June 2, 1996

Report on Bosnia Questions Ability to Hold Elections

By CHRIS HEDGES

ARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 1 -- Internal reports from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which must determine if human rights conditions in Bosnia are sufficient to hold elections scheduled for this fall, chronicle a series of abuses that call into question the ability to carry out a free and fair vote.

These reports, if they were made public, could make it difficult for the organization's officials to certify that conditions are in place for elections. But these officials said they were under "intense pressure" from Washington, as well as most European capitals, to grant certification, regardless of the situation on the ground.

Under the Dayton peace accord concluded last year, elections are to take place by Sept. 14.

The American official who heads the organization's Sarajevo mission, , Robert Frowick, has said that he must make a recommendation by July 14 about holding the elections to allow time for campaigning.

Mr. Frowick, now in Tokyo, was unavailable for comment today, his office said.

The internal human rights reports for May, obtained by The New York Times, paint a dismal picture.

For example, the May 23 report quotes the assistant justice minister of the Bosnian Serbs as telling the organization's monitors that the self-styled Republic of Srpska "opposed O.S.C.E. plans" to train local election observers, "as this system would stand in the way of the wishes of Republic of Srpska authorities."

The assistant justice minister of the Bosnian Serbs told a security organization official that not only would the Serbs not cooperate with the organization in creating independent election commissions, but was setting up its own, completely separate, election-monitoring body. Not long after his meeting with the Bosnian Serb minister, the security organization official reported that a "homemade explosive device" was thrown at his car, on May 16. He said that "traces of dynamite were left, and paint on the roof of the car was damaged."

Western officials contend that the elections, however, flawed, will begin to build joint federal institutions in Bosnia.

They say that a failure to certify will only harden partition lines and make if harder, if not impossible, to rebuild the multi-ethnic Bosnia envisaged by the Dayton peace agreement.

But European officials say that, given the current recalcitrance by all parties, and especially the Bosnian Serbs, to hold free and fair elections, any vote would be meaningless.

They also warn that downplaying human rights abuses by the Bosnian Serbs, in an attempt to ensure certification, has emboldened the Bosnian Serbs over the past two weeks and actually increased abuses by the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic.

"It is a terrible dilemma for us," said a senior European diplomat involved in the process. "We all know the situation is bad. People who try to cross from one side to the other get beaten and harassed and eventually go back.

But if we don't certify, the ethnic partition will remain and ethnic cleansing will be rewarded.

Elections, and the attempt to establish federal institutions, are all we have left."

The Dayton agreement calls for nationwide elections by Sept. 14 to elect representatives from the Croat, Serb and Muslim enclaves who will administer joint federal bodies, including a three-person Presidency. Municipal elections, which were also to take place, will probably have to be postponed because the O.S.C.E. has been unable to set up a voter registration center to coordinate who has the right to vote where. The reports, which cover the last four weeks, show that the basic institutions that are supposed to monitor free elections have not been set up due to resistance on the ground, especially by the Bosnian Serbs.

The Bosnian Serbs have informed the O.S.C.E. staff members that they will first hold first a referendum, to determine whom they will nominate for the Presidency, disregarding the rules set out in the Dayton agreement.

In the latest internal report, the monitors stated bluntly that "the human rights situation showed no improvement this week, with obstruction of freedom of movement and threats against minorities persisting."

The report went on the say that the Bosnian Serb leaders, far from complying with the terms agreed in Dayton for the elections, were hardening their position.

"A clear pattern of replacing civilian and police authorities loyal to anyone but the Pale leadership is emerging," the May 22 report stated, referring to the Bosnian Serb stronghold.

The report went on to say that political leaders and those who oppose the rule of Dr. Karadzic have received death threats and have frequently been "evicted, dismissed from work and personally attacked." The report noted that in Gacko, the garage of an opposition figure was bombed.

And the reports do not only find fault with the Bosnian Serbs. They show the Bosnian Croats consistently obstructing political opposition and say that political opponents in the Croat-controlled part of Mostar must operate "covertly."

In a May 14 report, the O.S.C.E. described the situationin Mostar, the city divided into Muslim and Croat sector which is administered by the European Union and scheduled to hold elections at the end of this month:

"The human rights situation in the Mostar area of responsibility remained precarious," it read. "Ethnically-based violence against minorities in East and West Mostar continued, sometimes with the West Mostar police acting as perpetrators. International nongovernment organizations again found themselves the targets of death threats and other types of harassment. Human right experts at Sarajevo headquarters believe that the incidence of human rights violations in the vicinity of Mostar is much higher than reported officially, because staff shortages have meant that field offices are lacking human rights officers. Regional center Mostar says many residents give truncated reports of abuse due to fear of retaliation if they reveal too much."

The May 14 report, written following discussions with Bosnian Serb leaders, says that O.S.C.E. staff members were informed that Dr. Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader, who have been indicted for war crimes, would continue to exert influence "from the shade" regardless of who ran for office or won the elections. In a May 6 report, O.S.C.E. officials reported from Mostar that one of their cars was "hijacked in broad daylight."

"In a separate incident the same day," the report went on, "an O.S.C.E. international official was spat on; that event seemed connected solely with the fact that the officials represented an international organization."

The reports also criticize the Bosnian Government, which has threatened to boycott the elections if Dr. Karadzic is not removed from power and if Serbs who have moved into Muslim areas are permitted to vote in their new homes. Bosnian officials are cited for not working on the "technical aspects of elections" according to a May 1 report and "seem unconcerned over potential logistical problems."

A report from Tuzla, a town controlled by the Bosnian Government, said that after local political leaders were told of the election procedures the reactions were "vociferous and almost uniformly negative."

The parties said that allowing refugees and displaced people to vote where they now reside would legalize "ethnic cleansing." And local representatives of the governing Muslim Party of Democratic Action told the O.S.C.E. officials that "had they known the peace process would take such a turn, they would have continued fighting to regain control of all of Bosnia."