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TITLE: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1993
DATE: JANUARY 31, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of six constituent republics of the
former Yugoslavia, became a sovereign state in April 1992 when
63 percent of its voters endorsed independence in a free and
fair referendum. Pan-Serbian nationalists loyal to Serbian
Democratic Party (SDS) leader Radovan Karadzic boycotted the
referendum, and former Yugoslav National Army units which had
organized themselves into a Bosnian Serb armed militia (BSA)
declared their support for Karadzic. Supported by the Serbian
authorities in Belgrade, the BSA began a brutal campaign of
terror--in which acts of genocide took place--to establish an
ethnically pure state linking Serb-occupied territory in
Croatia with Serbia/Montenegro to form "greater Serbia." Human
rights abuses in Bosnia occurred in an environment of war,
occupation, a struggle for territory and power, the breakdown
of a multiethnic system, and efforts to force the duly elected
Bosnian Government to accept an ethnic division of the State.
The Bosnian Government is Muslim-dominated but continues to
support a multiethnic society, and elected officials are drawn
proportionally from all national groups.
Bosnia's population consisted of 4.4 million people before the
war, 44 percent of whom were Muslim, 31 percent Serb, 17
percent Croat, and 8 percent other nationalities. By October
1993, some 200,000 Bosnians were said to have died as a result
of the conflict; over 800,000 became refugees outside Bosnia;
and another 1.2 million were displaced within the nation.
As BSA units swept through northern and eastern Bosnia in 1992,
Karadzic declared the establishment of the "Republika Srpska"
or "Serb Republic." Techniques employed by the BSA, which
Serbs themselves referred to as "ethnic cleansing," included:
laying siege to cities and indiscriminately shelling civilian
inhabitants; "strangling" cities (i.e., withholding food
deliveries and utilities so as to starve and freeze residents);
executing noncombatants; establishing concentration camps where
thousands of prisoners were summarily executed and tens of
thousands subjected to torture and inhumane treatment; using
prisoners as human shields; employing rape as a tool of war to
terrorize and uproot populations; forcing large numbers of
civilians to flee to other regions; razing villages to prevent
the return of displaced persons; and interfering with
international relief efforts, including attacks on relief
personnel.
In early 1993, the BSA, supported by paramilitary forces from
Serbia and Montenegro, moved to complete ethnic cleansing
campaigns in eastern Bosnia. The BSA virtually destroyed the
hamlet of Cerska, chasing its residents into forests and
minefields, and subjected Srebrenica, Gorazde, and Zepa to
strangulation and intense shelling. International protective
forces which reached the enclaves in March described conditions
as the worst they had ever seen and noted that there were
virtually no residents left to help.
By late spring, the BSA had consolidated most of its military
and territorial gains in the east. Facing international
pressure and tightened economic sanctions against Serbia/
Montenegro, it scaled back assaults on the enclaves. But at
midyear, the BSA renewed attacks on Sarajevo and tightened its
grip on vital humanitarian supply lines, prompting a North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) threat of air strikes.
This led to a reduction in shelling until December, when
attacks again approached July levels. Ethnic cleansing
campaigns in 1993 also took place in Banja Luka and Bijeljina,
and the BSA waged sporadic attacks on Tuzla, Doboj, Brcko,
Olovo, Teocak, and Maglaj (this last town in conjunction with
the Bosnian Croats) through December.
In April periodic skirmishing between the Bosnian government
army and the militia of Mate Boban's Croatian Defense Council
(HVO), the main representative of the Bosnian Croat minority,
escalated into outright war. Regular Croatian army units,
originally in Bosnia under a bilateral military cooperation
pact, fought on the side of Boban's forces; Croatian
authorities also offered materiel to the HVO but significantly
less than that which Serbian authorities provided to the BSA.
The trigger for the surge in government-HVO fighting was
Boban's insistence on the creation of a separate Bosnian Croat
"Republic of Herceg-Bosna" within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mostar was to be its capital, and government troops in the
region were told to submit to HVO command. When the Government
refused, the HVO blockaded Mostar, attacked it, and brutalized,
confined, and raped its Muslim residents in an assault
containing some of the most extreme human rights abuses in
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993.
The HVO also engaged in vicious acts in central Bosnia. In
April the HVO killed up to 100 noncombatants in the central
Bosnian hamlet of Ahmici and then razed the village. In
October it massacred at least a score of Muslim civilians at
Stupni Dol. The HVO and BSA engaged in localized collaboration
on the battlefield in the central Bosnian enclave of Maglaj,
creating conditions of extreme deprivation there.
Bosnian government forces perpetrated a number of abuses and
atrocities in 1993, for the most part against the Bosnian
Croats. In September government troops killed dozens of Croat
civilians at Uzdol; the HVO charged that many more government
massacres not yet investigated occurred in central Bosnia. As
the tide in the fighting turned in favor of the Government in
the fall, tens of thousands of Bosnian Croats fled or were
driven from their homes, most going either to Croatia or to
parts of Bosnia under HVO control. In November government
forces killed two Franciscan friars in Fojnica and openly
looted Bosnian Croat-owned shops in Vares.
