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OSCE Claims Human Rights Abuses, Lack of Cooperation by Bosnian Serbs
The Times said it obtained the group’s internal human rights reports for May from an official close to the process but did not elaborate further. The internal report from May 23 quoted the assistant justice minister of the Bosnian Serbs as saying the Serbs’ self-declared Republic of Srpska opposed plans to train local election observers and would not help set up independent election commissions, the Times said.
An official with the monitoring organization said that on May 16 a makeshift explosive device was thrown at his car, leaving traces of dynamite, the Times said. The May 22 internal reports said that opponents of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have been attacked, targeted with death threats and have been fired from their jobs, the newspaper said.
Scores of Bosnian Croats and Muslims have been expelled in recent weeks from the northern region of Teslic, where they said they were harassed by Bosnian Serbs, including police officers. NATO and U.S. officials on Saturday said the expulsions were a return to ethnic cleansing policies of the war.
The elections, tentatively set for mid-September, are considered crucial to peace in the region. A summit to begin in Geneva on Sunday is intended to set a date for the vote and clarify the fate of Karadzic, who has been indicted on war crimes.
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NEW YORK, June 1 (AP) -- A group considering whether Bosnia is ready to hold democratic elections is seriously concerned over what it calls a lack of cooperation by Serbs and a series of human rights abuses, the New York Times reported Sunday. Citing internal reports from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Times said in its Sunday editions that officials were under pressure from Washington and other European capitals to declare Bosnia ready for elections by this fall.
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