serbian
besiegers. In theory, the United Nations is neutral between
aggressors and victims in Bosnia's dirty war.



Even allowing for the toughness of the job, Rose damaged the
United Nations' credibility. His efforts to avoid confrontation
and protect his troops went beyond the narrow dictates of
neutrality.



He began well enough last January, cooperating with NATO efforts
to get the Serbs to pull back artillery from the hills
surrounding Sarajevo. But when the Serbs shifted their attention
to Gorazde, Rose impeded effective NATO air strikes. Later, he
seemed to encourage Serbian military operations around
Sarajevo's airport. Most recently, at Bihac, he seemed to ignore
the Security Council's instructions to protect civilians.



By tilting toward the aggressor and failing to protect Muslim
civilians, the United Nations has damaged its reputation with
Muslims and Americans.



Rose, who built a reputation for aggressiveness in the Falklands
and Northern Ireland and battling terrorists in London, did not
turn passive in Bosnia on his own.



The United Nations never provided him with the troops he needed
to face down the Serbs. Nor did his masters in the Security
Council ever really want him to get tough.



As a British general in U.N. employ, Rose faithfully followed
London's indulgent policies toward the Serbs - policies that no
permanent member of the Security Council, including the United
States, contested.



France, like Britain, has troops at risk. The United States is
rightly determined not to send troops of its own. Russia openly
sympathizes with the Serbian cause. China opposes aggressive
U.N. peacekeeping on principle.



So it would be naive to expect a very different performance from
Rose's British successor, Gen. Rupert Smith. Similarly, it would
be naive to expect better guidance from the United Nations.



The Clinton administration, though it has sometimes criticized
Rose, is not interested in reshaping the present Security
Council consensus.



It is fair to find fault with Rose. But it would be unfair to
forget that he did not act alone. 



=================================================

TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS      Ref: C1YP2882
Date: 01/29/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader)                     
          Time: 08:48pm \/To: ALL                               
                 (Read 13 times) Subj: 2 MARINES SHOT IN ALBANIA



Two members of the U.S. Marine Corps were shot in a restaurant
Friday in Durres, Albania. An operation on one of them, a 20
year old, lasted seven hours, and he is in critical condition.
He may be flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. The
other was shot in the arm, and was in good condition aboard the
U.S. Navy Austin-class Amphibious Transport Dock U.S.S. Ponce
(LPD 15), docked in Durres. Both were from the 22nd M.E.U., Camp
Lejeune, NC. Local police say the two were hit after gunmen
"shot up a building and then took off in a car." Whether they
were the target is not known.

The 22nd and other units are in Albanin for Exercise Sarex 95
with Albanian military units. The exercise was delayed by the
shooting but was to begin later Friday near Golem. Thousands
were expected to tour the Ponce today. (Merita Dhimgjoka/A.P.)





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                    B o s N e w s  - Jan. 30, 1995 

==========================================



FRONTLINES, Bosnia and Herzegovina



        UN spokesman Lt.Col.Gary Coward said fighting had picked
up again near Velika Kladusa in the north of the Bihac enclave
Sunday. Some 400 detonations were reported between Sunday
morning and noon southeast of Kladusa, four times the daily
average.

Although movement for peacekeepers in the area was severely
restricted, the UN believed rebel Muslim forces backed up by
Krajina Serb big guns were attacking the Bosnian government's
5th Corps. UN spokesman Maj. Koos Sol said Croatian Serbs and
rebel Muslims pushed the government's Fifth Corps up to three
miles farther southeast from Velika Kladusa.        Farther
south, UN spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward said government forces
apparently pushed Croatian Serb fighters back across the border
into Croatia.        To the south around Bihac town, more than
20 detonations were reported in the suburbs of Klokot, Vedro
Polje and Vegar.        In the Bosnian eastern enclave of
Srebrenica, Bosnian army troops were blocking 75 Dutch UN
peacekeepers from returning to their base, UN spokesman
Alexander Ivanko said. The Dutch had been investigating a recent
encroachment by the separatist Serbs in the eastern edge of the
enclave. Ivanko said it was possible the Bosnian army was trying
to exert pressure on the UN to push the Serbs back after the
Bosnian Serbs moved their lines 150 yards forward.        There
was also increasing tension between nominally allied Bosnian
Goverment Forces and Croats around the city of Mostar, where a
Dutch United Nations military resupply convoy turned back after
Bosnian Croat troops fired into the air.        Near Sarajevo,
French peacekeepers shot four government soldiers for attempting
to evade inspection, the United Nations said Monday. The
soldiers, shot in the legs Saturday, received medical treatment
from the French.



