HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH![]() Publications NORTHWESTERN BOSNIA Human Rights Abuses during a Cease-Fire and Peace Negotiations Vol. 8, No. 1 (D), February 1996 SUMMARY | RECOMMENDATIONS | TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY Areas of northwestern Bosnia under Bosnian Serb control were the site of a brutal endgame of ethnic cleansing, murder, and rape, even as a cease-fire and the Dayton Peace Accord were being negotiated. From August through November 1995, more than 6,000 non-Serbs were systematically and brutally driven from their homes. At least two thousand non-Serb draft-age males were separated from their families and taken away to unknown locations. Many are still missing; some are believed dead, others remain in detention and forced labor. According to reports of witnesses, Bosnian Serb forces were assisted in attacks against non-Serbs by the particularly brutal paramilitary group led by Zeljko Raznatovic, a.k.a Arkan a force sponsored and sheltered by the government of Serbia. Today, as the troops of the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) are deployed pursuant to the Dayton Accord, IFOR commanders have been reluctant to station troops in areas such as northwestern Bosnia, despite the recent history of abuse. In this area, where British commanders are the principal IFOR authority, international troops insist on focusing almost exclusively on the military front line, even though most abuses of civilians have been committed away from military confrontation lines. The Banja Luka area and most of Bosnian Serb-held areas of northwestern Bosnia are among the most dangerous in the country for non-Serbs. Banja Luka has been referred to as the heart of darkness by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Although this region has largely been spared battles between armed forces, severe human rights abuses have been committed with impunity against non-Serbs since the beginning of the Bosnian war in 1992. Yet British officials have indicated to Human Rights Watch that IFOR will probably keep only a token presence in Banja Luka because it is distant from the zone of separation dividing the adversarial armies. Although the Dayton agreement authorizes IFOR to support the work of the missions civilian component, including agencies tasked with human rights protection and refugee repatriation, IFOR contributing countries particularly the United States, Britain and Franceare focusing primarily on monitoring the cease-fire and separating the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian government armies and the Bosnian Croat militia. Preventing renewed attacks on non-combatants, let alone bringing to justice those who organized the killing of the recent past, has been a low priority. A similar hands-off approach toward serious abuses played a large role in the failure of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Civilian aid workers of the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other agencies were attacked and unable to protect non-Serbs in the region due, in part, to the unwillingness of the U.N. to support and assist their work. Similar inaction by IFOR would almost certainly doom the current peace agreement as repressive forces come to recognize that little stands in the way of renewed slaughter or abuses of civilians. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki does not deny that military issues must be the main priority of military entities like IFOR. However, a strong military presence is essential in deterring abuses and helping civilian agents to protect human rights, conduct police patrols, deliver humanitarian aid, elect representatives who will not advocate violence as a solution to problems, and build the rule of law. Throughout the war, civilians in Bosnia-Hercegovina repeatedly told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki representatives that international presence is not enougha strong, proactive presence is necessary if an atmosphere of trust and security between the former warring communities is to be created. This atmosphere is critical to successful repatriation, reconciliation, and for a lasting peace. IFORs reluctance to deploy substantial numbers of troops outside the zone of separation will hinder civilian humanitarian efforts in northwestern Bosnia and elsewhere. IFORs support to civilian efforts to ensure the safety of those who have survived the war, including refugees who seek to repatriate, and for those minorities who wish to remain in their homes, is a central part of the Dayton agreement. Such a proactive IFOR role is, indeed, fundamental to the success of the current peace process. There are already many serious challenges to the Dayton agreement which provide important opportunities for IFOR and the international community to demonstrate concern for human rights and convey the intention to ensure compliance with the agreement. Minorities remaining in majority areas throughout the region still fear they will be forced from their homes, despite the Dayton Agreementor perhaps because of it. On January 25, in the village of Majdan, near the town of Mrkonjic Grad, Croat troops arrived with twenty trucks and began the forced relocation of hundreds of Croat civilians to the town of Glamoc. Majdan is slated to come under Bosnian Serb control under the Dayton Agreement. The forced displacement and political resettlement of civilians, in this case conducted by soldiers of their own ethnic group, is only one example of the kind of abuses civilians have continued to experience despite the Dayton accords. In Sanski Most, Bosnian government authorities recently held Serb civilians, some of them elderly, for exchange. In Banja Luka, hundreds of men remain in forced labor or are otherwise unaccounted for. The absence of a strong international response to such events risks renewal of the recent ethnic slaughter described in these pages. In November 1995, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki investigators interviewed persons from nine towns and villages in and near the Sanski Most region in northwestern Bosnia. All gave similar accounts of recent ethnic cleansing in their areas. The pattern of expulsion and disappearance in the Sanski Most area was virtually identical to that in the other eight cities, towns and villages described in this report. This latest wave of ethnic cleansing