Subject: YDS 8/26 From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov) YUGOSLAV DAILY SURVEY C O N T E N T S : FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH SPECIAL RUSSIAN ENVOY - FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER SENDS MESSAGE TO YUGOSLAV COUNTERPART - UKRAINE SUPPORTS YUGOSLAVIA'S PEACE POLICY - RUSSIA TO CALL FOR URGENT RESUMPTION OF GAS DELIVERIES TO YUGOSLAVIA - YUGOSLAVIA'S ENTRY INTO WAR WOULD BRING TRAGEDY, MONTENEGRIN OFFICIAL - DEFINITION OF BORDER WITH CROATIA STRATEGIC ISSUE FOR MONTENEGRO - YUGOSLAVIA PROTESTS TO U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER IN GENEVA - APPEAL FOR EMERGENCY HUMANITARIAN AID FOR REFUGEES IN SERBIA THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA - CROATIA - CEASEFIRE PRIOR TO SERB-CROATIAN NEGOTIATIONS IN EASTERN SLAVONIA REMAINING SERB REFUGEES IN KNIN - CROATIAN ULTIMATUM HOLDS UP SERB REFUGEES' EVACUATION FROM KNIN - ICRC REPRESENTATIVES VISIT 572 KRAJINA SERB PRISONERS REACTIONS AFTER CROATIAN AGGRESSION ON KRAJINA - VRANITZKY URGES CROATIA TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS - CROATIA IS IGNORING PROOF ABOUT PERSECUTION AND ABUSE OF SERBS - DEATH THREATS TO SERBS REMAINING IN CROATIA PULLOUT OF BRITISH TROOPS FROM GORAZDE - BRITISH U.N. FORCE LEAVES GORAZDE FROM THE BATTLE FIELD IN BOSNIA - BOSNIAN MUSLIMS TARGET BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE WITH POISONOUS GAS SHELLS FROM FOREIGN PRESS - BULGARIAN PAPER ON ANNIHILATION OF ONE NATION FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS WITH SPECIAL RUSSIAN ENVOY B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic met in Belgrade on Friday with Russian Special Presidential Envoy for former Yugoslavia Alexander Zotov. Zotov, who is Russia's member of the five-nation 'Contact Group' for Bosnia, and Milutinovic exchanged views on developments in the region and the international community's efforts to bring the peace process to a satisfactory conclusion. The talk was attended by Russian Ambassador to the Yugoslav Federation of Serbia and Montenegro Gennady Shikin. On Thursday, Zotov and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic discussed peace initiatives for ending the crisis in former Yugoslavia. FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER SENDS MESSAGE TO YUGOSLAV COUNTERPART B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - The Director of the Political Affairs Department of French Foreign Ministry Paul Poudade, in his capacity of personal envoy of French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette, Friday presented a message from de Charette to Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic. The message contains France's assesment, stance and proposals on the means of resolving the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. UKRAINE SUPPORTS YUGOSLAVIA'S PEACE POLICY B e l g r a d e, Aug 24 (Tanjug) - Serbian Premier Mirko Marjanovic conferred in Belgrade on Thursday with Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Volodimir Handogiy about the settlement of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. Handogiy communicated to Marjanovic Ukrainian leaders' support for the peace policy pursued by Serbia and Yugoslavia. He said that, to that effect, Ukraine worked at international forums toward an urgent lifting of the sanctions against Yugoslavia. Marjanovic and Handogiy agreed that it was necessary to further develop and upgrade the bilateral cooperation in line with agreements signed during Marjanovic's recent visit to Ukraine. Handogiy also communicated to Marjanovic Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's personal message to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. RUSSIA TO CALL FOR URGENT RESUMPTION OF GAS DELIVERIES TO YUGOSLAV IA B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Minister of Trade and Tourism Djordje Siradovic said on return from Moscow on Friday that Russia would call for an urgent resumption of gas deliveries to Yugoslavia. Siradovic told Serbian Radio Television that the Russian Government was determined to urgently call on the U.N. Sanctions Committee to allow a resumption of gas deliveries to Yugoslavia. He quoted the Russian Government as saying that it was Russia's gas and no decision on suspending its deliveries could be made without Russia. Siradovic said that it was made clear to the Yugoslav side that Russian President Boris Yeltsin was very serious about his statement that Russia was ready to consider unilateral lifting of the anti-Yugoslav sanctions if some western countries continued pursuing a policy of double standards toward Yugoslavia. YUGOSLAVIA'S ENTRY INTO WAR WOULD BRING TRAGEDY, MONTENEGRIN OFFIC IAL P o d g o r i c a, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Parliament Speaker of the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro said Friday Yugoslavia's entry into war would bring tragedy and misfortune to everyone, Montenegrins, Serbs, all its citizens. 