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Subject: IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 123
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WELCOME TO IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 123, March 10, 2000

MILOSEVIC CRUSHES OPPONENTS The opposition and the independent media in
Serbia fall victim to state-sponsored repression. Vlado Mares reports from
Belgrade.

CRACKS WIDEN IN BOSNIAN CROAT LEADERSHIP The conviction of Tihomir Baskic
has heightened tensions within the Bosnian Croat leadership. Janez Kovac
reports from Mostar.

BALKAN BERLIN REMAINS DIVIDED Four years after the end of the war in Bosnia,
Mostar remains as divided as Belfast or Cold War Berlin. Mirsad Behran
reports from Mostar.

CROATIA COMES IN FROM THE COLD After years of isolation, Croatia is flavour
of the month in European political circles. Drago Hedl reports from Osijek.

FRENCH KOSOVO DILEMMA French KFOR troops are struggling to fend off
accusations of bias in Mitrovica's ethnic powder-keg. James Hider reports
from Pristina.

****************** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ****************** 

MILOSEVIC CRUSHES OPPONENTS

The opposition and the independent media in Serbia fall victim to
state-sponsored repression.

By Vlado Mares in Belgrade

Earlier this month independent TV station Studio B broadcast footage of a
young democracy activist being beaten up by five youths. The vehicle the
attackers used was shown parked outside the Serbian Interior Ministry. The
official response was swift and brutal.

A few days later, police broke into Studio B's offices, beat up two
employees and damaged broadcasting equipment belonging to the channel and
the popular radio station, B2-92. Studio B lost hundreds of thousands of
viewers while B2-92 was temporarily taken off the air as a result of the
action.

It is the latest of a series of attacks on opposition controlled Studio B.
So far this year, the station has been fined for various offences under a
draconian information law and broadcasting equipment at its Mount Kosmaj
transmitter has been stolen.

Another medium to face official wrath this month is the biggest-selling
Belgrade daily, Vecernje Novosti. Having backed the regime for years, it
became popular in recent months by opening up its editorial pages to
opinions critical of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. 

This changed on March 3 when the paper was taken over and a new
editor-in-chief from Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia, Dusan Cukic,
appointed. Cukic, who is banned from travelling to European Union countries,
immediately brought Vecernje back in line. It now resembles any other regime
newspaper.

Not a day seems to pass without the regime closing down a broadcaster. On
March 9, a radio and television station in Cuprija was shut and the day
before Radio Boom in Pozarevac was taken off the air. 

Regime critics feel the authorities' strong-arm actions against Studio B and
Vecernje Novosti reflect increasing nervousness in Milosevic's inner
cabinet.

The crackdown coincides with plans by opposition parties to stage
anti-government demonstrations. With unrest in southern Serbia and possible
conflict in Montenegro, the last thing the regime wants is opposition
activism.

In response to the opposition's plans, the authorities are making
contingency plans. Sources close to the police say that a 1,500-strong team
of militant government supporters, some linked to Belgrade's criminal
underworld, has been formed, tasked with disrupting and crushing possible
pro-democracy demonstrations.

Similar groups of regime loyalists have in the past broken into the offices
of independent media and threatened journalists. Indeed, on one occasion
last year, an inebriated Marko Milosevic, the son of the Yugoslav president,
responded to newspaper criticism of his parents by breaking into the offices
of the Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti and, according to eyewitnesses,
threatening journalists with a gun.

Perhaps the extent of the regime's present nervousness is best illustrated
by an incident this week in which police entered a Belgrade secondary school
to detain a pupil who had participated in a press conference announcing
forthcoming student protests.

It followed concerted action against students belonging to the pro-democracy
movement, Otpor ("Resistance"). Otpor sources say some 200 members have been
detained in recent months, spending a total of about 8,000 hours in prison.

In an incident this week, Marko Milosevic is said to have forced an activist
into his car and taken him to his night-club, where he was severely beaten
threatened with a gun.

Over the past two weeks, several officials and activists from the opposition
Serbian Renewal Movement in Belgrade have been detained for questioning. And
the number of break-ins at the homes of city officials has risen
dramatically in recent months. Curiously none of the burglars have been
apprehended.

In Novi Sad, the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, 66
opposition activists belonging to the League of the Social Democrats of
Vojvodina were arrested while putting up the posters in the town protesting
against the visit of Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic. 

