======================================================= TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS Ref: C1WM0716 Date: 01/27/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader) Time: 06:11pm \/To: ALL (Read 11 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE MAJ GEN Rupert Smith, British Army, arrived in Sarajevo yesterday to become the new Commander of U.N. Protection Forces in Bosnia. Smith, 51, is expected to keep a lower profile than his predecessor, LT GEN Sir Michael Rose. Smith is known as a soldier's soldier, and flew to Sarajevo aboard an Ilyushin transport aircraft rather than a chartered U.N. business jet. Smith was Commander of the 1st Armored Division in the Persian Gulf War, and was most recently Assistant Chief of the Defense Staff. He enlisted as a private in the Duke of Edinburgh Regiment, and commanded a rifle company in 1978 in Northern Ireland. There, he and a junior officer were wounded in a carbomb attack. He was awarded a Queen's gallantry medal for pulling the other officer free. (Roger Cohen/N.Y.T.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e w s - Jan. 28-29, 1995 =========================================== FRONTLINES, Bosnia and Herzegovina UN spokesman Paul Risley told reporters in Zagreb, Croatia that tanks controlled by Serbs from Croatia had re-entered the Bihac pocket in recent days, highlighting mounting tension in the region. UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said 66 artillery shell impacts had been reported in the past 24 hours in the Bihac enclave around the town of Velika Kladusa. In Sarajevo, three explosions were reported at about midnight Saturday in the city center which the UN said might have been rifle-propelled grenades. The source of fire was under investigation. In the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, Bosnian army troops were blocking 75 Dutch UN peacekeepers from returning to their base, Ivanko said. A Croatian newspaper, Vecernji List, reported that government troops backed by Bosnian Croats captured the village of Bugar, nine miles northwest of the town of Bihac, on Thursday. The rest of Bosnia has been generally quiet, but persistent fighting in the Bihac region has undermined efforts to forge a lasting peace. Mediators Suspend Bosnia Peace Mission SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina International mediators Friday suspended their efforts to reach a peace agreement in Bosnia. The USA State Department said the envoys made the decision to leave Bosnia after the separatist Serbs refused to accept a peace plan put forward by the five-nation "contact group." State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly said in Washington that 'contact group' members "decided it was not productive for them to remain in Bosnia and therefore took the decision to return to their capitals." Diplomatic sources in Sarajevo said USA envoy Charles Thomas left Sarajevo Friday, while group members from France and Britain would depart Saturday. Envoys from Russia and Germany have already left. A senior Western official close to the contact group said that "a major problem was that the separatist Serbs did not face a credible threat of military force from NATO to make them compromise in the interests of peace. They just don't have a real incentive to move now. The problem is that there is no force in the equation. And I don't see any political will among the major powers for the use of force." "As a matter of fact the problem seems to be more of a linguistic one than anything else," Radovan Karadzic told on Friday. "We are asked to say we accept the plan but after the referendum we cannot do that," he said. "The Contact Group can't speak our language," Karadzic said. "The Muslims are dictating the position of the Contact Group, and I don't think the Contact Group has any future if that continues." "The army is involved in this whole thing," said George Grbic, Karadzic's translator. "Politicians come and go, but the army stays. We're willing to work loosely within the Contact Group plan, but we can't consent to it, because of public opinion," he added. "Everybody old enough to pick up a rifle is in the Serb army." A Serb official said the main reason for the deadlock was the contact group's refusal to modify the peace plan. Christopher challenges Congress over Bosnia WASHINGTON USA Secretary of State Warren Christopher Thursday challenged Congress to tell Bosnia's leadership directly how it would follow up, with USA military support, any resolution to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia. At a House of Representatives committee hearing, Christopher, who strongly opposes a Republican bill to lift the UN embargo unilaterally, invited representatives to explain their plans to Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic who plans meetings with members of Congress during a visit to Washington next Monday through Wednesday. "What I ask all of you to do when you talk to him, when he comes here, is to be frank with him, to be honest with him as to what the Congress is likely to do," Christopher told the International Relations Committee. "If the arms embargo is unilaterally lifted, and the Bosnians get in trouble, will you send US troops to help him? Will you send US aircraft