In 1993 as in 1992, all national groups were victimized by the
conflict, and all sides violated the Geneva conventions. But
the BSA, with Belgrade's complicity, launched the Bosnian
conflict through its aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign. Its
pursuit of a policy of dispersing and destroying populations
based on religious and national affiliation created a climate
of prejudice and fear that ultranationalists on all sides
subsequently exploited.
International efforts to stop the conflict were not successful
by year's end. At best, international attention diminished the
level of fighting for short periods of time. The participants
to the conflict negotiated and signed numerous cease-fires but
did not adhere to them. Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing
campaigns in eastern enclaves in the spring occurred even as
Karadzic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic negotiated
aspects of a settlement plan. Bosnian Croat atrocities in the
spring, summer, and fall took place in spite of Boban's formal
acceptance of several internationally sponsored peace
initiatives. Bosnian government offensives against Bosnian
Croat enclaves in central Bosnia late in the year occurred
during sessions of the Geneva negotiations. Resolutions
adopted by the United Nations Security Council failed to have a
significant impact on the human rights situation or the war
itself. U.N.-deployed peacekeepers (UNPROFOR)--some units of
which were being investigated for abuses, corruption and
partiality--were not equipped for peacemaking and found that
there was no peace to keep.
The U.N.'s Commission of Experts, established by a Security
Council resolution in October 1992 to investigate possible war
crimes, continued to study abuses of human rights in Bosnia,
Serbia, and Croatia. The War Crimes Tribunal was created by a
subsequent resolution in February to assess the culpability of
alleged perpetrators of atrocities and issue a comprehensive
report on violations of human rights and humanitarian law. At
year's end, all judges had been sworn in and a chief prosecutor
named. Between September 1992 and June 1993, the United States
Government submitted eight separate reports to the War Crimes
Commission summarizing thousands of instances of killings,
torture, rape, interference with humanitarian deliveries, mass
deportations, and other violations of humanitarian law. In
addition, the United States provided the United Nations with
400 refugee reports totaling over 1,000 pages. Illustrative
examples from these submissions appear in sections of the
report below.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
In the circumstances of the Bosnian war, targeted killings were
difficult to distinguish from killings resulting from
indiscriminate attacks and unpremeditated actions. (See
Section 1.g. for a description of large-scale, war-related
atrocities committed against civilians, including killings.)
While only the pro-Karadzic Bosnian Serbs pursued ethnic
cleansing as a matter of broad policy, local units of HVO
soldiers and Bosnian government troops, as well as Serbian and
Montenegrin paramilitaries and civilian gangs and mobs, killed
many people out of nationalistic or religious hatred. The
United Nations confirmed the existence of dozens of mass grave
sites, as yet unexhumed. The Bosnian Government, HVO and
Bosnian Serbs alleged that there were many more.
During ethnic cleansing campaigns in the early part of 1993,
the BSA targeted local civic and religious leaders with the
goal of figuratively decapitating Muslim society. Among the
prominent individuals assassinated for political reasons was
Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister Hakija Turajlic, who was shot at
point-blank range by Bosnian Serb soldiers in January while
riding in a U.N. vehicle that had been stopped--against U.N.
procedures--at a roadblock.
At least 10 international relief workers died in 1993, shot by
BSA or HVO soldiers or snipers of unknown affiliation.
Sixty-some UNPROFOR soldiers died in outright attacks or as a
result of sniper fire, and 34 journalists were killed (10 in
1993) since the beginning of the conflict. The U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and some international relief
agencies suspended operations on several occasions during 1993
because of danger to personnel.
b. Disappearance
There were no reliable figures for the numbers of missing
persons, but with hundreds of thousands dead, thousands
incarcerated, and over 2 million having fled their homes, many
more were missing. The Bosnian Government claimed that 26,000
Bosnians were missing as of May. Two international journalists
were known to be missing.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
In spite of intense international pressure to close the prison
camps discovered under BSA control in mid-1992, there were
probably still scores of detention facilities for civilians,
including women, children, and the elderly, in operation
throughout Bosnia at the end of 1993. As many as 260 camps
have been known to exist at one time or another during the
conflict. In January 1993, the U.S. Government estimated that
there were 135 Serb-run detention centers in Bosnia. Many of
these formed part of the penal system established in BSA-held
areas in mid-1992; a significant number in this network were
closed by the end of 1993. Many HVO and Muslim camps, numerous
in the summer and fall of 1993, were also closed by the end of
the year.
Because camps closed down and reopened depending in part on the
status of negotiations and the presence of international
observers, it was difficult to estimate the numbers of persons
detained. The three sides defined all males between 16 and 65
as combatants, so some civilian detainees were listed as
prisoners of war. In October the UNHCR reported that the HVO
was holding 4,200 Muslims and Roma in registered centers, down
from the summer's high of 15,000 (many of whom were Muslim
soldiers formerly in the HVO.) According to the UNHCR, the
government held 1,100 detainees in registered centers as of
October. The BSA was believed to be holding 550 Muslims and
Croats in registered camps as of October, significantly less
than the number of those incarcerated in 1992. Far more were
held in unregistered centers. Observers stated throughout the
year that the three sides hid prisoners and criticized the
HVO's refusal in mid-1993 to allow international officials to
visit camps around Mostar, where numerous refugees reported
conditions to be dreadful.