Bosnia tensions rise as peace efforts stall SARAJEVO, Bosnia and
Herzegovina



        The five-nation "contact group" which ended its mission
to Bosnia over the weekend has no firm idea of how to overcome
its biggest stumbling block -- the Bosnian Serbs' refusal to
accept the latest peace plan.        The political vacuum left
by the deadlock in the peace process has brought a rise in
tension across Bosnia, with no let-up in fighting in the
northwestern Bihac enclave. There have also been cease-fire
violations in Sarajevo.        Tensions between Bosnian
government and allied Croat forces appear to be rising in
northern Bosnia, a UN official said Saturday.        Tensions
were especially high around the northern town of Tesanj. On
Friday, the Tesanj police chief ordered the arrest of several
local Croat officials after Croats had arrested some government
officials earlier in the week.        Bosnia's vice-president,
Ejup Ganic, and Kresimir Zubak, leader of the Bosnian Croats,
agreed that federation leaders should visit the Tesanj area.
U.N. and diplomatic sources said Croat-Muslim relation were also
extremely strained in the Maglaj area farther north. Both sides
have arrested police officers along with local political
leaders. One Western source said there were reports that Bosnian
Croat soldiers had committed acts of "thuggery" and had even
rounded up some Muslims for forced labor.         Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic sought to play down the differences
and called for tolerance between Croats and Muslims, the
Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje reported Sunday. Izetbegovic was
conciliatory. "There will be no new confrontations with Croats
... There were some problems in Mostar, but we overcame them."



Another setback to restore confidence SARAJEVO, Bosnia and
Herzegovina



        Marking another setback to UN hopes to restore
confidence in the tenuous cease-fire, plans to evacuate nearly
200 people Monday from Gorazde, an eastern Bosnian enclave, may
be halted.        Lt. Col. Gary Coward, a UN spokesman in
Sarajevo, said on Sunday that the separatist Serbs and Bosnian
government had agreed on evacuation of 194 people -- 128 Muslims
and 66 Serbs -- from Gorazde in northeastern Bosnia on Monday.
He said the agreement, reached in direct contacts between the
two sides, was part of an accord that on Wednesday should lead
to the opening of routes in and around Sarajevo.        Coward
said if it works, "it would send a very positive signal."       
The chief of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' office in
Sarajevo, Karen Abuzayd, said on Monday there was no clearance
yet from Bosnian Serbs to evacuate. Gorazde has been surrounded
by Serbs for nearly the entire war.        SRNA, the Bosnian
Serb news agency, said it was postponed until Tuesday,
apparently because Bosnian Serb military leaders wanted more
Serbs taken out than listed on evacuation rolls.



France to send extra units to ex-Yugoslavia PARIS, France



        French Defense Minister Francois Leotard said Sunday
that France was about to send an extra 300 men to reinforce its
contingent of UN peacekeepers in ex-Yugoslavia.        "France
has decided to send 300 extra men to Bosnia, a unit of engineers
plus helicopters to mantain the cease-fire which is now more or
less respected in Sarajevo though not in Bihac," he told TF1
television.

He said talks were under way, presumably with belligerents, to
open new supply roads.



