THIS WEEK IN BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA

         ELECTIONS THIS WEEKEND -- ``The main street in Bosnia-Hercegovina's capital was clogged late [Wednesday] afternoon by a political parade of horse-drawn carts and hundreds of horn-honking cars, taxis and trucks'' as the country's election campaigning drew to a close, UPI reports from Sarajevo. Under rules set by international officials, political rallies and advertising must cease 24 hours before voting begins tomorrow. Polls close on Sunday.
        Voters will be choosing members of the country's parliament and three-person collective presidency, as well as officials in each of the nation's two republics.
        About 154,000 refugees now living abroad are expected to take part in the elections via absentee ballots, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is overseeing elections.

        IMPACT QUESTIONED -- But as Bosnia's 2.75 million registered voters ready for the elections, an International Crisis Group report questions the impact voting will have on the Bosnian political system.
        Christopher Bennett, ICG's Balkans project director, called the elections "more of an ethnic census than an election."
        "Bosnia's first democratic elections after the war in 1996 resulted in the status quo, conferring mandates on nationalists who were involved in the war," Bennett told the BBC.
        Nevertheless, other observers expect some changes. "Moderates and social democrats who reject the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina on ethnic lines -- and who are favored by the international community -- are expected to make gains," according to Agence France Press.

        ALBRIGHT IN SARAJEVO: NO GOING BACK ON DAYTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, one of numerous international officials visiting Bosnia in the run-up before elections, urged Bosnians to support candidates who back the Dayton peace accords.
        "We have no interest in subsidizing intolerance,'' she told a multi-ethnic group of former refugees rebuilding their homes in the suburb of Stup. "Whatever the outcome of the vote, we will provide support only to those communities that meet their responsibility to implement Dayton, by welcoming refugees, by making joint institutions work, by upholding justice and the rule of law. ...
        "There will be no partition, and there will be a single state of Bosnia-Hercegovina with two multi-ethnic entities."

        GOING HOME -- Refugees have returned to several areas that had experienced particularly brutal "ethnic cleansing."
        In early June, AFP reported that a group of Bosnian Serbs returned without incident to their homes in the village of Ortijes (near Mostar), having fled Croat militiamen in 1993.  Soon after the Serbs returned, Ortijes' Muslims began to come back as well.
        "We did not return earlier since we are a minority group, but when we saw our Serb neighbors returning we decided to return," said Mustafa Comor.
        As Serb villager Mirjana Vedan in Ortijes told an AFP reporter in July:  "The important thing is that we have returned. Nothing else matters."

        American Fellowship of Reconciliation volunteer Doug Hostetter says his group recently joined 500 Muslims returning to Kozarac in Serb-held Bosnia, to help clear rubble from streets and homes.
        This work was not organized by the UN, SFOR, or either government, but by Kozarac citizens," he points out. "Former residents continue to clean and rebuild; they expect to return and live in their homes this fall."
        In August, a convoy of 700 Muslim refugees arrived without incident in the villages of Sovici and Doljani in central Bosnia, returning to homes from which they had been expelled by Croat forces five years before. This then freed up Bosnian Croat homes in the town of Jablanica, making it possible for their owners to return as well.

        TURNING POINT --In August, over 500 Muslim residents went back to their homes in the town of Capljina in southern Hercegovina. Capljina had been the scene of some of the worst violations of human rights by Croat extremists, where more than 7,000 Muslim and 3,700 Bosnian Serb residents had been expelled. Croat extremists in the area had previously blocked all previous attempts at refugee returns.

        OPEN CITY -- On June 9, the town of Bugojno in central Bosnia was declared an "open city" in recognition of the successful return of more than 1,000 Bosnian Croat residents, who had been forced to flee the city during the Muslim-Croat fighting in 1993. Such cities are eligible for special international aid.

        OVERALL RETURNS SO FAR -- More than 500,000 refugees have returned to Bosnia since the signing of the Dayton accords, but as of June 30, 1998, only about 10 per cent had gone back to areas where they are in the minority.
        The pace of minority returns picked up during the summer and the international community has been using aid as a potent incentive to prod local authorities to cooperate on this issue.
        Official foot-dragging on minority returns to Sarajevo during the first half of this year prompted USAID in July to stop municipal infrastructure projects in the city worth some $5 million and the EU Commission's decision not to use $15 million worth of aid there.