Camps with poor living conditions in 1993 included those in
Batkovici, Kamenica, Trnopolje, and Doboj (operated by the
BSA); Rodoc, Otok, and Dretelj (operated by the HVO); and
Zenica and Konjic (operated by the Government). At Dretelj,
perhaps the most notorious camp of 1993, the UNHCR found
prisoners in conditions of "appalling brutality and
degradation," with broken ribs and fingers, bruises, and heart
irregularities. Amnesty International said prisoners at
Dretelj were so cramped that they could not lie down. Beatings
and torture were reported at BSA camps in Manjaca, Batkovici,
and Prijedor in the spring, at HVO camps in Rodoc and Jablanica
in the summer, and at government camps in Visoko and Konjic,
also in summer. Summary executions and deaths due to torture
or neglect were attested to in 1993 and almost certainly
continued through December.
Individuals detained in 1993 told of meager and sometimes
poisoned or spoiled rations, malnutrition, poor or nonexistent
sanitation, withholding of medical care, forced labor
(performed by women as well as men) including trench-digging on
the front lines and removal of corpses and the wounded, forced
blood donations, overcrowding, and lack of amenities such as
bedding. There were scattered reports of groups of prisoners
being conscripted into enemy armies and of prisoners of one
nationality being sold as conscripts from the second to the
third nationality. The three sides were accused of using
prisoners as human shields. In June the BSA arrested non-Serbs
in Doboj and forced them to stand as a living front line in
combat areas nearby.
Bosnian Muslim women in the spring and summer accused HVO and
BSA soldiers of perpetrating mass rape. The UNHCR noted that
HVO soldiers may have raped 100 or more women, some in
gang-rape situations; many of the rapes occurred in connection
with evictions from Mostar in mid-1993 and fighting near Vitez
earlier in the year. Reports of rapes by Bosnian Serb civil
and military police and soldiers continued, but the number of
such charges was lower for 1993 than for 1992, when the BSA
first practiced mass rape as a tool of war. Reports from
Brcko, Nerici, Stolina, Skijana, and Grcica described the
continuing confinement and sexual abuse of a total of at least
130 young Muslim women by the BSA. UNPROFOR troops were
accused of frequenting some locations where Muslim women were
held. Bosnian Croat women charged government troops with
raping them in Mostar and Bugojno; the Bosnian Serbs also said
government soldiers had raped Bosnian Serb women.
International observers were not able to corroborate most
accusations because access to victims was very limited.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The BSA continued to round up members of the intelligentsia and
target regional and local political, economic, and religious
figures in an effort to destroy the social structure of other
nationality groups. Sarajevo's Roman Catholic Archbishop,
Monsignor Vinko Puljic, was abducted by the BSA and held
temporarily along with his UNPROFOR guards in November. Ransom
was sometimes an additional motive for arbitrary arrest and
detention. BSA and HVO troops abducted government bodyguards
of international officials from UNPROFOR vehicles on several
occasions and held UNPROFOR soldiers hostage for brief periods.
In addition to the large number of civilians detained in prison
camps (see Section 1.c.), some civilians were detained for
prisoner exchanges. Families of military officers were
abducted with regularity because they had a high exchange
value. In Vitez in April, both the HVO and the government
forces arrested large numbers of civilians for use in future
exchanges. The residents of some entire villages were
prevented from leaving municipal confines (see Section 2. d.)
so they could be used in prisoner exchanges. The Serbs
detained Muslims, Croats, and Roma for use as unpaid labor in
combat zones (see Section 6.c.).
While the Bosnian Government did not practice exile per se,
detainees released by the Government, as well as those released
by the BSA and HVO, were sometimes forced over the border (see
Section 1.g.). Ethnic cleansing and mass population movements
before advancing troops resulted in forced dislocation that was
equivalent to exile for the half of Bosnia's prewar population
that at the end of the year was seeking refuge abroad or
protection elsewhere within Bosnia.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
In areas under its control, the Bosnian government attempted to
maintain a functioning judicial system. International legal
experts have said the March trial for war crimes of two Bosnian
Serb soldiers who had confessed to mass killings and mass rape
at the behest of commanding officers was fair.
Summary trials and executions of local warlords who served as
irregular government army commanders took place in Sarajevo in
October, during a government crackdown on rogue elements in the
military. The individuals who were tried and executed had been
identified as responsible for seizing UNPROFOR vehicles and
controlling extensive black market activities.
Near the front lines and in BSA and HVO-controlled areas,
military authorities who held power did not guarantee the legal
rights of non-Serbs and non-Croats, respectively.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
Virtually all officials of the three sides (and international
observers as well) assumed they were subjected to systematic
surveillance. Most were unwilling to use telephones or the
mail system, to the extent that they functioned, for any but
the most routine business. Citizens who were interrogated
reported that their questioners did not conceal the practice of
surveillance.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
Law in Internal Conflicts
Violations of humanitarian law and international conventions on
the treatment of civilians in time of war were widespread and
egregious. Many human rights violations committed by the BSA
occurred as part of specific policies to expel Muslims and
Croats from areas the Serbs desired for themselves. The HVO
engaged in localized efforts to drive Muslims away from
territories they sought to occupy. Other abuses took place on
a more haphazard basis. Paramilitaries, vigilantes, "weekend
warriors," criminal gangs reporting to local warlords, and
civilian mobs were responsible for numerous instances of crimes
against civilians. Atrocities detailed in this section
include indiscriminate attacks against civilians; forced
population movements; interference with the delivery of
humanitarian relief, including attacks on international relief
workers; interference with utilities and infrastructure; and
forced conscriptions. Mistreatment of prisoners of war
resembled mistreatment of civilian detainees and is handled in
Section 1.c. Use of prisoners as human shields is also treated
in Section 1.c. (See the Country Report on Serbia/Montenegro
for information on Bosnian Serb paramilitaries who crossed the
border into Serbia to attack Sandzak Muslims.)