On the same day, three journalists and photographers with the Beta news
agency, the Belgrade daily Blic and Radio Free Europe were beaten up by
government supporters bussed in from nearby villages.

Hostility towards the independent media has increased since the official
media reported on February 27 a statement from the Serbian Information
Ministry alleging on-going media aggression against Serbia by the United
States and its Western European allies. 

The stations Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, BBC and Deutsche Welle, as
well as several independent media outlets in Belgrade were labelled
"psychological-propaganda services" of the United States and its allies.

While this kind of attack is not new, political analysts in Belgrade fear
that it may herald further violence against dissidents and that, under the
pretext of a struggle against international enemies and NATO, Serbs will
shortly be faced with a fully fledged dictatorship.

Vlado Mares is a regular IWPR contributor from Belgrade.


CRACKS WIDEN IN BOSNIAN CROAT LEADERSHIP

The conviction of Tihomir Baskic has heightened tensions within the Bosnian
Croat leadership. 

By Janez Kovac in Mostar

Bosnain Croat war veterans this week called on their leadership to turn its
back on moves to unify Bosnia.

Enraged by the Hague Tribunal's conviction of their war time commander,
Tihomir Blaskic, the veterans demanded that the leadership of the Croatian
Democratic Union, HDZ, boycott upcoming local elections, cease work with the
Bosnian joint institutions and call a referendum on the creation of a
separate Croat entity in Bosnia by the end of March.

The veterans' demands, made in front of thousands pro-Blaskic demonstrators
in Mostar and Kiseljak, may bring to a head a long simmering tensions
between ultra-nationalists and moderates within the HDZ. 

Blaskic was sentenced a week ago for his role as commander of Bosnian Croat
forces, which in April 1993 massacred 108 Muslim residents of the village of
Ahmici.

Ultra-nationalists within the HDZ have used the Blaskic sentence as an
opportunity to stoke up tensions among Bosnian Croats and increase pressure
on the HDZ president, Ante Jelavic.

Speaking at the protests in Mostar and Kiseljak, several hard-liners
publicly accused the HDZ leadership of being too moderate.

"Relations within the [HDZ] party are of course not ideal," Jelavic told the
Zagreb daily Jutarnji List. "But this leadership has strength and
credibility," he insisted, indicating that he intended to reform the party.

As a former soldier, Jelavic enjoys the support of important elements within
the Bosnian Croat military. Indeed, it was support from the Croatian Defence
Force, HVO, that helped him secure the HDZ presidency in 1998, against the
wishes of late Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman.

Speaking at the HDZ's first election rally in Mostar last week, Jelavic, who
serves as the Croat member of the Bosnian presidency, criticised the
recently defeated Croatian HDZ, his former patrons, for the first time.

"The HDZ lost in Croatia because they didn't realise that the times of
social change and reform is coming," Jelavic told the rally.

"Instead they offered haughtiness, endless increases in state expenditure,
self-satisfied rhetoric and criminality."

Warning of similar tendencies in the Bosnian HDZ, Jelavic promised a purge
of criminal and incompetent officials. In order to unite the party behind
him in advance of April 8 municipal elections, Jelavic will probably have to
take on both hard-line and moderate factions.

Two influential Herzegovina businessmen - Pero Markovic and Mijo Brajkovic -
lead the extreme nationalists. This hard-line wing, which dominates local
government in Bosnian Croat-controlled Herzegovina, enjoys some support in
the Bosnian Croat military.

This HDZ faction has never accepted that Croat-controlled territory forms
part of the Bosnian state as envisaged in the Washington and Dayton
agreements. Rather they advocate the establishment of a third, ethnically
pure Bosnian Croat entity, which would eventually join Croatia.

Pulling the HDZ in the opposite direction is a group of moderates, led by
Bosnian foreign minister Jadranko Prlic and Bosnian co-prime minister Neven
Tomic. Both men appear to accept a multi-ethnic Bosnian state and work
closely with their Serb and Muslim counterparts in the country's joint
institutions.

Although the moderates enjoy international support, they have little
influence on the ground in Croat-held territory. Local administrations are
dominated by the more extreme HDZ wing and, according to the Office of the
High Representative, consistently obstruct key provisions of the peace
accord, in particular the return of non-Croat refugees.

