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UN Pursuing Revised Serb Amnesty Plan with Croatia
ZAGREB, May 24 (Reuters) — The United Nations is pursuing discussions with Croatia on an amnesty for minority Serbs before their last separatist enclave reverts to government control, U.N. officials said on Friday. A new Croatian law pardons Serbs who took part in a 1991 revolt but includes only those resident in the Eastern Slavonia enclave that year, not tens of thousands more who fled there or to Serbia to escape Croatia's recapture of other enclaves.
U.N. officials have privately criticised the amnesty law as deficient. The U.N. Security Council has called on Croatia to broaden the measure to all Serbs involved in the uprising except those linked to war crimes defined by international law.
Jacques Klein, the U.S. diplomat heading UNTAES, the U.N. Transitional Authority in Eastern Slavonia, has been in contact with the Croatian government on the amnesty issue for weeks and would continue that dialogue, his spokesman said. "The essence of what we're trying to do is give a sense of security and well being to the population (in Eastern Slavonia)... to help a quicker movement into full Croatian control," spokesman Philip Arnold told a news conference.
"And with a large question mark hanging over their heads, people are not secure or relaxed... The Security Council said (the amnesty law) was a step in the right direction but only a step, that what was required for the security and serenity of the population was precision and definition as to what kinds of crimes will be called war
crimes," Arnold said. "We are absolutely in accord that anyone who committed war crimes should be indicted, tried and judged appropriately. We also realise that the overwhelming majority of people in any army, 99 percent, were not involved in a war crime."
U.N. officials also worry that Croatian police and courts strongly influenced by the nationalist government may not define war crimes as strictly as they would be under international standards.
Of the Serb population in Eastern Slavonia, roughly estimated at 140,000-160,000, a third or more are refugees from two former rebel enclaves retaken by Croatian troops in a series of lighting attacks in 1995. Tens of thousands more fled directly to rump federal Yugoslavia, from which Croatia declared independence in 1991.
Without a general amnesty, many fearful Serbs could leave Eastern Slavonia as Croatian authority approaches. An exodus to Yugoslavia nearby would undermine UNTAES' purpose to restore a multi-ethnic society in the area.
UNTAES, with 5,000 enforcement troops, has set up a temporary administration in Eastern Slavonia to disarm Serb
combatants and build confidence among civilians to smooth its transfer back to Croatian control by 1997. The U.N. mission in Croatia was negotiated on the fringes of the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio last November by presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. Demilitarisation of the region began on Tuesday after Klein pronounced U.N. peacekeepers fully deployed.
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Berserkistan, May 22 · U.N Calls on Croatia to Broaden Serb Amnesty Laws
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