The BSA's relentless military assault on the eastern enclaves
in early 1993, its periodic attacks on Sarajevo, and ethnic
cleansing campaigns in Banja Luka, Bijeljina, and towns in
north-central Bosnia throughout the year resulted in tens of
thousands of civilian deaths. U.N. observers reported that
mass killings of civilians and attacks on refugees trying to
flee Srebrenica, Gorazde, and Zepa were commonplace. UNPROFOR
claimed the BSA was attacking and seizing one or two Muslim
villages a day in the eastern region throughout March. In
April and May, concern over conditions in besieged enclaves
prompted the passage of U.N. resolutions that declared
Srebrenica and subsequently Gorazde, Zepa, Sarajevo, Tuzla, and
Bihac "safe areas" where security and relief deliveries were to
have been guaranteed. Heavy BSA attacks on the safe areas
continued through June, and more sporadic attacks occurred
during the rest of the year. By the summer, most of Gorazde
and surrounding hamlets had been leveled. Many villages
outside Srebrenica were completely destroyed, as were some
villages in the vicinity of Zepa.
In Banja Luka, the BSA killed and mutilated Muslim and Croat
civilians as part of ethnic cleansing campaigns throughout the
year. When a group of Muslims under attack sought protection
in a local mosque in February, the BSA attacked the mosque.
BSA advances also destroyed much of Maglaj and Doboj and many
smaller communities near Brcko. Several civilians in Maglaj
were killed while attempting to retrieve airdropped parcels,
their only source of food in the latter half of the year. BSA
killings of individuals in central Bosnia, as in the eastern
enclaves and Banja Luka, sometimes involved mutilations.
Sarajevo was under heavy BSA pressure throughout the year.
Thirty civilians, including a leading physician delivering baby
food, were killed in the first 10 days of December. In
November, 9 children were killed and 20 injured by an BSA shell
that fell on a school. As in the eastern enclaves, the BSA
deliberately aimed shells at hospitals, mosques, markets,
cemeteries, and residential areas.
HVO attacks, particularly on Muslims, increased dramatically in
1993. The HVO slaughtered approximately 100 Muslims in the
central Bosnian village of Ahmici in April. Masked Croats
killed Muslim civilians in Vitez in house-to-house fighting
later that month. In September, the United Nations said HVO
shelling killed 10 to 15 Muslims a day in Mostar. The HVO in
the spring also reportedly shot two Serb women who were part of
a small contingent of Serb inhabitants of Mostar forced out of
the city and told to walk to BSA-held positions. In October
between 25 and 50 Muslim villagers, including women and
children, were killed by the HVO at Stupni Dol, near Vares; the
remainder of the town's population was taken captive and the
village entirely destroyed. The HVO shelled UNHCR officials
attempting to gain access to Stupni Dol for 3 days before
finally letting medical examiners through. Later in the month,
the Bosnian Government claimed the discovery of a mass grave in
Tasovcici containing the bodies of alleged victims of HVO
attacks in Stolac and Capljina.
Government troops also targeted civilians in 1993, particularly
Bosnian Croats. Thirty Bosnian Croat civilians were massacred
at Uzdol in September. Survivors of the attack said they were
used as human shields. Government soldiers murdered two
Franciscan friars in Fojnica in November. The HVO charged the
Government with killing more than 100 other Bosnian Croat
civilians between April and October in a variety of central
Bosnian locations including Trusina, Doljani, Bugojno,
Jakovice, Kiseljak, and Kopijari. Witnesses described torture
preceding the killings and mutilation afterward. The United
Nations is investigating the charges. Government soldiers
killed a score of Bosnian Serb civilians in the village of
Skelani, in the Srebrenica pocket, in January, and shot several
Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo, including two elderly people being
evacuated.
The Bosnian conflict has brutally uprooted millions of
civilians. The residents of Cerska and the populations of
several villages in its vicinity were driven out of their homes
as part of the BSA's ethnic cleansing campaigns in eastern
Bosnia in early 1993. The BSA then plundered and burned or
shelled virtually all houses. Large segments of the
populations of other eastern enclaves also fled the BSA in the
spring, some across mined territory. Many refugees from the
BSA went to Tuzla (behind the front lines,) the population of
which increased four-fold in the spring. World Health
Organization (WHO) officials in the city termed conditions
"desperate" because the limited infrastructure could not handle
the huge refugee population.