'A local war would turn into a large Balkan conflict in which Yugoslavia and the Serb people would be against everyone - the U.S., Germany, NATO, the U.N.,' Marovic said at the Montenegrin Parliament session devoted to a peaceful way to settle the Yugoslav crisis. 'The Serb people, Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro cannot win such a war,' he said. 'It is in everyone's interest to unconditionally stop the war and find just solutions, because any continuation of the war weakens positions of the Serb people and of Yugoslavia,' Marovic said. He underlined that conditions should be created for continuing the negotiating process in order to find a way to urgently adopt a peace settlement in the former Yugoslavia. 'There has been enough bloodshed, wars, refugees, misfortune, a halt must finally be put to that. Yugoslavia cannot subsist under sanctions, let alone help anyone,' Marovic said. DEFINITION OF BORDER WITH CROATIA STRATEGIC ISSUE FOR MONTENEGRO H e r c e g N o v i, Aug. 25 (Tanjug) - Montenegro Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said Thursday that a proper defining of the border with Croatia was a strategic issue of utmost importance for the Yugoslav Republic's state integrity. Djukanovic told forty or so foreign jouralists that the situation in the area where Croatia's, Montenegro's and the border of the former Bosnia-Herzegovina met and in the area of the border Peninsula Prevlaka between Montenegro and Croatia, both of which the journalists had visited, had been a sensitive and imiortant issue from the very outset of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. He said the area had often been a topic of informal negotiating or military manipulations by Croatia and the Bosnian Serbs, without the approval or direct influence of Yugoslav and Montenegrin authorities. The latest developments in the area between Dubrovnik and Trebinje, a town in the Bosnian Serb Republic, have caused concern in both Montenegro and Yugoslavia since more or less intensive clashes between Croatia's regular army troops and Serbs in Herzegovina have been going on for days. Djukanovic set out that the presence of a large number of journalists and TV cameramen in Dubrovnik and the massing of Croatia's troops in the area 'lead one to think that the clashes might intensify.' He stated that during the clashes in the area between Dubrovnik and Trebinje, twenty or so mortar shells had hit Montenegro territory, but said he did not want to believe that that was intentional but that it was due to an error. Montenegro and Yugoslavia are for a peaceful solution but they have along the border military forces 'ready to defend our territory,' Djukanovic reiterated. YUGOSLAVIA PROTESTS TO U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER IN GENEVA G e n e v a, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Head of the Yugoslav U.N. Mission in Geneva Vladimir Pavicevic has expressed Yugoslavia's protest against the absence of reaction of U.N. mechanisms for human rights protection to the expulsion of a quarter of a million Serbs from the Republic of Serb Krajina in the most wide-sale ethnic cleansing in Europe after World War II. At a meeting Friday with the High U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala, Pavicevic expressed concern at the absence of reaction to unprecedented crimes committed and still being committed by Croatian Army from any U.N. mechanisms for the protection of human rights to which the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia appealed for help due to the sufferings of the Serb population of RSK. Ayala informed Pavievic that members of his personnel were already included in U.N. units in Krajina and that they were gathering evidence and analysing the human rights situation there. As concerns Yugoslavia's request that the U.N. Center for Human Rights send a special fact-finding mission to Krajina and inform the world public of its findings, Ayala said consultations on this were underway in the U.N. and a decision could be expected shortly. APPEAL FOR EMERGENCY HUMANITARIAN AID FOR REFUGEES IN SERBIA B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Serbia's Commissioner's Office for Refugees