CIA finds Serbs commit most atrocities - official

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuter) - The Central Intelligence

Agency has concluded the vast majority of acts of "ethnic

cleansing" in Bosnia were carried out by Serbs, and leading

Serbian politicians almost certainly played a role in the

crimes, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke told

Congress the CIA report contained such compelling "visual"

material, presumably overhead photography, that he had

interrupted a briefing on it late last year and called in his

senior staff so they could see the pictures.

"For those people who have not been in the region

firsthand, the report can be quite shocking," he said in reply

to a question at a hearing of the House of Representatives'

International Relations Committee.

The existence of the CIA report was disclosed on Thursday

by the New York Times.

Holbrooke said it pointed out that atrocities had been

committed by all sides in the Bosnian conflict, "but that the

burden of responsibility and guilt lies with the Serbs."

But he disputed a suggestion in the Times that the

administration had been restricting access to the report for

fear it could undermine Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's

willingness to help bring about a negotiated peace.

"I just don't agree with that. These are facts," he said

of the classified material. "As for Mr Milosevic, he has his

own objectives. I see no indication that he's changed those

objectives, but he has changed his tactics."

The report, believed to be the most comprehensive

assessment of atrocities in Bosnia, also concluded that while

war crimes were not committed exclusively by Serbs, they were

the only party involved in a systematic attempt to eliminate

all traces of other ethnic groups from their territory, the

Times said.

Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, declined comment. The

State Department, asked about the report, said: "The

responsibility of Serbs for the great majority of acts of

ethnic cleansing has been well-documented."

The department noted that an international tribunal set up

to investigate and prosecute those responsible for ethnic

cleansing so far had indicted 23 people, all of them Serbs.

Ethnic cleansing is the term generally used for the

practice, common in the Bosnian war, of killing, forcibly

evicting and persecuting ethnic groups other than one's own.

The New York Times quoted an official as saying the CIA

found no "conclusive evidence" of direct involvement of

Bosnian Serb or Serbian leaders in the planning and execution

of large-scale ethnic cleansing.

"But," the report was quoted as saying, "the systematic

nature of the Serbian actions strongly suggests that (the

Bosnian Serb capital) Pale and perhaps Belgrade exercised a

carefully veiled role in the purposeful destruction and

dispersal of non-Serb populations."

In addition to Serbs, Bosnia is populated by Moslems and

Croats.

Officials quoted by the newspaper said the report also

contains specific evidence that some Bosnian Serb leaders --

including Radovan Karadzic -- knew of the concentration camps

through which many Moslems and Croats who had been evicted

from their homes in 1992 were processed.

REUTER

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