Bosnian Serbs pursuing cleansing operations in southern
Herzegovina ordered residents of Trebinje and Bileca to leave
the district in January, killed several who did not comply, and
bombed mosques. Over 1,000 Muslims fled to Montenegro. In an
effort to frighten non-Serbs into leaving Banja Luka, BSA
soldiers cut phone lines, beat residents, sealed off and bombed
non-Serb shops, seized non-Serb apartments, fire-bombed
mosques, threatened citizens with rape, and warned non-Serbs
via the local television station they would have to pay heavy
fines for remaining. (As noted above, they also killed and
mutilated non-Serb residents of Banja Luka.) Some non-Serbs in
Bijeljina were reportedly forced to give up house keys and
property deeds before being driven to front lines and ordered
to walk across them. In August a group of Muslims from
Bijeljina was driven through Serbia proper to the Hungarian
border, where they were dumped. Cleansing operations in
central Bosnia continued. Of 43,000 Muslims recorded as living
in Doboj in the 1991 census, only 1,000 remained in November
1993, according to the United Nations.
HVO troops worked most actively around Mostar to force
non-Croats to move out. In May the HVO rounded up thousands of
Muslims and imprisoned them temporarily in the heliodrome
stadium while simultaneously running thousands more out of
town. When several made their way back, they found former
Muslim areas empty and buildings shot full of holes. In June
the HVO burned the personal papers, including apartment leases,
of Muslims who had not so far been detained or chased out and
forced them across a bridge under a hail of gunfire to a
section of east Mostar where they were ghettoized. By the end
of June, international relief agencies said the HVO had
destroyed virtually all Muslim property in Mostar. In July a
number of the ghettoized Muslims in Mostar were boarded onto
buses and dumped in Croatia against their will. In September
the UNHCR described signs of malnutrition and physical abuse
among the 14,000 Muslims who had escaped Mostar and surrounding
towns and made it to Jablanica, behind the front lines in
central Bosnia.
The HVO chased Muslims out of several central Bosnian locations
in early 1993, including an Italian-run refugee camp whose
staff and inhabitants were forced to flee; local HVO commanders
said they planned to expel more Muslims from the region to make
room for Bosnian Croats who were homeless as a result of
government-HVO fighting. At midyear, the HVO began evicting
Muslims from Stolac, Capljina, and Livno, forcing as many as
20,000 across the front lines. Before the evictions began,
local HVO officials disconnected Muslims' telephones,
requisitioned their cars, and made radio broadcasts saying
their security could not be guaranteed.
Tens of thousands of Bosnian Croat refugees fled Konjic,
Travnik, Novi Travnik, and Vitez in fear of advancing
government troops in the spring. In September government
forces used death threats and extortion to pressure Bosnian
Croats to leave Zenica; a month later government soldiers
rounded up 1,000 Bosnian Croat refugees trying to flee Konjic,
robbed them, beat them, and fired shots at them. In November
the UNHCR described the situation around Vares as "chaotic,"
with gunmen terrorizing 15,000 mostly Bosnian Croat civilians
who had fled their homes in fear of attack. Boban claimed
150,000 to 190,000 Bosnian Croats had been displaced by
fighting in central Bosnia or driven out by the Government as
of late fall.
All parties to the conflict interfered with humanitarian
assistance, but abuses by the BSA were most widespread in
1993. In February BSA troops issued orders formally sealing
off Bihac, Zepa, Gorazde, and Srebrenica from relief
deliveries, which in any case had not occurred for many
months. In Zepa, Cerska, Srebrenica, Konjevic Polje, Kamenica,
and Gorazde, deaths due to a combination of severe
malnutrition, exposure, and wounds that could not be treated
for lack of medicine occurred in the winter and spring. WHO
doctors said 20 to 30 people died of untreated wounds, lack of
food, and exposure every day in Srebrenica during the month of
March. When observers reached Zepa at the end of January, they
found the population eating bread made of straw. After seizing
14 villages near Cerska in March, the BSA blocked international
evacuation of the wounded, resulting in more deaths. The BSA
then shelled UNPROFOR troops attempting to carry a field
hospital into Srebrenica and threatened to fire on German
relief planes if Germany participated in the relief effort.
The WHO reported that tuberculosis and hepatitis were
increasing sharply among the refugee population of Tuzla as the
"pharmaceutical situation collapsed." In April the BSA blocked
convoys bound for Gorazde, where starvation was reportedly
imminent, as the ICRC announced from Zagreb it was considering
withdrawing from Bosnia because of BSA harassment. In June BSA
positions shelled a UNHCR convoy near Maglaj, killing three
relief workers.
Throughout the remainder of the year, more relief workers were
killed, more citizens died of deprivation, and more vitally
import medical evacuations failed to take place both inside and
outside the United Nations' safe zones due to BSA threats and
harassment. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, on a
trip to the safe areas shortly after they were declared,
described conditions brought about by long-term BSA denial of
relief as "appalling."
The HVO began closing roads leading to Muslim areas of central
Bosnia to all commercial traffic in February. In April the HVO
seized and briefly held several international relief workers
near Kiseljak, claiming they had sided with the Government. In
May the HVO began blocking all relief convoys bound for Mostar;
as a result, almost none reached the city until late August.
Participants in an HVO attack on a U.N. convoy in central
Bosnia in mid-1993 said they were acting under orders to
threaten European Community (EC) and U.N. officials. In July
the HVO began charging tolls termed "extortionate" by relief
workers. In August the UNHCR temporarily suspended relief
deliveries to central Bosnia because its convoys were being
harassed by the HVO. International relief agencies reported
that the HVO had targeted its workers for harassment and abuse,
bound and gagged UNHCR employees in Mostar, and fired a grenade
(which did not explode) at an ICRC truck. In November an HVO
commander accused of leading the attack on Stupni Dol ordered
all U.N. relief workers to depart Kiseljak. Later in the
month, a combination of malnutrition and exposure brought about
by HVO interference with relief resulted in several deaths in
Mostar.