to pull them out of the situation?" the secretary of state asked. The scenario painted by the administration is that UN peacekeeping troops in Bosnia would be withdrawn; the separatist Serbs would overrun the Bosnian government; and the United States would then be forced to aid the Bosnians first with air power and then with ground forces. Christopher reiterated that the United States still wanted the United Nations to lift the embargo, but noted that the other four veto-holding members of the Security Council -- Russia, China, France and Britain -- all opposed this. UN -- War crimes tribunal prosecutors THE HAGUE, Belgium The UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal on Friday named three senior lawyers who will present the prosecution's case at trials. Chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone had appointed Eric Ostberg of Sweden, Minna Schrag of the United States and Grant Niemann of Australia as trial prosecutors. Ostberg, Schrag and Niemann will present evidence and argue legal points before the judges of the tribunal. Before joining the tribunal, Ostberg was chief public prosecutor for special cases and financial cases in Stockholm. Schrag has previously served as an assistant USA attorney and is a partner in New York law firm Proskauer Rose Goatz Mendelssohn. Niemann was formerly deputy director of public prosecutions for South Australia in Adelaide. Richard Goldstone and his stuff investigated 14 cases but so far details of only two of them -- both involving atrocities by separtist Bosnian Serbs -- have been made public. The cases to be heard by the tribunal will be the first international war crimes trials since the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg 50 years ago. Trials are expected to start in the first half of this year. UN mounts "last" Sarajevo medical evacuation SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina The UN on Thursday mounted what it feared may be its last medical evacuation from Sarajevo, saying the programme had been crippled because donor nations had stopped giving funds. Fifteen patients accompanied by 21 escorts boarded UN armoured vehicles at the city's main hospital for the trip to the airport, from where they were flown out for treatment in Denmark, the only country currently providing beds. A UN doctor, Fausto Mariani, said that initial media interest in the war had faded and this was reflected in a reduction of funds for the medical evacuation programme from countries around the world. In August 1993, the programme received a boost when the conscience of the world was pricked by the story of a five-year-old girl, Irma Hadjimuratovic, who had been languishing in a Sarajevo hospital with no water or electricity after being injured in a mortar attack. The then head of the UN medical evacuation committee, Dr Patrick Peillod, summed up the bitterness felt by many aid workers when he said: "I don't think Sarajevo is a supermarket where governments can come and pick the cases they want." A UN official said the amount of cash needed to keep the evacuation programme running for the next six months amounted to no more than "a couple of hundred thousand dollars." Nine of the patients who left on Thursday were children, seven of whom are in need of open heart surgery. Four-year-old Fatima Durakovic was brought out of the eastern enclave of Srebrenica three months ago with severe heart problems. Two of the patients evacuated on Thursday were girls from the separatist Serb stronghold of Pale just outside Sarajevo. UN Pullout; Krajina Peace Plan; Relations with Serbia ZAGREB, Croatia Croatia's parliament on Friday endorsed president Franjo Tudjman's decision to cancel the UN peacekeeping mandate in Croatia after the end of March. The parliament expressed support for the decision adding that it "must not be seen as the acceptance of the war option, but is aimed at speeding up the peace process in the interest of all nations involved." A plan for a political settlement between the Croatian government and its rebel Serb minority, drafted by international mediators (a group called the "Zagreb four" -- USA, Russian, UN and European Union envoys,) is to be presented on Monday. A Western diplomat in Zagreb said that the plan is a "starting point for negotiations." The plan is the final stage of a three-phase process of normalising relations between Croats and Serbs that started last March with a truce and was followed by an economic agreement which is still being implemented. Details of the plan have not been disclosed, but it envisaged the return of Serb-held Krajina areas to Croatian control while giving the Serbs considerable cultural and political autonomy and guaranteeing their human rights. Initial Croatian reaction was reserved. Foreign Minister Mate Granic said that parts of the plan concerning the degree of Serb autonomy were unacceptable. Krajina Serbs were also likely to reject the proposal putting them under Zagreb's rule -- something they have fought against for four years. Work to finalise the plan was hastened by Croatia's decision to eject 12,000 UNPROFOR troops on March 31. Diplomatic sources in Zagreb said the USA ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, sugested that a reduced number of troops -- 6,000 to 7,000 -- should be stationed on front lines. A source close to Tudjman said such a proposal was unacceptable to Croatia, which wanted all foreign forces to leave the country and was prepared to accept only international observers monitoring the ceasefire and human rights. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said on Saturday his country and Serbia might establish formal relations this year and thereby greatly improve prospects for peace in former Yugoslavia. "I am convinced this year can bring about optimal solutions, in terms of normalisation of Croat-Serb relations," Tudjman was quoted as saying by Croatia's HINA news agency. Last week Tudjman announced that his foreign minister, Mate Granic, would soon travel to Belgrade for normalisation talks. Serbs refuse access to jailed Bosnian journalist SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnian Serb forces have refused to let UN officers visit a Bosnian journalist, Namik Becirbegovic, they are holding prisoner after whisking him away from a UN vehicle in Sarajevo on Thursday, a UN spokesman, Alexander Ivanko, said on Friday. Beceribegovic was taken from a UN Protection Force armoured personnel carrier by separatist Serb soldiers at Kasindolska checkpoint between the airport and the city on Thursday. Ivanko said Russian UN soldiers in the vehicle had violated UN procedure on transporting journalists to and from Sarajevo airport, by opening the door of the transporter to allow soldiers to check identification and baggage. "They should have not opened the APC door which they did. The passengers were asked for a baggage check. The officers present in the APC should have refused any baggage check which they didn't." The Russians were not threatened before opening the APC door. "I think we will see some disciplinary action come from this incident," he added. "At first we will try to get the journalist freed. As a possible follow-up we will raise the issue of having free access to the airport without any checking of passengers on UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) shuttles," Ivanko said. Yugoslavia: Seselj released; Can Croatia win over Krajina? BELGRADE, Yugoslavia Hundreds of cheering supporters greeted hardline Serbian nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj when he was released from jail on Saturday after serving four months for criminal offences. "Slobodan Milosevic is a communist bandit, the greatest criminal and the greatest traitor to the Serbian people," Seselj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, told a news conference hours after his release from jail. "There will be neither freedom nor democracy until his neo-communist regime falls," said Seselj, who also accused government officials of plotting to have him "liquidated." Surrounded by bearded members of the Serbian Chetnik movement waving a black skull-and-crossbones flag bearing the motto "freedom or death," Seselj roared defiance of Milosevic. The West suspects Seselj of war crimes as a leader of paramilitary units said by human rights groups to have killed and expelled Moslems and Croats from lands taken by Serb forces in Bosnia in 1992-93. Senior military analysts in Belgrade, retired army general Radovan Radinovic, said he believes that despite its new and sophisticated weaponry the Croatian army could not beat the Krajina Serbs into submission. In an interview published on Friday in the Belgrade weekly NIN he said Croatia's limiting factor was having an unfavourable base for marshalling a big force to assume the main thrust of an attack on the Krajina Serbs' mountain headquarters at Knin. According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Croatia has at its disposal an army of 110,000 troops, with 170 tanks, 900 artillery pieces and 20 aircraft, including helicopters. The IISS also says Krajina has 50,000 troops but 240 tanks, 500 artillery pieces, 12 combat aircraft and six helicopters. "The balance of manpower would have to be three and even five to one in favour of Croatia and it would have to include elite forces to capture and hold ground. Croatia does not have them in sufficient numbers," Radinovic said. He said the third factor is Krajina's capability to strike out with artillery and missile systems on all major Croatian towns except for the port of Rijeka. Authorative sources in Belgrade, speaking on condition of anonimity, said that, in the event of an assault on Krajina, the Bosnian Serb army would step to help its ethnic kin. "The Bosnian Serbs have been praying for years for the war to expand and involve Serbia which has the single decisive factor they lack-- the manpower. They hope that in the event of such a war Milosevic would succumb to the pressure by the Serbian nationalists and join the fray which, given Serbia's superiority in manpower and equipment, could decisively shift the balance of power also in Bosnia and Herzegovina." ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e w s - Jan. 29, 1995 ========================================== CHICAGO TRIBUNE Copyright Chicago Tribune 1995 DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 SECTION: NEWS SOURCE: From Tribune Wires DATELINE: PALE, Bosnia and Herzegovina `NO MOVEMENT' IN BID TO RESTART BOSNIA TALKS Efforts to persuade Bosnia's warring factions to resume peace talks came to a screeching halt Friday when Bosnian Serbs refused to budge. Mediators from the USA and four other countries at the forefront of peace efforts had been conducting feverish negotiations with Bosnian Serbs and their rival, the Muslim-led government, for more than a week. But planned talks with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic were canceled, and USA representative Charles Thomas left Sarajevo on Friday after remarking, "There's no movement here." No movement toward peace-but many steps, however, away from a four-month truce that began Jan. 1. Government and Serb forces were locked in fierce machine-gun exchanges around the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo for three hours Friday morning, the worst cease-fire violation there this year. Heavy fighting also continued in the northwestern area around Bihac, where the two sides resumed combat in recent days. UN officials reported 580 detonations in 24 hours around nearby Velika Kladusa. Thomas, the USA envoy, and representatives of Russia, France, Britain and Germany-the so-called Contact Group-had been trying to find the right words that would allow Bosnian government and Serbs to resume negotiations. "The Contact Group can't speak our language," Karadzic said. "The Muslims are dictating the position of the Contact Group, and I don't think the Contact Group has any future if that continues." The Contact Group has been peddling a peace plan that would give a Muslim-Croat federation 51 percent of Bosnia and leave Serbs, who now control about 70 percent of Bosnian territory, with 49 percent. The federation accepted the plan last summer. Serbs originally rejected it, then said they would use it as a basis for negotiation after the Contact Group said changes were possible if both sides agreed. But the Bosnian government wants Serbs first to sign the peace plan as is before negotiating any changes. State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly said in Washington it was "way too early to conclude that the Contact Group is finished" but there would be "a pause now" in the efforts of the group. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e w s - Jan. 30, 1995 ========================================== It would be naive to expect a very different performance from Rose's British successor, Gen. Rupert Smith. Similarly, it would be naive to expect better guidance from the UN. 1/30:EDITORIAL: ROSE AND HIS ORDERS c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service Gen. Sir Michael Rose, whose one-year tenure as U.N. commander in Bosnia ended last week, had a thankless assignment. He was supposed to protect civilians in Bosnia's besieged cities, but had neither the mandate nor the means to repulse their Serbian besiegers. In theory, the United Nations is neutral between aggressors and victims in Bosnia's dirty war. Even allowing for the toughness of the job, Rose damaged the United Nations' credibility. His efforts to avoid confrontation and protect his troops went beyond the narrow dictates of neutrality. He began well enough last January, cooperating with NATO efforts to get the Serbs to pull back artillery from the hills surrounding Sarajevo. But when the Serbs shifted their attention to Gorazde, Rose impeded effective NATO air strikes. Later, he seemed to encourage Serbian military operations around Sarajevo's airport. Most recently, at Bihac, he seemed to ignore the Security Council's instructions to protect civilians. By tilting toward the aggressor and failing to protect Muslim civilians, the United Nations has damaged its reputation with Muslims and Americans. Rose, who built a reputation for aggressiveness in the Falklands and Northern Ireland and battling terrorists in London, did not turn passive in Bosnia on his own. The United Nations never provided him with the troops he needed to face down the Serbs. Nor did his masters in the Security Council ever really want him to get tough. As a British general in U.N. employ, Rose faithfully followed London's indulgent policies toward the Serbs - policies that no permanent member of the Security Council, including the United States, contested. France, like Britain, has troops at risk. The United States is rightly determined not to send troops of its own. Russia openly sympathizes with the Serbian cause. China opposes aggressive U.N. peacekeeping on principle. So it would be naive to expect a very different performance from Rose's British successor, Gen. Rupert Smith. Similarly, it would be naive to expect better guidance from the United Nations. The Clinton administration, though it has sometimes criticized Rose, is not interested in reshaping the present Security Council consensus. It is fair to find fault with Rose. But it would be unfair to forget that he did not act alone. ================================================= TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS Ref: C1YP2882 Date: 01/29/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader) Time: 08:48pm \/To: ALL (Read 13 times) Subj: 2 MARINES SHOT IN ALBANIA Two members of the U.S. Marine Corps were shot in a restaurant Friday in Durres, Albania. An operation on one of them, a 20 year old, lasted seven hours, and he is in critical condition. He may be flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. The other was shot in the arm, and was in good condition aboard the U.S. Navy Austin-class Amphibious Transport Dock U.S.S. Ponce (LPD 15), docked in Durres. Both were from the 22nd M.E.U., Camp Lejeune, NC. Local police say the two were hit after gunmen "shot up a building and then took off in a car." Whether they were the target is not known. The 22nd and other units are in Albanin for Exercise Sarex 95 with Albanian military units. The exercise was delayed by the shooting but was to begin later Friday near Golem. Thousands were expected to tour the Ponce today. (Merita Dhimgjoka/A.P.