Muslim and Croat Leaders Agree To
Agree, Mass Graves Exhumed Tuesday
(SARAJEVO—Reuters) - Bosnian Muslim and Croat leaders, under heavy pressure from the United States, announced Sunday they had reached an accord to strengthen their troubled federation. In a boost for the peace process, diplomats said Muslim and Croat partners had signed an agreement late on Saturday to resolve disputes over power-sharing just when the federation looked to be on the brink of collapse.
Investigations by a U.N. war crimes tribunal gained momentum as a team of experts prepared to examine suspected mass grave sites in eastern Bosnia this week. U.S. army officers accompanying Defense Secretary William Perry said they expected war crimes investigators to arrive in the Srebrenica region on Tuesday to unearth suspected mass graves of Muslim civilians executed as prisoners or shot dead in ambushes by conquering Serb forces. Bosnian Serbs continued to exhume a mass grave of some 200 people in front of international observers at Mrkonjic Grad in western Bosnia, which was returned to them by the Muslim-Croat federation under the peace agreement. Another 18 bodies were exhumed on Sunday from the grave site which Serb authorities said contained soldiers and older civilians who did not flee Mrkonjic Grad before Croat troops captured the region in an offensive last September.
International human rights workers say 3,000 to 8,000 captured Muslim men are believed to have been killed by the Bosnian Serb army after it overran Srebrenica in July 1995. Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, said U.S. and other troops would offer "general area security" for the tribunal team. He said he did not expect problems from Serb authorities who were aware of the planned trip.
Perry, who flew to Sarajevo on Sunday, was visiting former Yugoslavia to bolster Bosnia's shaky Muslim-Croat alliance, considered crucial to the success of the Dayton peace accord which ended 3½ years of war. The federation, which together with a Serb entity comprises a loose Bosnian union, has existed only on paper so far but diplomats hoped the latest agreement had produced real progress. Both sides had promised to abolish internal duties charged at ethnic boundaries and Bosnian Croats pledged to pay taxes at the border with Croatia into federation accounts, international mediator Michael Steiner told reporters.
Finally, Agreement on a Flag
The changes would allow the federation to earn its own revenue for the first time, Steiner said. Negotiators also agreed on a joint flag for the federation.Bosnian Muslim and Croats, who began the conflict as allies against the Serbs, fought a 10-month war before agreeing to the federation in 1994. Since then, both sides have failed to make good on promises to implement the federation. During his visit to the Croatian capital Zagreb on Saturday, Perry won a pledge from the government to hand over a Bosnian Croat general to a U.N. war crimes tribunal on Monday.
Croatia to Turn Over Blaskic
Croatia agreed to turn over General Tihomir Blaskic, indicted six months ago for alleged massacres of Muslim civilians, after coming under severe pressure from Washington. Blaskic, a former Bosnian Croat commander, is wanted for his alleged participation in the 1993 massacre of Muslims in Ahmici in central Bosnia. Blaskic, Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Croat Army, was promoted to staff member of the Croatian amry's main inspectorate by Croatian president Franjo Tudjman's office the day after his indictment. U.S. lobbying helped lead to another breakthrough for the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The tribunal said on Saturday that Serbia handed over over two Serb soldiers identified as witnesses to atrocities in eastern Bosnia.Belgrade turned over Drazen Erdemovic and Radoslav Kremenovic who had told Western media they had been forced to take part in the massacre of Muslim men around Srebrenica last July. Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and army commander General Ratko Mladic have been indicted for their role in alleged atrocities in Srebrenica. Both men have refused to step down from public office as required by the peace treaty.
Karadzic Expected to Lose Office
Karadzic, ignoring thousands of NATO troops stationed in nearby Sarajevo who are supposed to arrest him if they cross his path, appeared on his television station on Sunday awarding medals to Serb fighters in the "capital" of Pale. In Sarajevo, the Muslim acting president of Bosnia, Ejup Ganic, said Karadzic and Mladic were obstacles to peace and urged NATO troops to seize them. Perry, who held talks with Ganic, told reporters that he did not expect Mladic and Karadic to be in positions of power by the end of the year but did not say how they would be removed.
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
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