In February the Bosnian Government responded to the BSA's order
to seal off the eastern enclaves and Bihac from relief by
refusing relief deliveries to Sarajevo. Frustrated at the
politicization of humanitarian assistance, the UNHCR
temporarily suspended aid to many parts of Bosnia. In March
local officials in Srebrenica detained UNPROFOR General
Phillipe Morillon as a shield against further BSA shelling.
(Morillon subsequently elected to remain as a gesture of
solidarity with the people of the enclave.) In Sarajevo the
Government refused the delivery of fuel bound for Bosnian Serb
hospitals. In Mostar local government officials detained the
first convoy to arrive in the city in 3 months and a UNPROFOR
contingent as well, apparently in the hope that keeping them in
Mostar would prevent the HVO from renewing its attacks on the
city. In the fall, government soldiers attacked a UNHCR convoy
near Novi Travnik and killed the driver; they subsequently shot
and wounded a U.N. driver in Kakanj after his convoy refused to
hand over fuel. In December government soldiers attacked a
Croatian convoy attempting to deliver relief to Bosnian Croats
in Nova Bila.
At the end of 1993, UNPROFOR forces were under investigation
for showing favoritism in the provision of humanitarian
assistance. At year's end, the United Nations was
investigating reports that some UNPROFOR units attempted to
influence the outcome of the conflict through preferential
deliveries of aid.
The BSA interfered with utilities and infrastructure to a much
greater extent than the HVO or Government. The WHO, terming
the situation in Sarajevo "desperate" in January, said several
elderly residents of nursing homes had frozen to death due to
Bosnian Serb diversions of natural gas to the capital. The BSA
cut the water supply to Srebrenica in April and prevented U.N.
workers from repairing it. In July a U.S. Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance relief team visiting Sarajevo reported that
most houses lacked electricity and gas; water was generally
unpotable, and dysentery was spreading. The UNHCR noted in
July that Gorazde's water supply was contaminated with human
waste as a result of BSA interference. In October, 10 days
after the announcement that the BSA had achieved its aims and
ended the siege of Sarajevo, heavy shelling resumed, and gas
supplies were reduced. The WHO reported an increase in burns
as residents used more "do-it-yourself" heating contraptions in
an effort to keep warm. In November the UNHCR said some
patients had died in hospitals that remained unheated due to
the BSA cut-off of gas, and cold had made some patients too
weak to withstand operations. As of the end of the year,
Sarajevo was under the heaviest mortar fire since before NATO's
August warning, and water, electricity, and gas flows remained
sporadic and at barely usable levels.
The HVO prevented international relief workers from supplying
water pumps and water-purifying equipment to Mostar in the
summer. In November the HVO destroyed Mostar's 400-year-old
UNESCO-protected Ottoman Foot Bridge, which supplied the Muslim
ghetto in the eastern sector with water. A Belgrade architect
noted that the bridge had "linked cultures and people" and
remarked that, "with a loss like this, people lose their place
in time." No instances of government interference with
utilities and infrastructure have come to light, but government
forces near Mostar in August did threaten to release the
floodgates on the Neretva River to drive the HVO out of the
area.
The three sides practiced forced conscriptions to a limited
degree in 1993. In some BSA-held areas, those who refused the
draft were dismissed from work and detained. Some families of
men who refused conscription were also dismissed. In April the
BSA forced evacuation flights from Srebrenica to divert to
BSA-held Zvornik, where evacuees were taken prisoner and
threatened with conscription. The HVO segregated Bosnian Croat
males from among displaced persons on the run near Stolac and
Capljina and forced them to enlist in the HVO in October.
There was no right to conscientious objection under Bosnian
law; Serbs and Croats who refused the draft in Banovici were
arrested by local officials, conscripted into the government
army, and taken to the front lines in the spring. Also in the
spring, the Government prevented draft-age men from leaving
Zepa and Sarajevo.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
Bosnian Serb refugees complained of living in a virtual police
state under Karadzic's SDS. They suffered harassment,
dismissal, and incarceration at the hands of BSA soldiers and
pro-Karadzic local officials for taking a public stance in
support of the Bosnian government or for opposing the ideology
of the SDS. A BSA military court sentenced a Bosnian Serb
worker to a prison term this summer for trying to broker
cease-fire talks between the Government and BSA. A Bosnian
Croat family living near the BSA detention facility in
Trnopolje was shot because they "looked at the camp" too
frequently, and officials feared they might talk about it. In
1993 as well as 1992, numerous Bosnian Serbs were killed by BSA
soldiers for speaking up in defense of Bosnian Muslim neighbors.
Freedom of speech and debate was protected as a matter of
principle in Bosnian schools, but due to security concerns
educational institutions were open only sporadically, sometimes
in unusual settings such as underground bunkers. In a move
that denied freedom of thought and expression to all Bosnians,
the BSA fire-bombed the national library in Sarajevo,
destroying major collections of cultural importance to all
nationalities.