appealed on Friday to international humanitarian organizations and governments of European and other countries to help provide aid to displaced civilians from the Republic of Serb Krajina. Among the refugees, the most vulnerable are women, children, the old and the ill. The appeal, signed by Serbian Commissioner for Refugees Bratislava Morina, states that over 155,000 Serbs expelled from Krajina and arrived in Serbia so far. Facing such large-sale influx of displaced persons after four years of U.N. sanctions, during which it has already provided shelter to over 500,000 refugees, Serbia appeals for emergency aid inproviding accommodation for over 50,000 homeless families, including over 35,000 children and old or sick people, Morina said. Pointing out that aid from international organizations and donors is needed immediately in order to prevent worse consequences later and to alleviate the sufferings of the refugees, Morina underlined that the most urgently needed items at present were food, medicines, hygiene products, clothing, housing, school equipment and products for children. THE REPUBLIC OF SERB KRAJINA - CROATIA CEASEFIRE PRIOR TO SERB-CROATIAN NEGOTIATIONS IN EASTERN SLAVONIA V u k o v a r, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - The Commanders of the Slavonia-Baranja corps of the Krajina Serb Army and of the Croatian Army for the Osijek area Friday reached agreement on ceasefire which will come into effect on Saturday at noon local time, the Krajina Serb Army announced in Vukovar. The agreement reached at a meeting at the Sarvas-Nemetin border crossing was signed by Krajina Serb Army Gen.Dusan Loncar and Croatian Gen.Djuro Decak. At the meeting organized with the mediation of the U.N.peacekeepers' commander for Sector East Gen. Freddy Van De Wegh, it was also agreed to enable the U.N. observers to return to their posts in the Croatian part of the zone of separation, where they were stationed before Croatia's aggression on western Slavonia in the beginning of last May, in order to monitor the ceasefire. The Deputy Defense Minister of the Republic of Serb Krajina Milan Milanovic said that the ceasefire agreement was the principal pre-condition for negotiations between the Serb and Croatian sides. Milanovic said that the Serbs had taken Croatia's acceptance of ceasefire with great caution, and that their army remains fully prepared to fight, as if a Croatian attack could ensue any minute. He added that the Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General Yasushi Akashi was expected to arrive in Erdut on Monday or Tuesday, which could open negotiations on the future of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem. Commenting the indications that the remaining free part of the Republic of Serb Krajina could get the status of 'blue zone', i.e. U.N.-administered area, within five years, Milanovic said this could provide a compromise solution between Croatia's demand that eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srem be reintegrated into Croatia, and the unanimous determination of Serbs living in the area to join Yugoslavia. This can, of course, be discussed only if the security of the area is firmly guaranteed by Russia, U.S., E.U. and U.S., and if - when the right conditions are ensured - its population is enabled to decide in a referendum which side its wishes to join, Milanovic said. REMAINING SERB REFUGEES IN KNIN CROATIAN ULTIMATUM HOLDS UP SERB REFUGEES' EVACUATION FROM KNIN Z a g r e b, Aug 24 (Tanjug) - Croatian authorities informed U.N. officials on Thursday that they were postponing the evacuation of Serb Krajina refugees sheltered with U.N. peacekeepers in Knin, scheduled for Saturday. They explained that the about 560 Krajina Serbs who sought shelter at the U.N. compound in the Serb Krajina capital of Knin from Croatia's aggression earlier in August, would not be allowed to leave until 62 Serbs, suspected by Croatia of crimes, were turned over. Croatian Army Commander in Knin Gen. Ivan Cermak delivered to U.N. Gen. Alaine Forand Croatia's request and a list of suspects 'who have been indicted on charges of crimes against the Republic of Croatia.' Croatian Radio quoted Gen. Forand as saying he was awaiting instructions from his Command in Zagreb on how to deal with the request. ICRC REPRESENTATIVES VISIT 572 KRAJINA SERB PRISONERS B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Representatives of the ICRC have visited 572 Krajina Serb prisoners since August 9, who are detained by Croatian authorities in six centers in Croatia, ICRC Belgrade Office Spokesman Josue Anselmo said