        NEW LICENSE PLATES mandated by the Office of the High Representative now make it impossible to tell from which part of Bosnia a car and its driver have come.  The common plates have greatly increased personal and commercial contacts across the inter-entity boundary line between the country's two republics. An OSCE worker in eastern Bosnia reports that this has made a "huge difference."

        CROAT MODERATES SPLIT FROM HDZ -- The Bosnian branch of Croatia's ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), elected Federation defense minister Ante Jelavic chairman this spring. Jelavic, known as a hardline nationalist, has openly called for a revision of Dayton.
        Kresimir Zubak, the Croat member of Bosnia's three-man presidency, led a group of more moderate politicians out of the HDZ and has formed his own party, the New Croatian Initiative (NHI). NHI openly endorses Dayton and believes that a sovereign and united Bosnia is the best guarantor of Bosnian Croat rights. Zubak has gained support from the international community.
        Both men are running for the Croat seat of Bosnia's presidency.
        Hardliners remain popular in their traditional stronghold of western Hercegovina, while Zubak has strong support among Croats in Bosnia.
        A week before the end of the election campaign, the OSCE penalized the HDZ for repeated breaches of election rules by banning 15 HDZ candidates from the ballot. Bosnian Croat militia (HVO) were found to be campaigning for the HDZ in central Bosnia, and Croatian state radio
and TV ignored repeated warnings to stop promoting the HDZ in its news broadcasts.

        "RS -- TWILIGHT OF THE THUGS" is what the Economist (August 22) called events that shook the Republika Srpska this summer, as RS President Biljana Plavsic and Prime Minister Milorad Dodik seem to have outmaneuvered supporters of former Bosnian Serb President and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
        In July, the Dodik government shut down the Bosnian Serb news agency, based in the Karadzic stronghold Pale, and fired the management of 16 local TV and radio stations controlled by the hardline parties. Moreover, an investigation into the black-market rackets used to finance the Pale gang's political activities resulted in arrest warrants for 35 Karadzic allies.
        Hardliners struck back by trying to assassinate a top RS interior ministry official. The bid misfired when the car bomb blew up too soon, killing the would-be bombers.
        On August 7th, after Pale deputy police chief Srdjan Knezevic went over to the Plavsic camp, he was gunned down in front of his house. In response, 200 policemen were sent into Pale and leading hardliners, including Karadzic's son, were called in for questioning.  Seven suspects in the Knezevic murder were arrested and reportedly named names.
        Believed among those names: Momcilo Krajisnik, the hard-line Serb nationalist member of the Bosnian presidency, who had reportedly predicted just days before the murder that Knezevic's life would be in danger.

        BUT THUGGERY PERSISTS -- in some places. Among them is Banja Luka, where on July 20 Ibrahim Halilovic, the mufti (religious leader) of the city's small remaining Muslim community died at the age of 52 of a heart attack. Throughout the war, Halilovic had stayed on as most of his community was driven from the city and as all of Banja Luka's 16 mosques were blown up or burned down by Serb extremists.
        He refused to hate. Through the bitter years of war and persecution, he remained a voice for tolerance and moderation and an advocate of ethnic and religious coexistence. Halilovic's last request was to be buried at the site where the Ferhadija mosque had stood for over 400 years until it was blown up by Serb nationalists in May 1993.
        A mob of 1,000 Serb extremists gathered at the Ferhadija site to block the mufti's funeral. Banja Luka's mayor and the leader of the Serb Party of Krajina and Posavina, Predrag Lazarevic, declared a ban on the burial at that spot. The protesters hoisted a Serbian flag on the site of the mosque, shouted anti-Muslim slogans, and sang Chetnik battle songs.
        When no funeral party appeared, the mob charged a nearby house and roughed up a group of Muslims who were praying inside.
        Mufti Halilovic's remains had to be taken to Sarajevo to be buried.
        The OSCE responded to this and other incidents by banning Lazarevic and another Serb radical politician from the September election.

        Roman Catholic Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka, whose mainly Croat flock was also decimated by ethnic cleansing in 1992-95, had to contend with acts of intolerance this summer, as local Serb authorities forbade Catholic religious observances.
        On the night of August 16, one of the last Catholic churches in the area, near Kotor Varos (30 miles southeast of Banja Luka), was blown up.  However there was also some good news in Kotor Varos, as 250 Muslim families returned to rebuild their former homes.