A key factor behind Jelavic's new found commitment to reform the Bosnian HDZ
may be pressure emanating from the international community, particularly the
drive to create a clear division between politics and business.

Traditionally politicians have kept a tight grip on economic activity and
political parties a stifling control over all aspects of people's lives. New
electoral provisions will, however, prohibit candidates from running for
office if they illegally occupy property belonging to refugees or if they
sit on the managing boards of state owned companies.

The new Croatian government's withdrawal of financial support for their
Bosnian Croat neighbours has made the reform task facing Jelavic more urgent
and more difficult. It was Croatian money that paid for the parallel
government structures and the HDZ itself.

Moreover, opinion polls conducted in the wake of the HDZ's electoral defeat
in Croatia - but before the Blaskic verdict - indicate that opposition
politicians like Zlatko Lagumdzija of the Social Democratic Party and
Kresimir Zubak of the New Croatian Initiative were scoring around 30 per
cent of the potential vote.

Whether the scale of the nationalist backlash against the Blaskic sentence
will be sufficient to reverse the Bosnian HDZs declining fortunes remains to
be seen.

Janez Kovac is a regular IWPR contributor from Sarajevo.


BALKAN BERLIN REMAINS DIVIDED

Four years after the end of the war in Bosnia, Mostar remains as divided as
Belfast or Cold War Berlin.

By Mirsad Behran in Mostar

Mostar's rival Croat and Bosniak soccer teams recently played their first
derby match, a deeply symbolic game on "neutral" ground in Sarajevo.

The two communities have also reached an agreement to build offices for the
municipality's joint institutions after years of negotiations. The site
chosen used to mark the boundary between east and west, between Bosniak and
Croat.

The towns Croats have been pressured into being more accommodating towards
their Bosniak neighbours following the electoral defeat of their nationalist
patrons in neighbouring Croatia.

The new government in Zagreb vowed to halt the financial and military aid
lavished on their ethnic kin during the era of late President Franjo
Tudjman.

Croatia's new president, Stipe Mesic, was swift to make clear his
government's new policy. Mesic said he considered Bosnia a separate,
neighbouring country and urged the Croats there to "turn towards Sarajevo".

But the fragile rapprochement in Mostar has recently been dealt a cruel blow
by the Hague Tribunal's sentencing of Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic to 45
years in prison. His conviction has provoked a hostile response from Croats
and Bosnian Croats alike, and threatened to reinforce ethnic divisions in
the town.

Nearly 5,000 people gathered March 8 in western Mostar to protest against
the sentence. The demonstrators called for the severing of links with the
international community and the Tribunal and, ominously for Mostar, a
referendum on the creation of a Bosnian entity for Croats, similar to
Republika Srpska.

Before the war Mostar was one of Yugoslavia's principal tourist
destinations, a popular stopping off point on the way to the Adriatic coast.
The town's old bridge across the Neretva river was a famous picture postcard
image. Boys would jump from the bridge to entertain visitors.

The town was home to around 100,000 people, about one-third Bosniak, Serb
and Croat. But several months after the beginning of the Bosnian war in
1992, the former Yugoslav People's Army withdrew from the town and with them
went almost the entire Serb population.

Then in the spring of 1993, war erupted between Bosniaks and Croats. Mostar
was the scene of fierce fighting and the town was divided into two parts.
The western part of the town - the predominantly Croat area - survived
almost intact, but in the east almost 80 per cent of houses and flats were
destroyed. Bosniaks expelled from west Mostar were forced to set up home in
the shattered ruins.

Although no physical barriers separate the town, fear and distrust keep the
communities apart. "Somebody can kill you, beat you up, humiliate you,
without being brought to justice. No perpetrator has been arrested or
punished so far, and therefore I do not believe I would dare to live in west
Mostar," said one Bosniak.

Officially the town's institutions are unified. But in practice they work
separately. There are joint meetings, but they are rare. The two communities
have organised separate health care systems and schools. Representatives
from the international community express dissatisfaction with the slow
progress of integration, but insist significant advances have been made
since the end of the war.