Friday. Following the operation in Krajina the Croatian authorities have detained men aged from 18 to 60 in six centers, mostly sports halls and schools where they will be held while they are under investigation and where they can regularly be visited by the ICRC, Anselmo said. He confirmed that there were nine refugee centers in Croatia with Serb women and children as well as men who were freed after investigation. He said that 2,000 refugees were held in these centers and that they could all write a message to the Red Cross to inform their families where they are. They will all be registered by the local Red Cross which will send the lilsts to the Yugoslav Red Cross, Anselmo said. The people who remain in Knin have enough food and water, but they are old people who relied on the help of their neighbours and relatives and who have now been left to themselves. All the younger people have left, so there is no one there to take care of them now, they are simply dying, Anselmo said. REACTIONS AFTER CROATIAN AGGRESSION ON KRAJINA VRANITZKY URGES CROATIA TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS V i e n n a, Aug. 25 (Tanjug) - Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky has asked the Zagreb authorities, through Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, to look into suspected violations of human rights of Serbs in Krajina and punish the perpetrators. Vranitzky also warned Croatia that its position regarding the E.U. depended on its respect of human rights. The announcement on Granic's visit to Austria, which began on Thursday, had not included talks with Vranitzky, as he had sharply condemned Croatia's aggression on Krajina in early August causing Zagreb's displeasure. In the talks with Granic, Vranitzky reiterated that talks must have preference over military actions which inevitably cause human suffering. International observers must be allowed access to areas where gross violations of human rights have been recorded, Vranitzky told Granic. CROATIA IS IGNORING PROOF ABOUT PERSECUTION AND ABUSE OF SERBS G e n e v a, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic rejected accusations, and irrefutable proof, coming from the worldover about the violation of human rights of Serbs and their mistreatment by Croatian troops. Granic was reported as telling the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayal in Geneva Friday that 'the Croatian Army had undertaken no action against the civilian population'. Granic said that on the contrary the Croatian Army had done its utmost to 'protect the civilian population and their property'. A few days earlier Jose Ayal had asked the Croatian Government to give an explanation for the behaviour of Croatian troops in the territory of Krajina. Granic denies something that is already known by the whole world and clear to the whole world - the brutal behaviour of the Croatian soldiers, looting of Serb houses, destruction and torching of Serb property. Granic told Ayal that the Croatian Army had received instructions to exercise maximum restraint in actions that would be dangerous for the civilian population and their property but allowed for some 'isolated incidents.' Granic's claims were refuted in a most striking way by the President of the ICRC Cornelio Somaruga. In an interview carried by the Swiss daily Berner Zeitung, Somaruga noted that it had to be said clearly that terrible things had happend in Krajina. He said that in Banja Luka he had personally seen injured Krajina civilians who had been bombed by planes while fleeing. He also said that U.N. peackeepers had informed him that they had discovered mass graves in Krajina. DEATH THREATS TO SERBS REMAINING IN CROATIA Z a g r e b, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Serbs remaining in Croatia more and more often receive anonymous telephone calls 'advising' them to leave Croatia while they still can or risk being killed. The death threats have become especially frequent following Croatia's brutal aggression on the Republic of Serb Krajina, as a result of which a quarter of a million Serbs were expelled from their centuries-oldhome land. The strongest threats are contained in leaflets addressed to Serbs in Porec, Umag, Vrsar, Rovinj, Pula and other towns and villages in Istria, peninsula in northern Adriatic. The leaflets say: 'We warn all Serbs, i.e. chetniks, to leave Istria immediately as they are unwanted in this land. If you do not leave, you will be liquidated most brutally. We will burn your homes and rape your wives as they are all chetnik whores.' The leaflets signed by 'The Black Hand of Istria' say that