        MORE BOMBINGS -- On July 29, five more houses belonging to Muslim refugees were blown up in the town of Stolac in Hercegovina, where Croat extremists have bombed or torched 47 other homes since March.
        During the same night, a Roman Catholic church in Kakanj was damaged in an explosion, presumably in response to returns of Croat refugees to the town. Kakanj had a 1/3 Croat population before the war, but has been under Muslim control since 1993.
        In the town of Orasje in northern Bosnia, the Croat hard-line mayor was removed from his post by the OSCE because of his resistance to minority refugee returns.

        ECONOMY IMPROVES, BOSNIA RECONSTRUCTS -- Ending a political deadlock in Bosnia's house of representatives, High Representative Carlos Westendorp moved on July 22 to impose the Law on the Privatization of Enterprises and Banks. Proceeds from the privatization program are to be used to repay pre-war savings, pay soldiers who fought during the war and grant compensation to victims of the war.
        It's hoped the law will help open the way for new trade and investments, taking the place of foreign aid.
        Post-war economic growth continued at an average rate of 35 percent a year, according to statistics released in May, while Bosnia's trade deficit improved as exports doubled during the first two months of 1998 and imports declined by 2/3. However, this growth has come from a very low base, and the economy as a whole is still operating at an estimated 15-20 percent of pre-war capacity.
        Bosnian construction companies continue to compete successfully for foreign contracts. Among them is Put Sarajevo, which is now engaged in a multi-million-dollar highway development project in Uganda.

        VOLKSWAGEN IN GEAR -- On August 31, the VW-UNIS automobile assembly plant in the Sarajevo suburb of Vogosca resumed operations, turning out the first Volkswagens produced in Bosnia since the war.  The plant, which had been badly damaged during the siege, was started up again with 100 million marks provided by insurance companies and the German government.

        REBUILDING STARI MOST -- The World Bank is joining forces with UNESCO to help finance the rebuilding of the famous Old Bridge in Mostar, built in 1566 under Ottoman rule and destroyed in November 1993 by Bosnian Croat forces. The total cost of the reconstruction effort is estimated at 5 to 7 million dollars.
        Even in its ruined state, the bridge continues to attract tourists to Mostar, who can now arrive by way of the city's newly-reopened airport. Those involved in the project hope rebuilding the bridge will serve as a symbol of healing the scar that still divides the communities of Mostar and of Bosnia-Hercegovina.

        HEAT WAVE SCORCHES BALKANS -- The worst heat wave in half a century drove temperatures in late July and August above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).  In Sarajevo, the Bosnian ministry of health was urging people to stay indoors between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to escape the heat.
 
        ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS -- A long stretch of the Lasva River in central Bosnia was rendered lifeless when thirty thousand liters of gasoline were released into the river as the result of an industrial accident in Busovaca on August 22.  Fishermen and environmental activists called for immediate clean-up measures to avert long-term environmental damage.
        The uncontrolled cutting of forests during and since the war is denuding many formerly green areas of the Bosnian countryside.  Economists say much of the wood is being sold and shipped abroad illegally at below-market rates for paper pulp production.

        REFUGEES FROM KOSOVO REACH BOSNIA -- The offensive by Serbian government forces in Kosovo, which has driven more than a quarter million people from their homes, is sending new waves of refugees to Bosnia -- which is still struggling with its own massive problem of displaced people. Some 1,100 refugees from Kosovo registered with Bosnian office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sarajevo during August alone, more than three times the number seeking refuge in July.
        Spokeswoman Ariane Quentier told reporters that the number was only "the tip of the iceberg," as many Kosovo refugees have not asked the UNHCR for help. Bosnian officials say that the real number could be as high as 10,000.

        BRINGING WAR CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE -- More than three years after they were indicted for genocide, Bosnia's most wanted war criminals, Dr.Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, remain at large. Karadzic is said to be hiding in safe houses (by some accounts in an Orthodox monastery) in eastern Bosnia.
        SFOR troops allegedly know his whereabouts but will not make an arrest for fear of violence by his supporters. Mladic is living in Belgrade, protected by the Yugoslav regime which has refused to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal. "I think that until Karadzic and Mladic are in The Hague there will be no normalization in the country," High Representative Carlos Westendorp told a news conference at the United Nations in New York on July 27.

