Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
Newsgroups: americast.wpost
From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: U.S. Reports on Balkan Atrocities; Eyewitness Accounts of Mass Executions,
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 08:40:52 EST
Message-ID: <22.1992Nov7.084053@AmeriCast.com>

U.S. Reports on Balkan Atrocities; Eyewitness Accounts of Mass
Executions, Torture Given to U.N.<By John M. Goshko=Washington
Post Staff Writer=

The United States yesterday gave the United Nations new informa-
tion about atrocities in the Balkans that included chilling,
eyewitness accounts of mass killing and torture of prisoners,
forcible expulsion of people from their houses and other mis-
treatment of civilians.

A 20-page document, based largely on interviews by U.S. diplomats
in areas of the old Yugoslav federation shattered by civil war,
was the third report that the State Department has made to a U.N.
commission charged with investigating war crimes in the Balkans.
U.S. officials have said they hope the information eventually
will be used to prosecute those who committed atrocities.

"The examples include abuses committed by all sides in the re-
gion," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "We be-
lieve, however, that by far the largest number of offenses have
been committed by Bosnian Serbs."

Local Serb militias abetted by Serbia have occupied about 70 per-
cent of Bosnia-Hercegovina and have engaged in "ethnic cleansing"
campaigns aimed at driving out Muslims, the largest group in the
Bosnian population, and Croats.  Past reports have described how
these campaigns allegedly have gone beyond expulsions to include
mass executions of Muslims. Incidents covered in the new report
include:<

A witness's account of a mass slaughter at the Keraterm detention
camp July 24 when Serb guards allegedly opened fire with automat-
ic weapons on a room crammed with prisoners, killing or wounding
about 150. The next day, guards entered the room, lined up about
20 of the surviving prisoners and shot them, according to the
witness.<

Testimony by a Muslim man that while he was a prisoner at the
Omarska camp between May 26 and Aug.  6, he was forced to carry
and help bury the bodies of between 700 and 800 prisoners. He
said that, in some cases, guards threw prisoners into large bon-
fires and that the most educated Muslims were taken into a build-
ing called "the white house, from which no one emerged alive."<

Further details about conditions at the Luka-Brcko camp, where
earlier reports said more than 3,000 Muslim men, women and chil-
dren were killed during May and June. Internees reportedly were
confined in three hangars where conditions were so crowded that
most people had to sleep standing up. In June, goats were put in
the hangars to share space with the detainees, and the bodies of
prisoners were dumped behind one hangar where the ground became
ankle-deep in blood.

Also yesterday, the United States responded to reports about
widespread evasion of U.N. economic sanctions against Serbia by
calling for a ban on transit shipments of goods, particularly
oil, through Serbia. Boucher said that, if necessary, the United
States is prepared to seek a resolution in the U.N.  Security
Council ordering such a ban.

He said the United States also would ask the Security Council for
a resolution authorizing enforcement of the "no-fly zone" over
Bosnia if ground monitors establish that Serb warplanes are
violating the ban.

In establishing the no-fly zone last month, the Security Council
stopped short of threatening to shoot down planes intruding into
Bosnian airspace. On Thursday, Cedric Thornberry, director of
civil affairs for the U.N. peace-keeping operations in the former
Yugoslav republics, said that planes controlled by the Serbs have
violated the zone repeatedly.<02:17 11-071C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)