Events of 1993

Human Rights Development

Restrictions on freedom of the press, association and speech, abuses against minorities, increasing violence by police forces and paramilitary groups and continuing repression in Kosovo were causes for concern in Yugoslavia in 1993.

Police harassment and repression of organizations representing ethnic and political minorities intensified during the year. In February and March, police twice arrested the leader of Arkadia, a Belgrade-based gay and lesbian organization, demanding that he disclose the names of the groups' members. Muslims who tried to organize the Muslim community in Belgrade were arrested and beaten by the police in April. During a June 1 demonstration in Belgrade, police used excessive force against demonstrators. Members of the crowd were severely beaten with truncheons, and at least two police officers and five civilians suffered from gunshot wounds; one of the police officers later died. Opposition leaders Vuk and Danica Draskovic were arrested and severely beaten while in police custody; both were hospitalized in serious condition. In September, Dusan Reljic, the foreign affairs editor for the independent weekly Vreme, was abducted by two unknown persons and taken to an unknown location, where he was interrogated for two days about his contacts with foreigners. Reljic claims that the counter-intelligence service of the Yugoslav Army was responsible for his abduction, which appeared aimed at intimidating independent journalists.

Serbian paramilitary groups, with the apparent blessing of local, provincial and republicangovernments, continued to terrorize and forcibly to displace Croats, Hungarians, Slovaks and others in Vojvodina and Muslims in Sandzak. Although the government of former Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic had arrested and indicted local government leaders responsible for inciting violence against non-Serbs in the village of Hrtkovci in mid-1992, such leaders were released almost immediately after Panic lost the December 1992 election for Serbian President to incumbent Slobodan Milosevic, and the terrorizing of non-Serbians resumed. Similarly, Muslims living in villages near the towns of Priboj in Montenegro and Plevlja in Serbia have been killed, shot at, harassed and terrorized by Serbian paramilitary groups and members of the Yugoslav Army. Muslims have been kidnapped or arrested in northern Montenegro and taken to Serbian-held areas of Bosnia, where they have been either disappeared or detained.

In early 1993, the Serbian parliament passed a law which called for the reorganization the Pristina-based Rilindja publishing house and its placement under Serbian government control. Workers at the publishing house were threatened with dismissal if they did not sign loyalty oaths to the new management. Police violence against Albanian civilians in Kosovo escalated in the summer and fall of 1993. Albanians who had formerly been members of the Yugoslav Army, Albanian political leaders and human rights activists and others who had met with foreign delegations were brutalized by the police and abused in detention. The police and paramilitary forces terrorized and raided Albanian villages, particularly along the border of Kosovo and Serbia proper.

The Right to Monitor

The Yugoslav government severely obstructed international observers from monitoring human rights developments in Kosovo, Sandzak and Vojvodina. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was forced to close its mission in Yugoslavia, and members of the mission were denied visas. The Special Rapporteur for the U.N. Human Rights Commission was refused permission to open an office in Yugoslavia. Amnesty International representatives were denied visas to visit the country. Helsinki Watch representatives were threatened with arrest by local government officials in the village of Hrtkovci in Vojvodina and were denied access to areas of Sandzak by the Serbian police.

Several domestic groups continued to monitor human rights in Yugoslavia throughout 1993. The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund investigated Serbian-perpetrated violations of humanitarian law in Bosnia and the rights of minorities in Vojvodina, Sandzak, Kosovo and Montenegro. The Belgrade-based Center for Anti-War Action and leaders of some opposition political parties also lobbied on behalf of human rights. The Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Kosovo and Albanian political parties, Muslim groups in Sandzak and Croatian and Hungarian groups in Vojvodina also documented abuses committed against their ethnic groups.

The Role of the International Community

United Nations

Amplifying sanctions it had imposed in May 1992, the U.N. Security Council approved new sanctions against Yugoslavia on April 17 as punishment for its continued support of Bosnian Serb forces. Despite the imposition of further sanctions, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania continued to violate the U.N. sanctions, but the latter two quickly responded to international criticism and took steps to curb violations. In early February, there were reports in the London press that Russia had concluded a covert $360 million arms deal with Serbia, in direct violation of the U.N.-imposed arms embargo against the former Yugoslav republics.Apparently to avoid incriminating the Yugoslav government, the signatures on the final agreement were those of Serbian leaders from the Krajina region of Croatia.

