Amnesty International Report 1994 - Bosnia and Herzegovina

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Hundreds of deliberate and arbitrary killings by all three sides in the conflict were reported. Thousands of civilians were detained; most of them were believed to be prisoners of conscience. All three sides were responsible for holding detainees, but Bosnian Croat forces appeared to hold the majority. Many detainees and prisoners of war were reportedly tortured or ill-treated. There were reports of rape and "disappearance" perpetrated by all sides. Mass expulsions of populations took place, mostly of Muslims or Croats under Bosnian Serb control and Muslims under Bosnian Croat control. Two Serbs were sentenced to death in Sarajevo after being convicted of war crimes.

The war became three-sided in the spring with the almost complete breakdown of the fragile alliance against the Bosnian Serbs between the Bosnian Croat forces - the Hrvatsko Vije e Obrane (HVO), Croatian Defence Council - and the largely Muslim Armija Bosne i Hercegovine (Armija BiH), Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In August Mate Boban, the leader of the Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica (HDZ), Croatian Democratic Union, which is closely linked to the ruling party in Croatia, and other HDZ politicians withdrew HDZ participation from the Bosnian Government and Presidency. They declared the area they controlled, previously a self-proclaimed "community", a Republic: the "Hrvatska Republika Herceg-Bosne", "Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna". Bosnia's state President, Alija Izetbegoviç, a Muslim, who had previously been accused by nationalist Bosnian Serb and Croat politicians of representing only Muslims, was left still more closely associated with the Muslim nationality alone, as were the Bosnian Government and armed forces. Another Muslim politician, Fikret Abdiç, declared an autonomous province in a pocket of territory in western Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was followed by clashes with forces loyal to President Izetbegoviç within the area. Radovan Karadiç, leader of the rebel Serbs, and his party, the Srpska Demokratska Stranka (SDS), Serbian Democratic Party, had announced a self-proclaimed "Republika Srpska", "Serbian Republic", in 1992 in Bosnian territory controlled by rebel Serbs.

Both Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were involved politically and militarily in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both Croatian and Yugoslav army units were reported to be inside Bosnia-Herzegovina fighting alongside the HVO and Bosnian Serb army respectively.

Fierce fighting continued throughout the year on various fronts. The siege of Sarajevo by the Vojske "Republike Srpske" (VRS), the Army of the "Serbian Republic", persisted throughout the year. There was also intense fighting between the VRS and the Armija BiH around the northern rim of government-controlled territory, particularly around Brko and Doboj. In the spring Bosnian Serb forces launched offensives against government-controlled pockets in eastern Bosnia. Fighting between the HVO and Armija BiH took place in central and southern Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Mostar the HVO besieged around 50,000 Muslims, mainly civilians, in the east of the town.

All sides accused the others of breaches of international humanitarian law. The complex military situation, with restricted access for international observers and the frequent reluctance of witnesses to give testimony, made it difficult to monitor human rights abuses.

The distribution of humanitarian aid, particularly to Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia, became increasingly problematic as all sides sought to use aid as an instrument of political or military tactics and hindered or prevented aid reaching civilians on the other sides.

International efforts, led by the UN and the European Union (EU), to negotiate a peace settlement based on the division of the state into a confederation of three republics continued with interruptions, but without success, throughout the year. In May the UN established an ad hoc international tribunal to try perpetrators of grave breaches of humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia since 1 January 1991 (see Working with international organizations).

The UN Protection Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNPROFOR), which had first been mandated to protect humanitarian aid distribution, was also given a mandate to protect demilitarized "safe areas" for Muslims besieged by the VRS in several areas of eastern Bosnia. There was criticism of UNPROFOR's effectiveness, including its failure to properly protect the "safe areas".

Deliberate and arbitrary killings were widespread and committed by all sides. For example, in February HVO soldiers evicted a group of people, predominantly Serbs, from a block of flats in Mostar. They were made to cross the front line to Serb positions near Stolac. HVO soldiers or military police reportedly fired at them as they crossed the front line killing two women, Elvira Saviç and Draginja Borozan, and injuring an 85-year-old woman. In April Muslim soldiers, apparently paramilitaries, reportedly shot dead at least nine Croatian men, including civilians and disarmed HVO soldiers, after taking control of the village of Trusina near Konjic. Earlier in the attack two Croatian children were injured as a Muslim soldier fired indiscriminately into a room. The same day in Ahmiçi, near Vitez, HVO forces ambushed and shot 20 unarmed Muslim civilians who were trying to flee. Most of the Muslim houses in the village were razed, apparently with the intent of killing the occupants, and 89 bodies, mostly of elderly people, women and children, were later recovered. In July, 12 civilians who were queuing for water in the Dobrinja district of Sarajevo were killed by a shell deliberately aimed at them by Serbian forces. More than 35 Croats, mostly civilians, were killed by Armija BiH forces in the village of Uzdol near Vitez in September; most of them were burned in their homes. The bodies of six more Croats were found in the neighbouring village of Kri. HVO forces attacked the lightly defended Muslim village of Stupni Do near Vareá on 25 October. After the village fell, the HVO soldiers reportedly killed and mutilated the Muslim inhabitants. Three days later, UN peace-keeping forces discovered the charred and mutilated bodies of 25 Muslims, most of whom they reported to be civilians.

