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Bosnian Federation Split by Croat Arrest of Muslim Police Chief
‘(This is) institutionalised kidnapping that only serves
Bosnian army commander General Rasim Delic ordered the eight Croats freed after a strong protest by U.N. police Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald but the Muslim police chief remained in custody, NATO Colonel Max Mariner said. The latest sign of Croat-Muslim enmity lingering from a 1993-94 war erupted during a meeting of police chiefs from each sides in the Croat-held western sector of Mostar in southwest Bosnia to discuss freedom of movement.
Mariner said Emin Zebic, the chief of police in Muslim-controlled Jablanica 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Mostar, was arrested during the session by Croat colleagues, "charged with war crimes" and jailed. A few hours later, Bosnian Croat militia commander General Zivko Budimir told NATO that his deputy, Major-General Zeljko Siljec, and seven of his staff had been arrested by Muslim police on the outskirts of Jablanica. "This was presumably tit-for-tat retaliation," Mariner told a news conference in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
He said Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Walker, commander of NATO ground forces in Bosnia, then telephoned Delic and told him that "his reaction to the affair was neither helpful nor conducive to inter-ethnic relations." "Within 10 minutes General Delic returned the call with the news of the release of the (Croat) general and his staff."
Delic also called Budimir to protest at "institutionalised kidnapping that only served to cast the federation in a very poor light" and urged him to exert influence to get the Jablanica police chief freed, according to Mariner. He said the International Police Task Force (IPTF) and the European Union administrator of Mostar were making efforts to have Zebic released and defuse the dangerous dispute.
Mostar split into Muslim and Croat sectors during the war and the western half remains under control of Croat ultra- nationalists dedicated to secession of their region from Bosnia. The International Criminal Tribunal on former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has charged 18 Bosnian Croats and half a dozen Muslims with war atrocities against each other's civilians.
None of the men detained by local authorities on Thursday were known to be on the tribunal list. |
SARAJEVO, July 19 (Reuters) - Separatist Bosnian Croat authorities arrested a Muslim police chief for alleged war crimes and the Bosnian government retaliated by detaining eight Croats, NATO and U.N. officials on Friday. Spokesmen for the NATO peace force and U.N. police monitors said the arrests on Thursday heightened tensions within the shaky Muslim-Croat federation two months before elections.
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