        However, there have been other arrests. On May 28, SFOR detained Milojica Kos, a Bosnian Serb indicted for war crimes in Banja Luka, and on July 22, SFOR arrested a pair of twin brothers in Prijedor, thought to be Predrag and Nenad Banovic, who have been indicted for crimes in the Keraterm camp. However, it turned out that the twins SFOR arrested and transferred to The Hague were Miroslav and Milan Vuckovic, who are neither accused nor suspected of war crimes, and the brothers were released and returned to Bosnia the same day.
        The Tribunal's chief prosecutor said identifying suspects is made more difficult by local Srpska authorities who supply indicted war criminals with false identity papers.

        KOVACEVIC DIES -- On July 6, almost exactly a year after his arrest by British SFOR troops, Dr. Milan Kovacevic went on trial before The Hague War Crimes Tribunal and pleaded innocent to genocide charges connected with his role in the "ethnic cleansing" of the non-Serb population in the Prijedor area and the establishment and operation of detention camps where hundreds of local Muslims and Croats were tortured and killed.
        After three weeks of testimony but before the case was concluded, Kovacevic died in his cell on August 1. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a burst blood vessel.

        OTHER TRIALS -- Four of the five other trials at The Hague involve crimes Bosnian Croat forces are accused of committing in 1993 against Muslims in central Bosnia's Lasva Valley. The highest-ranking defendant is General Tihomir Blaskic, commander of the Bosnian Croat forces in the area. Testimony at his trial included graphic testimony and evidence about the massacre of civilians in the village of Ahmici.
        One survivor told the court: "We were woken by gun shots. Then a voice shouted: 'Hurry up, come out!' I wanted to go but my husband held me back. 'You stay with the children,' he said.  He went out with his hands in the air. 'Please don't shoot. I've got small children,' he said.
        "But they opened fire and he was killed instantly. He was 30 years old."
        None of the 356 Bosnian Muslims living in Ahmici were left in the village after the April 16, 1993 attack. More than 100 were killed, including many who were burned alive in their homes, while the others fled.

        In the Tribunal's other ongoing trial, Zejnil Delalic, Esad Landzo, Hazim Delic, and Zdravko Mucic  -- three Muslims and a Bosnian Croat -- are charged with having committed crimes against Bosnian Serb civilians at the Celebici camp in central Bosnia, which operated under the authority of the Sarajevo government at the beginning of the war.
        Charges include savage beatings and torture of civilian detainees.

        FUMBLED PHOTOS -- A former Dutch UN soldier has rekindled the controversy surrounding the actions of the Dutch forces immediately after the fall of Srebrenica.
According to Captain Ron Rutten, Dutch soldiers helped the Bosnian Serbs separate the men from the women and children, thereby assisting in genocide. Some Dutch soldiers have publicly rejected Rutten's accusations of collaboration, reports Agence France Press.
        In an interview on Dutch NOS television in August, Rutten said: "I believed this (the actions of the Dutch soldiers) was collaboration.... I thought that was wrong and I took photographs of it ... because I wanted to document what happened,"  Rutten said.
        "On his return to the Netherlands in late July 1995, the roll of film was taken for development by the military intelligence who said they had accidentally botched the development and destroyed all the images," wrote AFP.  The Dutch government is investigating this and other charges involving Srebrenica's fall.

        MORE GRAVES -- During the summer, investigators for the Hague Tribunal uncovered more mass grave sites believed to hold the remains of some of the estimated 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed after General Mladic's troops overran the UN protected enclave of Srebrenica.
Exhumations were made more difficult because these were "secondary sites" where remains initially buried elsewhere had been hastily relocated, sometimes several times, in an effort to hide the evidence of the killings.

        INCRIMINATING DOCUMENTS? -- One indicted war criminal, Slobodan Miljkovic, a.k.a. Lugar, was shot to death in a bar in Kragujevac, Serbia, on the night of August 7, 1998. The man who shot Miljkovic was rumored to be a member of Serbian President Milosevic's secret police.
        Shortly before his death, Miljkovic had turned over some documents to his attorney, along with instructions that the papers be given over to the UN War Crimes Tribunal if something happened to him.
        On August 26, Miljkovic's lawyer, Tatomir Lekovic, carried out his client's instructions.
        "The documents seriously incriminate Serbia's Interior Ministry, especially its top," in war crimes committed during the last years of the war in Bosnia, Lekovic told the Associated Press.
        Natasa Kandic, director of the Belgrade-based Fund for Humanitarian Law which mediated the handover, said the documents were "very relevant," adding that some of them had the names and signatures of several top Serbian police officials.  "I haven't had a chance to see anything like that before," she told AP.

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