Nowadays people can generally move around the town freely. Old friends and
acquaintances are meeting again. Incidents of intimidation have become
increasingly rare. But the memories of such violence are still fresh. Over
the past two years, 80 attacks on returnees - including assault, arson and
the mining of homes - have been reported to the authorities. 

In October 1998, one Bosniak returnee was killed near the town of Capljina.
In the autumn of 1999, unknown assailants fired six mortar shells at Bosniak
returnees near Gacko, perhaps the worst such attack since the signing of the
Dayton Peace Agreement. 

Fear is ever present and people have grown accustomed to the idea of living
in ethnically separate communities. For that reason the rate of refugees
going back to their pre-war homes remains woefully slow. The UN refugee
agency, UNHCR, says around 2,000 families have returned across the entire
Mostar region, out of an estimated 30,000 people driven out of their homes
by the war.

Slobodanka Jakupovic, a refugee from the western part of Mostar, who has
been waiting to return to her pre war home for several years now is not
optimistic about the future, "The situation here has more or less remained
the same. I don't believe I will be able to go back to my house."

Mirsad Behran, a former visiting journalist with IWPR, is a journalist at
Mostar Radio and TV.


CROATIA COMES IN FROM THE COLD

After years of isolation, Croatia is flavour of the month in European
political circles.

By Drago Hedl in Osijek

Following the demise of its nationalist regime, Croatia is basking in the
warm glow of international good will.

Ideologically rehabilitated, the former Yugoslav state is rapidly becoming a
premier destination for diplomats and statesmen while its new political
leaders are getting just as many invitations in return.

The contrast with the past decade, when the country was internationally
isolated, could hardly be greater. Then Zagreb officials explained away
Croatia's pariah status as punishment for its desire to be independent and
self-sufficient.

Following the death of President Franjo Tudjman and the election defeat of
his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), most Croats now realise that isolation
served the former leadership's interests, enabling it to grow wealthy at the
expense of the population at large.

Whereas western countries made a point of staying away from Tudjman's
funeral, last month's inauguration of new Croatian President Stipe Mesic was
packed with foreign dignitaries eager to be seen supporting the new
administration.

The international seal of approval acknowledges not only the HDZ defeat at
the ballot box, but also the change in policy towards neighbouring Bosnia.
Despite popular anger at the 45-year sentence imposed by The Hague Tribunal
on Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic last week, the new administration remains
committed to reversing Tudjman's interventionist policy in the neighbouring
state.

Western countries also seem to be aware that, although Croatia's new
leadership is at present popular, it will not remain so merely by arresting
and prosecuting individuals responsible for corruption during the HDZ's
decade in power.

For the new liberal administration to prosper, Zagreb will need not only
strong political support but also financial assistance in order to reform
the economy, invest capital and create jobs.

Whereas Tudjman spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying lobbyists to
arrange a state visit to Washington, Mesic and his prime minister, Ivica
Racan, have both been invited to the United States capital without angling
for the privilege. Moreover, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has
visited Croatia twice in just one month to demonstrate Washington's approval
of the new Zagreb administration.

Racan and Mesic have also received invitations from most European capitals
and will soon be visited by the European Union's new High Representative for
security and foreign policy, Javier Solana, to discuss accelerating
Croatia's integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.

Meanwhile, an Italian economic delegation visited Zagreb promising
substantial investment and was almost immediately followed by Executive
President of the American Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Kirk
Robertson, who announced that the United States is ready to invest $1.3
billion in Croatia in the near future.

Germany and Italy have forecast a 50 per cent increase in the number of
tourists planning to spend their summer vacations on Croatia's Adriatic
coast, stressing that the principal reason for this upturn lies with the
political changes in Zagreb.

In the wake of so much good news, many ordinary Croats appear confused - not
by the changes but by their rapid pace, since Croatia has been transformed
overnight from Europe's whipping boy into her golden boy.

The rapid international response can be attributed to growing fears over the
situation in Serbia, which remains critical to regional security. The
message is that if Serbs follow the Croatian example and turn their backs on
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, they too stand to benefit from
international largesse.

Drago Hedl is a regular IWPR contributor from Croatia.


FRENCH KOSOVO DILEMMA

French KFOR troops are struggling to fend off accusations of bias in
Mitrovica's ethnic powder-keg.