Although many places of detention were undeclared and many prisoners not registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross, at least 3,000 prisoners, mostly male, were known to be detained by all sides at the start of the year. They included many civilians who had not used or advocated violence and had been detained solely on account of their nationality or political or other beliefs and who had been taken into detention during 1992. Many more civilians were detained for similar reasons during the year. Although many releases took place (largely in exchanges), at the end of December the HVO and Armija BiH were reported to be holding 1,600 and 1,300 detainees respectively. The VRS was reported to be holding 500 detainees at the end of October. Most of the new detentions took place in the context of the Croat-Muslim conflict. The HVO carried out large-scale actions throughout the area it controlled in which Muslim families were forced out of their homes, men were frequently detained and women and children were forced to cross into Bosnian Government-controlled territory, often at gunpoint. The UN Special Rapporteur on the former Yugoslavia estimated that at the peak of these actions, in late July, around 15,000 men were being detained by the HVO. Although most were Muslims, he reported that Serbs and Roma had also been detained.

The conditions of detention in HVO detention centres often amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and in some cases prisoners were reportedly tortured. There were allegations of ill-treatment and appalling conditions in Bosnian Government-controlled camps. Many of the detainees taken by all sides were apparently held as hostages for exchange with another side. People were also reportedly imprisoned for desertion or for attempting to avoid mobilization into the contending armed forces. Large numbers of men were known to have sought asylum abroad because of their objections to service in one or other of the armies; many may have refused on conscientious grounds. Conscientious objectors may have been among 1,000 deserters reported to have been sentenced to suspended prison sentences, or up to five years' imprisonment, by the Bosnian Serb military court in Banja Luka between January and August. As well as prosecuting men from their own national group, on occasion all sides also reportedly either forcibly mobilized men of the opposing national groups who were under their control, or made detainees undertake work close to front lines.

All sides held trials or initiated investigations against individuals for alleged "war crimes", although only defendants of an opposing national group were tried, usually in conditions which precluded the possibility of a fair trial. Individuals who had been convicted or were under investigation for alleged "war crimes" were reportedly included in exchanges.

Poor communications and the large number of individual detainees, who were often held in unacknowledged detention or exchanged a long way from where they had originally been detained, made it difficult to estimate the incidence of "disappearances". However, a number of cases were documented, such as that of a Serb, Dragan Iliç, who was taken from his home in Bosnian Croat-controlled Mostar in March by uniformed men and not seen again.

Many thousands of people were forcibly expelled from their homes during the year. Many people were frightened into leaving by fear of further human rights abuses. Among the victims were an estimated 20,000 Muslims who were forced from their houses in Bosnian Croat-controlled territory and then made to cross to Bosnian Government-controlled territory, in some cases under fire.

Tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats who remained in areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs sought to leave amid reports of a range of human rights abuses continuing in these areas and other acts, including the destruction of important buildings such as mosques. Individuals seeking to leave faced obstacles such as having to pay large sums in foreign currency to the Bosnian Serb authorities and for visas for travel to or through Croatia.

Two Serbs, Borislav Herak and Sretko Damjanoviç, were sentenced to death by a Bosnian Government military court in Sarajevo in March on charges of genocide, rape and looting. The main evidence for their conviction reportedly came from Borislav Herak's testimony in which he incriminated both himself and Sretko Damjanoviç. There was apparently little corroborating evidence. The legality of the conviction of Borislav Herak, solely on the basis of his own confession and in the light of his mental state, was challenged by his defence lawyer. Sretko Damjanoviç withdrew his own confession which he claimed had been extracted under torture. A court-appointed doctor reportedly concluded that he had scars consistent with his allegations. The sentences were not reported to have been carried out by the end of the year.

Throughout the year Amnesty International appealed to all sides within Bosnia-Herzegovina and to the authorities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in Croatia to prevent human rights abuses, to investigate all reports of abuses and to ensure that perpetrators were brought to justice. It appealed for the protection of Muslims and Croats in Bosnian Serb-held areas, calling for the investigation of and the prevention of a range of abuses including deliberate and arbitrary killings. In March it appealed for investigations into the "disappearance" of around 25 men from a railway train near the Yugoslav border (see Federal Republic of Yugoslavia entry). In the same month it appealed for the commutation of the death penalties imposed on Borislav Herak and Sretko Damjanoviç. In April the organization appealed for the release of Serbian villagers detained by Croats in Raáani and for investigations into the "disappearance" of Dragan Iliç in Mostar. From April onwards it appealed on behalf of civilians in central and southern Bosnia-Herzegovina, victims of both the Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Government forces, calling for the investigation of deliberate and arbitrary killings, the release of civilian detainees and the prevention of these and other human rights abuses. In July Amnesty International wrote to Radovan Karadiç, the representative of the Bosnian Serbs, calling on him to investigate the shelling of the water queue in Sarajevo in July, to ensure that those responsible were brought to justice and to prevent the recurrence of such abuses.

In January Amnesty International published two reports: Bosnia-Herzegovina: Rana u dusi - A wound to the soul, and Bosnia-Herzegovina: Rape and sexual abuse by armed forces. In May and July the organization addressed the UN on the establishment of the ad hoc international war crimes tribunal (see Working with international organizations). In July it expressed its concern about the situation of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina in European countries in the report, Bosnian refugees: A continuing need for protection (see Croatia entry).