Oppression of Kosovo Albanians PRISTINA, Yugoslavia



        While Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has been
cultivating an image as peacemaker in the Balkans, police
repression in the province of Kosovo has been rising, human
rights workers say.        In the southern province of Kosovo
(ethnic Albanians 90% of the population,) 200 former Albanian
policemen have been arrested in the past two months on suspicion
of forming a "parallel" interior ministry, allegedly aimed at
seceding from rump Yugoslavia.        Human rights workers and
Albanian lawyers say the detainees were tortured, beaten and
interrogated without their lawyers present. The arrests fit a
pattern of repression in Kosovo, where a Serbian minority rules
the restive Albanian majority through a massive police presence,
said the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
based in Vienna.        The treatment of the detainees was yet
another example of a "massive violation of human rights" in
Kosovo, said Sanja Biserko, a Helsinki representative in
Belgrade.        The mass arrests, carried out in November and
December, followed a petition issued by Serb nationalists in
Kosovo accusing Belgrade of failing to fulfil promises to check
the Albanian political movement and resettle Serbs in the
province.        "The latest arrests were made out of political
necessity," Biserko said.        Serbian authorities deny that
the detainees have been questioned without their lawyers present
and accuse them of plotting the overthrow of the government in
Belgrade.        Citing photographs and detailed testimony from
witnesses as evidence, the Council for the Defense of Human
Rights in Kosovo, an Albanian organization, reports that 17
people died last year in Kosovo as a result of police brutality.
The victims included an 80-year-old man.        Asked if the
latest detainees had been mistreated, Kosovo's chief public
prosecutor, Miodrag Brkljac, conceded doctors examining them
found Serb police had caused some injuries.        The detained
Albanians, all former police officers from when Kosovo was still
an autonomous province, say they had formed their own trade
union but had not organized an underground interior ministry,
Kelmendi said.



==================================================

TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS      Ref: C1^P3513
Date: 01/31/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader)                     
          Time: 08:58pm \/To: ALL                               
                 (Read 11 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE



A peace proposal was presented yesterday to the Croatian
President, Franjo Tudjman, and to Croatian Serbs. Tudjman has
not yet responded, but Croatian Serbs in Knin refused to even
look at the proposal. The proposal was prepared by European
nations, Russia, and the U.S., and was offered as a basis for
negotiations. The proposal gave some autonomy in local areas to
Croatian Serbs where they were in the majority before the war,
but they would have to recognize the borders of Croatia and
surrender areas where Croats were in the majority before the
war. In the areas they would retain, Croatian Serbs could elect
a legislature and local president, establish their own currency
and tax system, and create a police force and lower courts.



Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic was in Washington, D.C.,
yesterday, urging an end to the arms embargo. Vice President Al
Gore and Secretary of State Warren Christopher said they would
not unilaterally break the embargo without the assent of the
U.N. Security Council. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Strom Thurmond
said they would seek to have the embargo lifted. Dole has
introduced legislation that would allow the U.S. to send weapons
to the Bosnians at the request of the Bosnian Government or at
the end of the four month cease-fire on May 1. The bill would
prohibit U.S. personnel from delivering the weapons or training
Bosnians in their use. Silajdzic is in Washington for three
days, and was to meet today with a bipartisan commission that
monitors human rights. (Elaine Sciolino/N.Y.T.)



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                     B o s N e w s  - Jan 31, 1995 

=========================================



Politicians criticise Islamic influence on army   95-01-30



``We are not responsible for the introduction of ideology and
manipulation of belief in some units of the Bosnian army... That
process is being carried out without us,'' five of the seven
members of Bosnia's collective presidency said in a statement,
quoted by Sarajevo radio. ``We still remain committed to the
attitude that the army which defends Bosnia-Herzegovina and
which will in the future preserve Bosnia-Herzegovina must be
secular and multi-national, without the influence and competing
interests of political parties.'' It was signed by Nijaz
Durakovic, a Muslim; Croat leaders Stjepan Kljuic and Ivo
Komsic; and two Serbs, Tatjana Ljujic-Mijatovic and Mirko
Pejanovic.

None of the five presidency members belong to the ruling Party
of Democratic Action (SDA). The statement reflected divisions
within the political leadership in Bosnia, and it coincided with
a visit by a senior Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, to
Sarajevo on Monday. Jannati is member of Iran's Council of
Guardians, top religious body.