Before the war, the principal Bosnian media--Sarajevo radio and
television, the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje, the independent
television station Yutel--were widely regarded as accurate and
balanced. Olsobodjenje, with a multiethnic staff, has
maintained standards of objectivity and accuracy that won
international prizes and acclaim even under the difficult
circumstances of the war. The newspaper endorsed the notion of
a pluralistic Bosnia and supported democratic and progressive
elements in the Government. Editorials freely criticized
government policies and officials. Sarajevo also had a tabloid
press that the Government tolerated, but authorities detained
several reporters from Tanjug, the Belgrade-based news service,
and denied visas to Radio Zagreb personnel.
The single television station operating in Sarajevo in 1993,
funded by the Government, took a pro-government line. The
Government also ran a radio station and allowed an independent
station to broadcast. The government news agency, BH Press,
emphasized reports of attacks against Muslims and downplayed
reports of atrocities committed by government forces.
The SDS news agency SRNA, headquartered in Pale, provided
biased and distorted reporting. Both SRNA and Tanjug, the
Serbian news service, carried unsubstantiated reports of crimes
against Serbs in order to reinforce ethnic Serb solidarity,
promote ethnic hatred, and instigate violence. A pro-Karadzic
television station that broadcast from Banja Luka transmitted
reports directly from Serbia and received financial support
from Belgrade Television. As noted in Section 1.g., in
February it advised Muslims and Croats to leave Banja Luka or
pay fines for remaining.
The HVO's newly established news agency, HABENA, reported
Bosnian Croat casualty figures far in excess of those attested
to by international relief organizations. Radio Zagreb
regularly issued distorted reports. For example, in November
it reported that Swedish peacekeepers detained by the HVO had
been helping Muslims when in fact they were attempting to
escort Bosnian Croat civilian refugees near Vares to safety.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The right of peaceful assembly and association could not be
observed in the conditions of war and violence. In areas not
under the control of the Government, assemblies of persons
whose nationality and religion were not the same as those in
power were regarded with suspicion and in some cases
participants were subjected to harassment and attack. Even in
government-controlled areas, large gatherings such as queues
often attracted snipers.
c. Freedom of Religion
Religious tolerance has been a tradition of the diverse Bosnian
population for 500 years. Serbian Orthodox Bosnian Serbs,
Roman Catholic Bosnian Croats, and Muslim Bosnians are largely
indistinguishable in terms of language and physical
appearance. But the war and ongoing atrocities radicalized
many, and religion became one of the justifications for
fighting. Citizens living in government-controlled areas
enjoyed the greatest freedom of religion in 1993, as the
Government remained committed to pluralism and included
representatives of all religious groups.
In connection with ethnic cleansing campaigns, BSA troops
systematically destroyed religious institutions and made
cultural monuments specific targets. In areas under BSA
control, virtually all mosques and Roman Catholic churches have
been bombed, shelled, burned, or bulldozed, and statuary has
been defaced. The BSA destroyed the last of Trebinje's mosques
in April, after expelling the majority of the town's Muslims.
Banja Luka's historic 16th century mosques were also
demolished, as were all the mosques in Bijeljina.
The HVO destroyed mosques as well, including four in Stolac and
one in Pocitelj this summer. The HVO charged the BSA and the
Government with the destruction of 66 churches in the course of
the conflict. All told, hundreds of mosques and churches have
been demolished, including several of unique architectural and
cultural significance, since the war began.
Mixed marriages accounted for 20 to 30 percent of unions before
the war began; citizens in mixed marriages faced difficult
choices as the war expanded. In some cases, they hid their
religious backgrounds or sought shelter with those of a
different faith to avoid being separated from their families.
In government-held areas, where commitment to religious
diversity was a matter of law, individuals in mixed marriages
had an easier time than those in BSA- or HVO-controlled areas.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The wartime situation, coupled with mass detention and
expulsion (discussed in Sections 1.d. and 1.g above),
interfered with the free movement of millions of Bosnians. The
changing front lines made many others virtual hostages within
broad geographic areas. Sarajevo was the most heavily
populated island of "hostages" in Bosnia. The lack of safe
transportation into or out of the capital put citizens and
officials at risk when they attempted to travel to other parts
of the country or abroad. The airport was one of the most
frequently attacked targets in the city.
In some cases citizens of whole villages were given orders to
remain within specified confines, or be shot or fined, in order
that a pool of people to perform labor and take part in
prisoner exchanges could be maintained. In some areas, the BSA
established local "Commissions for Exchange" to ensure that
non-Serbs wishing to leave were exchanged for Serbs who wished
to return. In March the BSA put in place procedures whereby
non-Serbs wishing to go to other regions were not permitted to
carry valuables or travel by car; non-Serbs were also required
to pay higher prices for bus tickets and exorbitant transit
taxes in BSA-controlled towns they crossed.