began following offensives in August and September 1995 against rebel Serb-held areas of the Krajina region of Croatia and western Bosnia. These offensives, led by the Croatian and Bosnian Armies and the Bosnian Croat militia, displaced over 250,000 Serbs. In retaliation, Bosnian Serb military and civilian authoritiesand paramilitary groups from Serbia properintensified their campaign of terror against Muslims and Croats in the municipalities of Banja Luka, Prijedor, Sanski Most and other areas of northwestern Bosnia, leaving a trail of mass-abductions and scores of civilian corpses. Soldiers typically arrived in a town or village with buses and trucks and went house to house, ordering people from their homes. Soldiers began at one end of the town and worked their way toward the other. Under threat of death, residents were ordered to give up their money and jewelry. Witnesses reported that the troops who evicted them were well-trained, efficient, brutal, and very interested in robbing everyone. Many townspeople stated that the soldiers were not local Serbs, although local Serbs accompanied them around the area and, according to townspeople, showed the non-local troops where Muslims and Croats lived. In some cases, Serbs recently displaced from the Krajina areabut more often Serbs recently displaced from western Bosniawould occupy the homes of those who had been expelled. As the non-Serbian population was being ousted, women, children and the elderly were detained in various locations and then expelled to Bosnian government-controlled areas. Men of military age were generally separated from the women and children and told that they were being sent to perform forced labor duties for the Bosnian Serb military, usually along the front lines. The whereabouts of many of these men remains unknown. In some cases, men were also detained with the women, children and elderly, but they were removed from the buses before reaching Bosnian government-controlled territory and subsequently disappeared. Those remaining on the buses were frequently robbed of all their belongings. In many instances, detainees were beaten, tortured, and raped. Some were beaten to death or summarily executed. Witnesses often referred to the soldiers committing the abuses as Arkanovci, referring to the so-called Tigers paramilitary group led by Zeljko Raznatovic, whose nom de guerre is Arkan. These paramilitary units are based in Serbia proper, were armed and trained by the Interior Ministry of Serbia in the early 1990s, and are shielded by the current Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. In many cases, witnesses descriptions of the troops insignia, uniform and general appearance resemble those of Arkans paramilitaries. Moreover, both local and Western media reports indicate that Arkan arrived in the Bosanska Krajina area some time in August 1995. According to evidence and information gathered by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki representatives and presented in this report, possibly over one hundred civilians were summarily executed en masse in the region just prior to the final signing of the Dayton peace agreement. Furthermore, in mid-January 1996, European Union monitors and Bosnian investigators identified six mass graves in northwestern Bosnia containing the bodies of approximately 240 suspected victims of ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in 1992, all within fifteen kilometers of Sanski Most. Of additional great concern are reports indicating that Bosnian Serb forces have begun to exhume and destroy mass graves in northwestern Bosnia. The New York Times of January 11, 1996 quoted Lt. Col. Benjamin Barry, the commander of the British forces whose headquarters are located a mile away from a mine in which corpses were being destroyed. He said, Our job is to separate forces, not look for mass graves. . . . It would be a diversion of soldiers from our main goal. Despite overwhelming evidence that mass grave sites are being tampered with in Bosnian Serb-held territoriesincluding the region around SrebrenicaIFOR troops have refused to step in and halt the destruction of evidence. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki is deeply concerned at the reluctance of IFOR to uphold a central part of its mandate by providing the full and necessary support for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, including by securing the sites of mass graves and locating and detaining indicted war criminals. The Dayton agreement and the Security Council resolution implementing the agreement give an important role to IFOR in supporting the tribunals work. This role reflects the importance of establishing the rule of law to the success of the peace process. IFORs refusal to accept this role sends the message that there is no price to be paid for the slaughter of civilians, at least so long as it takes place away from military front lines. That message puts the peace process at risk by encouraging Bosnian factions to take the law into their own hands and to resume the cycle of ethnic violence and revenge that has fueled the Bosnian conflict. This cycle will not be broken until the rule of law is established and the authors of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are brought to justice. RECOMMENDATIONS With a view to establishing the rule of law and respect for human rights in northwestern Bosnia, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki offers the following recommendations to IFOR and its civilian component: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Furthermore, ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Finally, ![]() TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY RECOMMENDATIONS BACKGROUND ABUSES IN THE SANSKI MOST AREA Summary Executions Ethnic Cleansing of Villages and Towns in the Sanski Most Area Stari Majdan Sanski Most Kijevo Poljak Podbrezje Sehovci Stara Rijeka Mistreatment in Detention ABUSES IN OTHER BOSNIAN SERB-HELD AREAS OF NORTHERN BOSNIA Kljuc Banja Luka Prijedor Ljubija Bosanska Dubica Bosanski Novi Doboj Bosanska Gradiska CONCLUSIONS Human Rights Watch February 1996 Vol. 8, No. 1 (D) To order the full text of this report click HERE. ![]() For more Human Rights Watch reports on Bosnia-Hercegovina click HERE. ![]() To return to the list of 1996 publications click HERE. ![]() Or, to return to the index of Human Rights Watch reports click HERE. ![]() |