B&H's PM Silajdzic visits DC



``There must be a deadline set, a real firm deadline, because
this is a good plan, but the plan is not a plan without a time
schedule... If the deadline is not met, we demand the
multilateral lifting of the arms embargo -- if not multilateral
then unilateral -- and arming of Bosnia. There is no other
way,'' Silajdzic said before meeting US Secretary of State
Christopher.

On Monday, Silajdzic also met with Vice President Al Gore. ``The
Vice  President and the Prime Minister deplored the Bosnian
Serbs' intransigence with regard to recent initiatives by the
contact group,'' a statement issued by White House. ``Vice
President Gore assured the Prime Minister that the United States
continues to support efforts to obtain a negotiated settlement
of the conflict in Bosnia on the basis of the contact group
plan,'' it said.

Gore had reiterated the Clinton administration's support ``for
Bosnia's territorial integrity and adherence to the contact
group plan.''



Bosnian Leader Meets With U.S. Officials



``We're serious about lifting the arms embargo,'' Sen. Bob Dole,
R-KS told reporters. ``We certainly haven't lost our resolve...
They're not asking for American troops. They have a right to
self-defense,'' Dole added. Dole has introduced legislation that
would force the Clinton administration to lift the embargo
unilaterally if the Serbs have not accepted the peace plan by
May 1.



Owen urges new peace effort on Bosnia



Lord David Owen, co-chairman of the international conference on
ex-Yugoslavia, told reporters after meeting French Foreign
Minister Alain Juppe: ``We have an opportunity to relaunch the
peace process in the six to eight weeks to come... France, as
president of the EU, will play a key role and we will do all we
can to help the French presidency.''



Bosnian-Croat tensions rise



A U.N. convoy headed to the U.N.-administered southern city of
Mostar was forced to halt due to gunfire across the road at a
Croat checkpoint south of the town at Blagaj on Saturday, U.N.
spokesman Major Koos Sol told Reuters.

Presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Alija Izetbegovic of
Bosnia decided to form a mixed commission to settle disputes.
Western diplomats said they thought this was nothing more than a
token gesture.

Diplomats in Belgrade said they also suspected that the Serbs
were stalling in order to see how the growing Bosnian-Croat rift
developed. ``They would be certainly glad to see the federation
break up and totally destroy the contact group plan,'' one
diplomat said.

``I am convinced this year can bring about optimal solutions, in
terms of normalisation of Croat-Serb relations,'' Croatia's HINA
news agency quoted President Tudjman as saying on Saturday.
``This would create conditions to solve the issue of Croatia's
occupied areas and establish a new international order in all of
former Yugoslavia.'



NATO only please



In London, NATO's commander-in-chief for southern Europe, U.S.
Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., said Monday that NATO should command
any evacuation of U.N. peacekeepers from Bosnia, rather than
risk confusion by sharing that responsibility with the United
Nations. An estimated 30,000 to 45,000 NATO troops would be
needed for the operation. According to Smith it could be
completed in less than six months.



Sen. Dole to Slow Down



Sen. Dole said Monday he told Secretary of State Warren
Christopher he is right about not seeking a lifting of the
embargo now. ``We're not going to push it for the next couple of
months because there might be some chance to get an agreement,''
the senator said during a visit to Capitol Hill of Bosnian Prime
Minister Haris Silajdzic.

``There is a fear this war will be Americanized if the embargo
is lifted,'' Silajdzic said. ``Now the war is Serbianized''
because the B osnian government doesn't have arms to protect
itself.

Sen. Dole, R-KS, said that despite his willingness to hold off
on legislation to force President Clinton's hand, ``I haven't
seen any slippage on either side -- Democrat or Republican -- on
lifting the embargo. We are serious about it, and the
administration should know we are serious about it.'



UN Fires at Bosnian Army on Mt. Igman



U.N. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Coward told
reporters French U.N. soldiers fired warning shots on Saturday
evening at 40 Bosnian soldiers trying to enter a demilitarised
zone on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo. Four government soldiers
were slightly wounded by the French fire. 95-01-30 

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