BOSNIA: Human Rights Violations Overshadow Elections

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug 13 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination held concerned discussions of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and its possible influence on the Sept. 14 elections, Tuesday.

The United Nations organism said the displacement of refugees and human rights violations are still going on in Bosnia, predicting the elections would only confirm the ethnic cleansing.

The Committee’s concerns were made public the day before US Secretary of State Warren Christopher was due to meet with the presidents of the three countries involved in the former Yugoslavia.

Christopher will be discussing the electoral process in Bosnia with the president of this country, Aliah Izetbegovic, Franco Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The Dutch lawyer Theo van Boven, member of the Committee and responsible for keeping up to date with the situation in Bosnia, said he did not agree the elections should go ahead, as they “tend to stress the ethnic divisions.”

Van Boven said the three countries leading the European Security and Cooperation Organisation, Denmark, Hungary and Switzerland, had also said refused to recommend these elections.

However, Washington’s criteria came out on top and the elections were included as part of the conditions for the Dayton accords.

The municipal elections of June 30 in Mostar showed the divisions sealed within the Bosnian population, said Van Boven. The voting gave the Croats 16 representatives and the Muslims 21, but when the result was known the Croat party refused to recognise the outcome, causing another crisis.

The current situation in Bosnia is strongly reminiscent of the abuses which characterised the worst period of the civil war. The methods of ethnic cleansing persist, causing massive population displacement, he said.

Up until now, no refugees or displaced people have been repatriated. In some zones of the Serb republic, under the control of the Bosnian Serbs, minority communities, both Bosnian Muslim and Croat, are still being displaced.

The police refuse to intervene or investigate these serious human rights violations, and Van Boven said the same was true of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, where the victims are Bosnian Serbs.

The Dutch expert recommended the Committee intervene as soon as possible and express its concern over the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

The Bosnia issue had not been on the Committee agenda for the day, but was included via emergency procedures.

Van Boven also expressed his concern at the development of the War Crime Trials in the Hague, where offenders from all of the former Yugoslavian states are being tried.

He said the court had not received the cooperation of these States and recommended they be pressurised with economic and political sanctions.