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Crime, Ethnic Beatings Rising
In Sarajevo and Northern Bosnia
The few Serbs remaining in Sarajevo
Ivanko was referring to two Sarajevo districts which the Serbs handed over to the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation earlier this year under the Dayton peace accord. A majority of Serbs fled the districts but a few chose to stay behind after the suburbs were handed over to Federation control, counting on protection from the IPTF and the NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR). In reality, the international police are unarmed and have no powers of arrest. IFOR soldiers are charged with military and not policing duties.
"The few remaining Serbs continue to be intimidated and robbed and their property expropriated," said IFOR spokesman Major Simon Haselock. The Dayton accord, which ended the 43-month old war in Bosnia last December, guarantees equal rights for all ethnic groups, freedom of movement and the right of refugees to return to their homes.
But local nationalist authorities have made a mockery of the peace treaty's provisions. They have tolerated intimidation against minorities and closed administrative borders to preserve ethnically pure territory and their own criminal interests. "Now that the war is over, many disenchanted soldiers are being demobilised only to find there is no money and no work. No wonder the crime rate is growing," one diplomat said.
Authorities on all three sides are also under pressure from angry refugees who want to take over houses belonging to members of other ethnic groups which had expelled them elsewhere. "One particularly alarming case is that of an elderly Serb man who has been beaten up five times in the past 10 days," Kris Janowski, spokesman for the U.N. High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said. "When we took him to the hospital he had four broken ribs as well as his jaw... When he went to complain to the Federal police he encountered hostility. We are very concerned," Janowski said.
Ivanko said international police officials were disappointed with Federation authorities, who had pledged to protect the rights of the Serb minority. "We expect them (the Federation police) to behave much better then they are behaving right now... We don't have that many positive results and that's a serious problem," he said.
The U.N. spokesmen also recounted an "ugly incident" in the northern Bosnian Serb town of Banja Luka. "A Muslim man who had a Serb refugee family of five in his house complained about this to local authorities," Ivanko said. Ivanko said a group of some 50 angry Serbs gathered in front of the man's house and then beat him up and evicted him. "We were told that the local police would deal with that matter but to our understanding the problem has not been solved," he said.
The Banja Luka area became notorious for an ethnic cleansing campaign, involving murder, rape and terror, which
drove hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs from their homes.
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SARAJEVO, June 4 (Reuters) - United Nations officials said on Tuesday they were concerned with growing lawlessness, ethnic violence and indimidation in Sarajevo and northern Bosnia. "We have ongoing reports on a daily basis of a very high crime rate in Grbavica. We have the same problem in Ilidza," U.N. International Police Task Force (IPTF) spokesman Alexandar Ivanko told reporters. "The numbers of those harassed are in the dozens," he
said.
Berserkistan, Mar 29 · Federation Police-Serbs in Grbavica Shootout
Berserkistan, Mar 19 · Bosnian Federation Reclaims Sarajevo's Fifth Suburb
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