'We’re not letting them through,' shouted one
Serb, 'Our blood was spilled here.'
RJECICA DONJA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — As Bosnian Serb police stood by, Serbs today attacked journalists and a U.N. police vehicle accompanying Muslims visiting old homes and relatives’ graves. Two shots were fired. Nobody was hit. Repeatedly breaking through Bosnian Serb police lines, the men threw a Bosnian television camera to the ground, then smashed a camera and three lenses. One man jumped on a U.N. pickup truck and smashed a hole in the windshield with his boot. “We’re not letting them through,” shouted one Serb. “Our blood was spilled here.”The latest Serb-Muslim face-off highlighted the problems with freedom of movement, a frequently ignored lynchpin of Bosnia’s peace agreement. It came as NATO’s commander in Bosnia discussed such violations with U.N. officials today. Later, some Serbian police with dogs intervened to break up the attacks. But the men were allowed to remain and continued threatening the group, which ventured into territory now held by the Serbs to visit homes the Muslims were forced to flee during the war.
The leader of the Serb crowd insisted on destroying all the film, video and audio tape of the clash before he would let the group travel down a two-mile road to Bosnian territory lined with minefields. Implying their departure could be dangerous if he wasn’t given what he wanted, the Serb exposed the film and broke video and audio cassettes into small pieces with his hands. Helicopters from the U.S.-led peace force then appeared and accompanied the journalists, U.N. workers and Muslims back to the boundary.
U.N. representatives said the real intent of today’s attack was to stop the Muslim visit, even though it had been approved in advance through extensive negotiations. During the confrontation, some Muslims knelt in the road to pray. Afterward, they said they didn’t want to continue the march.
They later said they recognized the Serb men as being from the village. In the northwest, meanwhile, a Bosnian government team prepared today to excavate a suspected mass grave, dug by the Serbs. The excavations, near Sanski Most about 100 miles northwest of Sarajevo, were begun following the discovery of several bodies during the reconstruction of a bridge destroyed during the war.
In Sarajevo, U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, commander of the NATO-led force, met today with Sadako Ogata, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, on ways to stop the freedom of movement violations. In one possible solution, the U.N. is trying to organize large groups of refugees planning to visit their homes across former front lines, in an attempt to avoid the clashes that have plagued smaller groups.
Meanwhile, a new U.N.-backed bus service across a former Sarajevo front line was to begin later today. “We want to push as much as possible freedom of movement,” Ogata said. The bus line connects the Serb-held village of Lukavica, just south of the capital, with the western Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza. Buses will be painted white, with U.N. symbols and escorted by U.N. vehicles. Similar bus links are planned in the near future for northern Bosnia as well.
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