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- B o s N e w s - Jan. 30, 1995 ========================================== FRONTLINES, Bosnia and Herzegovina UN spokesman Lt.Col.Gary Coward said fighting had picked up again near Velika Kladusa in the north of the Bihac enclave Sunday. Some 400 detonations were reported between Sunday morning and noon southeast of Kladusa, four times the daily average. Although movement for peacekeepers in the area was severely restricted, the UN believed rebel Muslim forces backed up by Krajina Serb big guns were attacking the Bosnian government's 5th Corps. UN spokesman Maj. Koos Sol said Croatian Serbs and rebel Muslims pushed the government's Fifth Corps up to three miles farther southeast from Velika Kladusa. Farther south, UN spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward said government forces apparently pushed Croatian Serb fighters back across the border into Croatia. To the south around Bihac town, more than 20 detonations were reported in the suburbs of Klokot, Vedro Polje and Vegar. In the Bosnian eastern enclave of Srebrenica, Bosnian army troops were blocking 75 Dutch UN peacekeepers from returning to their base, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said. The Dutch had been investigating a recent encroachment by the separatist Serbs in the eastern edge of the enclave. Ivanko said it was possible the Bosnian army was trying to exert pressure on the UN to push the Serbs back after the Bosnian Serbs moved their lines 150 yards forward. There was also increasing tension between nominally allied Bosnian Goverment Forces and Croats around the city of Mostar, where a Dutch United Nations military resupply convoy turned back after Bosnian Croat troops fired into the air. Near Sarajevo, French peacekeepers shot four government soldiers for attempting to evade inspection, the United Nations said Monday. The soldiers, shot in the legs Saturday, received medical treatment from the French. Bosnia tensions rise as peace efforts stall SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina The five-nation "contact group" which ended its mission to Bosnia over the weekend has no firm idea of how to overcome its biggest stumbling block -- the Bosnian Serbs' refusal to accept the latest peace plan. The political vacuum left by the deadlock in the peace process has brought a rise in tension across Bosnia, with no let-up in fighting in the northwestern Bihac enclave. There have also been cease-fire violations in Sarajevo. Tensions between Bosnian government and allied Croat forces appear to be rising in northern Bosnia, a UN official said Saturday. Tensions were especially high around the northern town of Tesanj. On Friday, the Tesanj police chief ordered the arrest of several local Croat officials after Croats had arrested some government officials earlier in the week. Bosnia's vice-president, Ejup Ganic, and Kresimir Zubak, leader of the Bosnian Croats, agreed that federation leaders should visit the Tesanj area. U.N. and diplomatic sources said Croat-Muslim relation were also extremely strained in the Maglaj area farther north. Both sides have arrested police officers along with local political leaders. One Western source said there were reports that Bosnian Croat soldiers had committed acts of "thuggery" and had even rounded up some Muslims for forced labor. Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic sought to play down the differences and called for tolerance between Croats and Muslims, the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje reported Sunday. Izetbegovic was conciliatory. "There will be no new confrontations with Croats ... There were some problems in Mostar, but we overcame them." Another setback to restore confidence SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina Marking another setback to UN hopes to restore confidence in the tenuous cease-fire, plans to evacuate nearly 200 people Monday from Gorazde, an eastern Bosnian enclave, may be halted. Lt. Col. Gary Coward, a UN spokesman in Sarajevo, said on Sunday that the separatist Serbs and Bosnian government had agreed on evacuation of 194 people -- 128 Muslims and 66 Serbs -- from Gorazde in northeastern Bosnia on Monday. He said the agreement, reached in direct contacts between the two sides, was part of an accord that on Wednesday should lead to the opening of routes in and around Sarajevo. Coward said if it works, "it would send a very positive signal." The chief of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' office in Sarajevo, Karen Abuzayd, said on Monday there was no clearance yet from Bosnian Serbs to