correspondent inBelgrade, claims today that a military coup against Karadzic is
``imminent.... Sources in Pale said that tension was high....
There were also clear indications, that the military was shifting
its power base to Banja Luka in the north and, specifically, to
Dravar, where Gen. Mladic was yesterday reported to be commanding
battlefield operations.'' Judah reports that Mladic is accusing
the Bosnian Serb leadership of having contributed to the recent
days' fiascoes of Serb forces. He claims that many of its
leading lights have enriched themselves, while ordinary people
have been condemned to the prospect of war without end, and to
grinding poverty.
Aug. 8 --``THE BRITISH ARE VERY UPSET BY THE NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN
THE BALKANS, THEY WILL DO EVERYTHING TO MUDDY THE WATERS,
'' a London thinktank source of Balkans origin told today.
``What has happened, with the Croat offensive, is the end
of Britain's dream, which was to back the 'winner', namely the
Serbs, and to have a deal favoring a Greater Serbia,'' he
stressed. ``It's the same method they used in backing Tito
during World War Two. Now, they are doing everything to muddy
the waters. They are constantly putting forward rumors that a
division of Bosnia is about to happen. They are saying,
hypocritically, how worried they are about 'the poor Muslims' --
after having supported the Serbs for all these years! They want
to take the shine off the Croatian successes. They are spreading
rumors about new fighting in Eastern Slavonia.''
According to this source, it is the British who are really
behind the scheme announced by Russian President Boris Yeltsin,
for talks in Moscow between the Croat and Serb leaderships.
``This is the way I see British diplomacy now working. To me,
this Yeltsin proposal is very much British, in authorship. And
even if the British didn't literally write the script, they are
certainly backing the Russians. They would love to see, above
all else, the Bosnian-Croat alliance that the U.S. supports,
collapse, so they are fostering a Croat-Serb deal, brokered by
Russia.''
He said that British schemes for ``negotiations'' have,
otherwise, been thrown into disarray, by the behavior of European
Union negotiator Carl Bildt. ``That idiot Bildt, with his
attacks on Croatia based on unproven assertions, has stalled
whatever negotiations there might have been.''
[Catholic Press Agency, Zagreb, Croatia, Aug. 7, 1995]
CARDINAL FRANJO KUHARIC, the president of the Croatian
Conference of Bishops, addressed the public via Croatian TV on
Aug. 5, on the liberation of Croatian occupied territory in the
Krajina. Kuharic argued that the war to retake the Krajina, which
was an internationally recognized part of Croatia, fell under the
rubric of the doctrine of ``just war,'' as defined by the Second
Vatican Council and ``Gaudium et spes.''
Kuharic summarized the principles as follows:
* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or
community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been
shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders
graver than the evil to be eliminated.
Cardinal Kuharic concluded by supporting the manifesto
issued by Croatian President Tudjman on the occasion of retaking
Krajina, and by appealing to the consciences of the Croatian
defenders to uphold them and bring an end to war as soon as
possible.
[TWRA, August 8, 1995, Daily Bulletin]
At a press conference in Zagreb today, the vice-president
of the Croatian Government, Ivica KOSTOVIC, said that a corridor
had been opened to the enclave of Bihac, and that the first
humanitarian convoy in months was starting out today.
Reacting to the press rumors about the fate of refugees,
Kostovic stressed that, during the military operation, there were
19 civilian casualties in all.
Kostovic said only 200 people have been detained, and that
the Red Cross will have access to them and to refugee centers. He
also gave figures for how many other civilians had fled, which
varied significantly by area.
[TWRA, Aug. 8, 1995, Daily Bulletin]
Croatian President Franjo TUDJMAN opened official talks with
the president and foreign minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina today,
by presenting them with medals for their contributions to
friendly relations between Sarajevo and Zagreb. President
Izetbegovic received the ``grand order of Queen Jelena with
ribbon,'' and Foreign Minister Sacirbey, the ``Count Branimir
Order with necklace.'' Attending the ceremony were the ambassadors
of the U.S., Turkey, and Germany.
[TWRA, Aug. 8, 1995, Daily Bulletin}
The party of Serbian Vuka Draskovic, and the Synod of the
Serbian Orthodox Church have both begun agitation against the
government of Milosevic. Draskovic's Serbian National Revival and
National party has been demonstrating for 3 nights, and throwing
rocks at the parliament and the U.S. and German embassies.
The Synod has released a statement attacking the
``neo-communist leadership'' and calling for union of all
opponents of Milosevic.
[Source: Washington Times, by Peter Benesh, London, Aug. 8]
BRITS PUSH BOSNIA PARTITION LINE; TUDJMAN SPOKESMAN
DENOUNCES FAKE MAP. The Times of London yesterday published a
drawing of a map, attributed to Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman, which shows Bosnia partitioned in two, with half going
to Serbia and the other half to Croatia. A spokesman for Tudjman
denounced the map as a fake.
The London Times said that Tudjman drew the map on a menu
at the request of Liberal Democratic Party leader Paddy Ashdown
during a May 6 V-E Day banquet in London -- a banquet attended by
Queen Elizabeth. The map, as reproduced on the front page of the
Washington Times under the headlines ``Dividing the Spoils'' and
``Croat leader's map erases Bosnia,'' shows Bosnia severed along
a S-shaped divide, with the eastern part marked with an arrow
saying ``Serbia,'' and the western part with an arrow marked
``Croatia.''