By James Hider in Pristina

French General Pierre de Saqui de Sannes frequently looks tired and troubled
when out in the streets of northern Mitrovica, both when directing his
forces against hostile crowds of ethnic Albanians and when being cheered by
jubilant groups of Serbs.

Trying to play the neutrality card in Mitrovica is a tough job. In the
latest outbreak of inter-communal violence, on March 7, 16 French
peacekeepers were among 40 people injured when Albanians and Serbs clashed
in the Serb-dominated north of the town.

French troops have come under heavy fire, both from a local press quick to
pounce on any failure in the ethnic powder-keg and from the international
media. The main charge levelled at them is that they favour the Serbs.

After enraged Serbs drove American troops out of northern Mitrovica under a
hail of stones, the crowd cheered the arrival of French troops to replace
their US fellow peacekeepers, chanting "France" with almost the same relish
that they bellowed "Serbia." 

General Saqui de Sannes forces have faced accusations from UN police of
failing to intervene to assist their colleagues and Albanian families caught
up in Serb rioting.

UN police and KFOR officers from other nations have also accused the French
of failing to impose themselves forcefully enough on the Serbs of northern
Mitrovica, allowing them to run their own parallel defence groups, which
terrified local Albanians find extremely intimidating.

The French response to accusations of bias has been heavy-handed, further
provoking the ire of the press while doing little to reverse the flow of
Albanians from northern Mitrovica.

The dilemma facing peacekeepers is how to stamp out the violence of
extremists without provoking the resentment of the broader population and
sparking further polarisation of the communities.

Human rights workers and military officials insist that most ordinary people
in Kosovo want to simply get on with their lives but are constantly being
rabble-roused or intimidated by hardcore elements on both sides of the
ethnic divide.

Analysts have varied in their interpretation of the ongoing friction,
attributing it to die-hard resentment between the two communities, jockeying
for power among extremists groups or a struggle over the nearby Trepca
mines, currently inactive but once the main source of Yugoslavia's mineral
wealth.

The glaring problem is that KFOR's combat troops, be they French, British or
American, are not policemen and are neither trained nor equipped to carry
out effective law enforcement.

In the recent clashes between Serbs and American troops, a hostile crowd
pelted a line-up of US-troops with snowballs. As tempers frayed, a US
soldier levelled his assault rifle at a snowball-wielding Serb before
realising the futility of his gesture.

German and American troops have been stoned when carrying out searches for
illegal weapons, raising questions of whether openly confrontational
policing methods are a viable option in so volatile a situation.

Some ethnic Albanian leaders have called for British troops to bring their
anti-terrorist experience to bear in the north. But critics question whether
they would be any more effective than the French. They cite the fact that in
Pristina, the heart of the British-run sector, the Serb population has
dwindled from around 20,000 to just a few hundred since KFOR arrived.

US senators have already expressed concern at the use of their troops in so
unstable an area, raising the question of whether Washington would be able
to politically endure the casualties that Paris has sustained.

Until the UN can provide the full complement of 6,000 police officers
demanded by its local administrators, there is little hope of calming the
heated communities on the local level

In the meantime, General Saqui de Sannes is playing his cards cautiously,
doing his best to navigate through the ethnic minefield of Mitrovica.

James Hider is a journalist living in Pristina.

****************** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ******************

IWPR's network of leading correspondents in the region provides inside
analysis of the events and issues driving crises in the Balkans. The reports
are available on the Web in English, Serbian and Albanian; English-language
reports are also available via e-mail. For syndication information, contact
Anthony Borden <tony@iwpr.net>.

Balkan Crisis Report is supported by the Department for International
Development, European Commission, and Swedish International Development and
Cooperation Agency and other sources. IWPR also acknowledges general support
from the Ford Foundation.

For further details on this project and other information services and media
programmes, visit IWPR's Website: <www.iwpr.net>.

Editor-in-chief: Anthony Borden. Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan. Associate
Editor: Gordana Igric. Assistant Editors: Christopher Bennett, Alan Davis
and Heather Milner. Kosovo Project Manager: Llazar Semini. Translation:
Alban Mitrushi and others.

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based independent
non-profit organisation supporting regional media and democratic change.

Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, UK Tel: (44 171)
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The opinions expressed in "Balkan Crisis Report" are those of the authors
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Copyright (C) 2000 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting 

*** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ***

IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 123

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