evacuate. Gorazde has been surrounded by Serbs for nearly the entire war. SRNA, the Bosnian Serb news agency, said it was postponed until Tuesday, apparently because Bosnian Serb military leaders wanted more Serbs taken out than listed on evacuation rolls. France to send extra units to ex-Yugoslavia PARIS, France French Defense Minister Francois Leotard said Sunday that France was about to send an extra 300 men to reinforce its contingent of UN peacekeepers in ex-Yugoslavia. "France has decided to send 300 extra men to Bosnia, a unit of engineers plus helicopters to mantain the cease-fire which is now more or less respected in Sarajevo though not in Bihac," he told TF1 television. He said talks were under way, presumably with belligerents, to open new supply roads. Oppression of Kosovo Albanians PRISTINA, Yugoslavia While Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has been cultivating an image as peacemaker in the Balkans, police repression in the province of Kosovo has been rising, human rights workers say. In the southern province of Kosovo (ethnic Albanians 90% of the population,) 200 former Albanian policemen have been arrested in the past two months on suspicion of forming a "parallel" interior ministry, allegedly aimed at seceding from rump Yugoslavia. Human rights workers and Albanian lawyers say the detainees were tortured, beaten and interrogated without their lawyers present. The arrests fit a pattern of repression in Kosovo, where a Serbian minority rules the restive Albanian majority through a massive police presence, said the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights based in Vienna. The treatment of the detainees was yet another example of a "massive violation of human rights" in Kosovo, said Sanja Biserko, a Helsinki representative in Belgrade. The mass arrests, carried out in November and December, followed a petition issued by Serb nationalists in Kosovo accusing Belgrade of failing to fulfil promises to check the Albanian political movement and resettle Serbs in the province. "The latest arrests were made out of political necessity," Biserko said. Serbian authorities deny that the detainees have been questioned without their lawyers present and accuse them of plotting the overthrow of the government in Belgrade. Citing photographs and detailed testimony from witnesses as evidence, the Council for the Defense of Human Rights in Kosovo, an Albanian organization, reports that 17 people died last year in Kosovo as a result of police brutality. The victims included an 80-year-old man. Asked if the latest detainees had been mistreated, Kosovo's chief public prosecutor, Miodrag Brkljac, conceded doctors examining them found Serb police had caused some injuries. The detained Albanians, all former police officers from when Kosovo was still an autonomous province, say they had formed their own trade union but had not organized an underground interior ministry, Kelmendi said. ================================================== TODAY'S ISSUES==> TOPIC: MILITARY & ARMS Ref: C1^P3513 Date: 01/31/95 From: STEVE SCHULTZ (Leader) Time: 08:58pm \/To: ALL (Read 11 times) Subj: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA UPDATE A peace proposal was presented yesterday to the Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, and to Croatian Serbs. Tudjman has not yet responded, but Croatian Serbs in Knin refused to even look at the proposal. The proposal was prepared by European nations, Russia, and the U.S., and was offered as a basis for negotiations. The proposal gave some autonomy in local areas to Croatian Serbs where they were in the majority before the war, but they would have to recognize the borders of Croatia and surrender areas where Croats were in the majority before the war. In the areas they would retain, Croatian Serbs could elect a legislature and local president, establish their own currency and tax system, and create a police force and lower courts. Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic was in Washington, D.C., yesterday, urging an end to the arms embargo. Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State Warren Christopher said they would not unilaterally break the embargo without the assent of the U.N. Security Council. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Strom Thurmond said they would seek to have the embargo lifted. Dole has introduced legislation that would allow the U.S. to send weapons to the Bosnians at the request of the Bosnian Government or at the end of the four month cease-fire on May 1. The bill would prohibit U.S. personnel from delivering the weapons or training Bosnians in their use. Silajdzic is in Washington for three days, and was to meet today with a bipartisan commission that monitors human rights. (Elaine Sciolino/N.Y.T.