the location of Serb homes and the movement of Serbs are known, and add: 'We have now returned from the front and are well able to cut throats. This is why we warn you to leave our Croatian Istria by August 30, 1995'. Reacting to such letters Friday in the Novi List paper from Rijeka, the President of the local Assembly of Istria and member of the ruling party Istrian Democratic Alliance Damir Kajin expressed hope that the authorities would find the authors of the letters initing to hate, slaughter and rape. Fear is growing among the Serbs remaining in Croatia that the 'patriots' will turn their threats into acts. The fear is based also on their experience of the past few years when many Serbs were taken from their homes or the streets and killed. No one has yet stood trial for such acts, though there have been attempts to initiate court proceedings. Though some criminals admitted their acts, the proceedings were annulled due to technicalities. This has encouraged the so-called 'quiet' ethnic cleansing in Tudjman's Croatia. Since 1991, about 300,000 Serbs have been expelled. Following the latest exodus from Krajina, their number has now risen to over half a million. It is supposed that about 80,000 Serbs remain living in Croatia today. PULLOUT OF BRITISH TROOPS FROM GORAZDE BRITISH U.N. FORCE LEAVES GORAZDE B e l g r a d e, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - The first convoy of 76 British U.N. troops left the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Gorazde on Friday, U.N. representative Maj. Miriam Sochacki said. News agencies reported that later on Friday two more convoys with 120 Britains and a 10-member Norwegian medical team should also leave Gorazde via Belgrade for Zagreb. The Muslim authorities permitted the evacuation a few hours after a Bosnian Muslim attack overnight on the British base in which two Muslim soldiers were killed while British servicemen sustained no losses. The Muslim authorities had withheld this permission presumably as a result of discord between the U.N. and the Muslim Government over the future status of Gorazde. In July, the Muslim authorities had long delayed the departure of Ukrainian U.N. peacekeepers whose arms, vehicles and even personal belongings were plundered by Muslim troops. On Thursday, the last remaining group of Ukrainians left Gorazde. The U.N. plans to pull out all its peacekeepers from Gorazde by end of September and retain there only a small number of unarmed observers. FROM THE BATTLE FIELD IN BOSNIA BOSNIAN MUSLIMS TARGET BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE WITH POISONOUS GAS SHE LLS Doboj, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - Muslims late on Friday targeted a Serb village of Sizje near the town of Doboj in northern Bosnia with a dozen mortar and howitzer shells filled with poisonous gas, Bosnian Serb Army sources said. A local, Vojo Kostic, died of poisoning on the way to Doboj hospital. The Bosnian Serb Army sources said the 120-mm mortar and howitzer shells were filled with chlorine manufactured at chemical factories in the Bosnian Muslim-controlled town of Tuzla in northern Bosnia. FROM FOREIGN PRESS BULGARIAN PAPER ON ANNIHILATION OF ONE NATION S o f i a, Aug 25 (Tanjug) - The Bulgarian Duma paper writes on Friday about the persecution of Serbs and Croatia's crimes in Krajina. Duma says that the creators of 'a new world order' at the threshold of the 21st century have made us witness a massive annihilation of one nation and a massive persecution of women, elderly and children who had to leave their ancestral homes. The victims of war in the former Yugoslavia are the innocent, and blamed for massive murders and evictions are all those who had been helping and inciting the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, the paper writes. Duma stresses that the 'democratic world, as it is called, persistently lays blame for all trouble and quarrels only on one of the three parties to the conflict 'without seeing the tragedy of hundreds of thousands Serbs evicted from their ancestral homes where they have lived for centuries.' The paper says that since the conflict in former Yugoslavia brokeout more than half a million refugees have moved into Serbia, while, after Croatia's recent aggression against the Republic of Serb Krajina, 170,000 more refugees arrived and still more could come. =============================================================== -- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me -- D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com ===============================================================