BRKA, Bosnia, April 14 (Reuters) — Over 15,000 Bosnian Muslims held a peaceful rally on the former front line on Sunday demanding to return to their homes in nearby Serb-held Brcko, where they formed a majority before the war.Under the peace agreement that ended the fighting, Brcko, a key northeastern town, remained disputed and its fate is to be resolved within a year by international arbitration. Senior Bosnian officials, including acting President Ejup Ganic, attended the rally. No NATO peacekeeping troops were present but two U.S. helicopters flew overhead.
Protesters, carrying banners reading "Brcko is ours," "Brcko is not Serbia" and "No one else can be happy in MY house" gathered on a snow-covered meadow in Muslim-controlled Brka, five km (three miles) south of Brcko. Over 20,000 Muslim exiles from Brcko have been housed in the vicinity of Brka for more than three years.
"There is no peace without Brcko," Ganic told protestors, drawing a big applause from the motley crowd, most of whom looked well-dressed and cheerful. "We want (Bosnian) Serb children to grow up in peace, in Bosnia," Ganic said. Brcko Serbs fear an influx of Muslims and Croats would tip the ethnic balance and jeopardise Serb control of the crucial Brcko corridor which links Serb lands in the west and east of Bosnia with neighboring Serbia.
As a result, separatist Bosnian Serb authorities have packed Brcko wth Serb refugees from federation territory in a bid to influence the arbitration ruling. Many of these refugees are occupying vacant Muslim and Croat homes. "Brcko is the town of all its citizens, regardless of faith or nationality," said Sabrija Slomic, an organizer of the rally. He sent Easter greetings to all the Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians.
Carl Bildt, international high representative in Bosnia, describes Brcko as the most difficult test for the success of the peace treaty. He has criticised Serb authorities for moving refugees into the area prior to arbitration. Brcko, a port on the Sava River border with Croatia, was the scene of some of the worst attrocities in the war. Non-Serb prisoners were tortured and killed at Brcko's detention camp and thousands expelled.
Ganic said mass graves in the area contained at least 7,000 bodies of Croat and Muslim civilians. Under the Bosnia peace treaty reached in Dayton, Ohio, the parties agreed to demilitarise frontlines, release prisoners, allow freedom of movement and the return of all refugees. But few people have returned so far.
"The Dayton accord is only a ceasefire, not peace, as long as the issue of Brcko is not resolved," Bosnian member of parliament Mirsad Dzapo from Brcko said. Last month Serbs in Brcko shouted abuse at a group of Muslims escorted into Brcko by NATO troops and forced them to cut short the first visit in four years to the local cemetery.
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