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----- B o s N e w s - Jan 31, 1995 ========================================= Politicians criticise Islamic influence on army 95-01-30 ``We are not responsible for the introduction of ideology and manipulation of belief in some units of the Bosnian army... That process is being carried out without us,'' five of the seven members of Bosnia's collective presidency said in a statement, quoted by Sarajevo radio. ``We still remain committed to the attitude that the army which defends Bosnia-Herzegovina and which will in the future preserve Bosnia-Herzegovina must be secular and multi-national, without the influence and competing interests of political parties.'' It was signed by Nijaz Durakovic, a Muslim; Croat leaders Stjepan Kljuic and Ivo Komsic; and two Serbs, Tatjana Ljujic-Mijatovic and Mirko Pejanovic. None of the five presidency members belong to the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA). The statement reflected divisions within the political leadership in Bosnia, and it coincided with a visit by a senior Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, to Sarajevo on Monday. Jannati is member of Iran's Council of Guardians, top religious body. B&H's PM Silajdzic visits DC ``There must be a deadline set, a real firm deadline, because this is a good plan, but the plan is not a plan without a time schedule... If the deadline is not met, we demand the multilateral lifting of the arms embargo -- if not multilateral then unilateral -- and arming of Bosnia. There is no other way,'' Silajdzic said before meeting US Secretary of State Christopher. On Monday, Silajdzic also met with Vice President Al Gore. ``The Vice President and the Prime Minister deplored the Bosnian Serbs' intransigence with regard to recent initiatives by the contact group,'' a statement issued by White House. ``Vice President Gore assured the Prime Minister that the United States continues to support efforts to obtain a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Bosnia on the basis of the contact group plan,'' it said. Gore had reiterated the Clinton administration's support ``for Bosnia's territorial integrity and adherence to the contact group plan.'' Bosnian Leader Meets With U.S. Officials ``We're serious about lifting the arms embargo,'' Sen. Bob Dole, R-KS told reporters. ``We certainly haven't lost our resolve... They're not asking for American troops. They have a right to self-defense,'' Dole added. Dole has introduced legislation that would force the Clinton administration to lift the embargo unilaterally if the Serbs have not accepted the peace plan by May 1. Owen urges new peace effort on Bosnia Lord David Owen, co-chairman of the international conference on ex-Yugoslavia, told reporters after meeting French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe: ``We have an opportunity to relaunch the peace process in the six to eight weeks to come... France, as president of the EU, will play a key role and we will do all we can to help the French presidency.'' Bosnian-Croat tensions rise A U.N. convoy headed to the U.N.-administered southern city of Mostar was forced to halt due to gunfire across the road at a Croat checkpoint south of the town at Blagaj on Saturday, U.N. spokesman Major Koos Sol told Reuters. Presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia decided to form a mixed commission to settle disputes. Western diplomats said they thought this was nothing more than a token gesture. Diplomats in Belgrade said they also suspected that the Serbs were stalling in order to see how the growing Bosnian-Croat rift developed. ``They would be certainly glad to see the federation break up and totally destroy the contact group plan,'' one diplomat said. ``I am convinced this year can bring about optimal solutions, in terms of normalisation of Croat-Serb relations,'' Croatia's HINA news agency quoted President Tudjman as saying on Saturday. ``This would create conditions to solve the issue of Croatia's occupied areas and establish a new international order in all of former Yugoslavia.' NATO only please In London, NATO's commander-in-chief for southern Europe, U.S. Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., said Monday that NATO should command any evacuation of U.N. peacekeepers from Bosnia, rather than risk confusion by sharing that responsibility with the United Nations. An estimated 30,000 to 45,000 NATO troops would be needed for the operation. According to Smith it could be completed in less than six months. Sen. Dole to Slow Down Sen. Dole said Monday he told Secretary of State Warren Christopher he is right about not seeking a lifting of the embargo now. ``We're not going to push it for the next couple of months because there might be some chance to get an agreement,'' the senator said during a visit to Capitol Hill of Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic. ``There is a fear this war will be Americanized if the embargo is lifted,'' Silajdzic said. ``Now the war is Serbianized'' because the B osnian government doesn't have arms to protect itself. Sen. Dole, R-KS, said that despite his willingness to hold off on legislation to force President Clinton's hand, ``I haven't seen any slippage on either side -- Democrat or Republican -- on lifting the embargo. We are serious about it, and the administration should know we are serious about it.' UN Fires at Bosnian Army on Mt. Igman U.N. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Coward told reporters French U.N. soldiers fired warning shots on Saturday evening at 40 Bosnian soldiers trying to enter a demilitarised zone on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo. Four government soldiers were slightly wounded by the French fire. 95-01-30