In Zagreb, a government spokesman, Natasha Rajahovic, said
that Croatia has no plans to annex Bosnia, and said that the map
``is entirely false. It is not his handwriting on that
drawing.... The President never drew that map.... There will be
measures taken to prove that.... We have witnesses.''
Bosnia's Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey is quoted as
telling Reuters that his government has asked the Croatian
government for clarification, but then the Washington Times
quotes Sacirbey as saying: ``There are cynics who might see
Croatia going from being a victim to being a menace. There's
always a reason for caution.... But I think we should
concentrate on our shared strategic interests and not speculate
about a Croatia that has opened its mouth wide to swallow
Bosnia.''
WASHINGTON, AUGUST 7 --US STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN ASKED ABOUT
THE RUMORS IN THE EUROPEAN PRESS about a possible deal between
Serbian President Milosevic and Croatian President Tudjman and about
the strength and stability of the Bosnian-Croatian Federation.
Johnson said:
``Well, I'm not going to be able to be a crystal ball gazer
for you. We worked very hard to try to put the federation
together, and we've worked hard since then in a number of ways to
try to keep it intact. I'm not going to speculate about what
type of pressures might be on it. It, we think, has been a
successful diplomatic outcome that we are pleased to have played
a part in bringing into play, but I'm not in a position to try to
tell you what sort of pressures might be on it in the future.''
Regarding the Yeltsin invitation to Tudjman and Milosevic,
Johnson said, ``We have had conversations with the Russians We
are in the process of learning more about the details of what
President Yeltsin proposes to put forward. We hope to learn more
of those details before we give you a fuller reaction to how that
might play a role in a negotiated solution.''
Aug. 8 --``KRAJINA'' SERB PRIME MINISTER MILAN MARTIC REPORTED DEAD.
According to a London source of Balkans origin, Martic was killed by
his own troops, following the humiliating Serb defeat at the hands of
the Croatians. Other accounts, from British and continental European
radio, claim that Martic has committed suicide. In one dispatch,
BBC claimed that Martic was in disfavor with Serbian dictator
Slobodan Milosevic, the latter preferring Krajina ``President''
Milan Babic as his agent.
Martic has (had) a colorful past. According to published
accounts in the early 1990s, he had formerly been the psychiatric
patient of Dr. Jovan Raskovic, the Croatian Serb demagogue who
first launched the war of rebellion against Croatia, on behalf of
his Belgrade-backed ``Serbian Democratic Party'', in the 1990-91
period. Raskovic, now deceased, was the conceptual/political
architect of the Krajina rebellion. Martic was, thereby, one of
a pack of psychopaths conducting the Serb insurgencies and
massacres. This also includes, of course, Bosnian Serb leader
Dr. Radovan Karadzic, who is a protege of the late Raskovic, and
others. Raskovic deployed many of his former patients into
``politics.''
Aug. 8 --``WHY SHOULD TUDJMAN HAVE TO PLEAD WITH MILOSEVIC FOR A DEAL?''
a well-informed London strategist, himself of Balkans origin, asked
rhetorically, during a discussion today. He was attempting to throw
cold water on all the British-spawned speculation that some kind of
deal is about to be arranged between the Croatian and Serbian leaders,
in which Bosnian interests will be sold out.
``Formerly, Tudjman had to act out of weakness, so he did a
lot of opportunistic things,'' the source noted. ``But it is the
wrong perception, to think he will just jump into a deal, now....
The Serbs, after all, are very much weakened. Their hopes for a
Greater Serbia are receding. They are the ones who will be
squealing for negotiations. There is a constant Serb power
struggle going on. Besides, militarily, the most likely thing to
happen, is that we will see further pushes by BOTH the Croatians
and the Bosnians in the coming period. The Bosnians can now gain
quite a bit, there are a lot of empty spaces. And they will get
more arms, and more quickly, to their side.'' Besides, he
repeatedly stressed, the U.S. has been unambiguous in its support
for a Croat-Muslim alliance.
[Source: London ]Aug. 8 ()--BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY MICHAEL PORTILLO IN
``CLASH WITH WASHINGTON AND BONN,'' as he attacks the
Croatian offensive in Krajina, the London reportsfront-page today. The says that Portillo's comments``differed sharply'' with those of leading American officials.
The British Defense Secretary, a protege of Baroness
Thatcher, said: ``Where people are driven from their homes, and
where they have lived in those places for generations, that
amounts to ethnic cleansing. Of course, the warring parties
(sic) believe that if you shift enough people around the map, you
can eventually arrive at territorial integrity which will be the
basis for some sort of settlement. From the West's point of
view, a conclusion which is based on shifting hundreds of
thousands of people, and in the process killing tens of thousands
more, is just not an acceptable way of moving towards a peace
settlement.''
The Brute went on: ``The difficulty with this conflict, has
always been to try and get more than one party to agree, that it
is in their interests to negotiate a peace, rather than just to
seize more and more territory. The object of international
efforts must be to bring the parties to the negotiating table, to
establish a map, to establish a ceasefire, and then allow the UN
to police that ceasefire, and continue its humanitarian work.''
end report.