Despite the U.N.-imposed flight ban over Bosnia, in mid-March light aircraft carried out bombing raids against Muslim villages in Bosnia and then flew back toward Serbia.

Several nonaligned countries voiced a demand that reparations be extracted from Serbia for the death and destruction caused during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

After the Bosnian Serbs rejected the Vance-Owen peace plan on May 6, Serbian President Milosevic promised to cut off all supplies to Bosnia and declared that Yugoslavia would accept international monitors along its borders to ensure that nothing but humanitarian aid passed between the Bosnian and Yugoslav border. However, on May 25, Milosevic told Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly Churkin that Yugoslavia was no longer prepared to accept international monitors on its borders.

U.S. Policy

In its last month in office, the Bush administration generally maintained its policy of limited involvement in the affairs of the former Yugoslavia. But in late December 1992, President Bush drafted a letter to Serbian President Milosevic and then-Yugoslav Army chief Zivota Panic threatening U.S. military action against Serbia should Serbian forces provoke an armed conflict in the majority-Albanian province of Kosovo. In January, U.S. intelligence reports indicated that Muslim and Croatian prisoners from Bosnia were being transferred to, and detained in, prison camps in Serbia. Bush administration officials held the information for months before releasing it to international humanitarian agencies in early 1993.

The Clinton administration took steps to punish Yugoslavia primarily for its support of Bosnian Serb forces but did not devote much attention to human rights within Serbia and Montenegro. However, U.S. Embassy personnel in Belgrade continued to monitor the human rights situation and to maintain contacts with human rights advocates, members of the political opposition and minority groups. After Vuk and Danica Draskovic were detained and beaten by police following the June 1 Belgrade demonstration, President Clinton sent a letter of support to the Draskovics in which he condemned the detention of, and denial of medical treatment to, the couple.

The Clinton administration took steps to tighten the U.N. embargo against Yugoslavia. In late February, the U.S. tracked a Greek ship carrying to Somalia weapons purchased from the Federal Directory of Supply and Procurement, an arms export agency for Yugoslavia. In March, the U.S. government publicly identified foreign companies that were helping Belgrade evade trade sanctions. The U.S. also offered to provide patrol boats to Romania and Bulgaria for use in enforcing the U.N.-imposed embargo on the Danube. Clinton offered to send teams of Treasury and State Department officials to work with European allies to crack down on Serbian financial transactions and imports. Such teams from the Treasury Department were sent to Cyprus, Germany and Austria.

On April 4, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher discussed the possibility of new sanctions against Yugoslavia with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Two days later, the U.S. sought U.N. Security Council approval for additional sanctions against Yugoslavia. However, the U.S. agreed to delay a U.N. vote on new sanctions against Yugoslavia until after April 25; it was generally assumed to be a concession to the referendum in Russia, in which Russian President Boris Yeltsin sought to weaken the legitimacy of a conservative Russian Parliament that was sympathetic to the Serbs.

The Work of Helsinki Watch

In order to monitor human rights in Yugoslavia and Serbian-controlled areas in Bosnia and Croatia, Helsinki Watch maintained one or more staff members in Yugoslavia throughout 1993. Staff representatives investigated human rights violations and sustained contacts with human rights activists, government officials and members of the press in Yugoslavia.

On May 28, Helsinki Watch sent a letter to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic condemning the closure of the publishing house Rilindja and calling for the re-opening of Rilindja and all other Albanian-language media in Kosovo that had been suppressed in the past. On June 4, Helsinki Watch sent a letter to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic calling upon him to accept responsibility for Serbian police officers' excessive use of force against protestors and journalists on June 1 in Belgrade. In August, Helsinki Watch followed up its letter to President Milosevic and released a newsletter titled "Belgrade Demonstrations: Excessive Use of Force and Beatings in Detention."

Helsinki Watch published information concerning abuses in Serbia and Montenegro in a July 1993 newsletter titled "Abuses Continue in the Former Yugoslavia: Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina." A mission to Yugoslavia was conducted in September and October to investigate civil and political rights in Montenegro, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Serbia proper; a report will follow.

Helsinki Watch invited Nata_a Kandić, the founder and executive director of The Humanitarian Law Fund, in Belgrade, to be honored by Human Rights Watch in its observance of Human Rights Day, December 10.

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