The Government inhibited movement by citizens in part to avoid
a mass exodus. During the BSA sieges against the eastern
enclaves in the spring, local officials sometimes prevented
UNPROFOR from leaving areas under attack. The Government
prevented large numbers of Bosnian Croats from leaving Bugojno
and Banovici during the summer, using the civilians in prisoner
exchanges and as forced labor. Local authorities announced in
September that Zenica's 23,000 Bosnian Croats could not leave
the city. (Earlier in the month, government soldiers had
pressured them to depart against their will.) In Sarajevo the
city's Secretariat of Evacuations often refused Bosnian Serbs
permission to leave or delayed their departure for many months.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
The duly elected Bosnian Government did not have the means to
protect its territory, to defend its sovereignty, or to
guarantee its citizens' rights. Nearly 80 percent of the
country was under the military control of various separatists
supported by Serbia or Croatia. In this environment, the
Bosnian Government's goal of establishing a secular,
pluralistic, democratic society in an undivided land had little
chance of success. Bosnia's only election, which occurred in
April 1992, created a bicameral National Assembly with 240
seats, of which 99 were filled by Muslims, 84 by Bosnian Serbs,
50 by Bosnian Croats, and 7 by others, in proportion to the
composition of the population of the country at the time.
There were no elections scheduled for 1993.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
The Bosnian Government, the BSA, and the HVO all agreed in
principle to allow international observers access to territory
under their control so alleged human rights abuses could be
investigated. In practice, political and military authorities
imposed obstacles and made it difficult for international
officials to carry out investigations.
All sides in the war viewed the work of international
organizations through the prism of their political interests.
All sides downplayed their own culpability for atrocities.
Both the BSA and HVO denied responsibility for human rights
abuses that international investigators assigned to them,
claiming for example that the Government was killing its own
civilians in the hope of blaming the other side for
atrocities. No side has cooperated fully on the issue of
examination of prisoners.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
Women
In addition to being subjected to rape (Section 1.c.), women
suffered other sorts of physical abuse in 1993. Muslim women
in Mostar reported they were strip-searched (and in some cases
raped) by male HVO soldiers before being evicted from the
city. Before the war, discrimination against women was not
officially practiced, although there were few women in
prominent positions.
Children
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported in June
that 1,400 children had been killed and 12,800 wounded since
the beginning of the conflict; 91 percent had witnessed
shooting in the course of the conflict, 72 percent had had
their homes shelled, 41 percent had witnessed a person being
injured or killed, and 81 percent thought they could have been
killed during 1993. Many lived on a diet of bread, rice, and
pasta, when those goods were available, and had not eaten fresh
fruit or vegetables since early 1992. The result was
widespread anemia and other wasting conditions in children who
did not suffer more serious injuries or illnesses. Children
witnessed atrocities, including murder and rape committed
against their parents and neighbors. Tens of thousands were
orphaned, and tens of thousands more lived in refugee centers.
Assessing the psychological effects of war trauma on children
in Sarajevo, Bihac and Banja Luka, UNICEF found that virtually
all suffered from nightmares and inappropriately apathetic or
aggressive behavior as a result of exposure to the conflict.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Extreme nationalism precipitated the war to cleanse non-Serbs
from parts of Bosnia. Other micronationalist ideologies
developed in the context of violent separatism, and at the end
of 1993 national identity was a critical factor in whether one
would keep a job or lose it, remain at home or be driven out,
or all too often live or die. Throughout Bosnia, violence,
fear, and the collapsing social structure eroded support for
pluralism. No group was more victimized than Bosnia's Muslims.
People with Disabilities
The pervasiveness of the war, the destruction of the economy,
and the Government's reduced means limited assistance to the
disabled, including those disabled by the war. An example of
disregard for the needs of the disabled occurred as the HVO
withdrew from Fojnica: troops evacuated the doctors from a
hospital for mentally impaired children, but left the patients
behind.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
Legally, all workers were free to form or join unions of their
own choosing without prior authorization. Before the outbreak
of the war, this right was generally respected. Bosnian
workers had independent trade unions, while journalists,
teachers, and others organized independent professional
associations to address labor issues. The bulk of Bosnian
workers were probably members of the semi-official Council of
Independent Trade Unions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CITUBH),
although new trade unions were also organized. The right to
strike was recognized but not exercised in connection with
work-related grievances in 1993.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
Bosnian law formally guaranteed this right, but the fighting
among the three sides interrupted Bosnia's economic transition
from state domination to a market-oriented system. As a
consequence, the management of state-owned enterprises had not
adopted collective bargaining as a practice prior to the war.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
Forced labor was legally prohibited and did not occur before
the outbreak of the war. In some villages, however, citizens
found themselves under virtual "house arrest" so surrounding
forces would have a convenient labor pool. As with civilians
placed in detention centers, villagers under house arrest were
sometimes forced to erect shelters or fill sandbags in
dangerous conditions near the front lines. Although the BSA
was the main user of forced labor, government troops also
occasionally surrounded villagers and forced them to work.
Bugojno was surrounded for most of the summer, and in May
government troops surrounded the residents of Banovici and sent
some of them to the front lines to dig trenches. As the
trenches were completed, the troops advanced.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
The minimum age for employment was 16, although children in
agricultural communities sometimes assisted their families with
farm work before they reached that age. As in 1992, there were
occasional reports in 1993 that children were employed for
military functions such as reconnaissance and running messages.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
In principle, minimum wages were guaranteed; with the economy
in total disarray, however, workers had no assurance they would
be paid for work performed. Dismissals because of ethnicity or
political affiliation occurred throughout Bosnia. The prewar
42-hour workweek, with a 24-hour rest period, was formally
still in effect, and sick leave and other benefits were
generous. But in the context of the war, benefits counted for
little. Regulations on occupational health and safety were
adequate but not enforced.
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