June 26, 1996

Official Says Bosnian Vote Should Be Held as Planned

By CHRIS HEDGES

IENNA, Austria -- The European diplomat in charge of organizing national elections in Bosnia said Tuesday that although conditions had not been met for free and fair elections, the vote should nevertheless go ahead in September as scheduled.

Under the Balkan peace plan the official, Flavio Cotti, as chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was supposed to certify that conditions in Bosnia will allow fair elections before setting a date and supervising the vote.

But Cotti, who is also the Swiss foreign minister, came under intense pressure from the United States and Europe to give the go-ahead to the elections despite the serious misgivings he and other diplomats had expressed about the wisdom of proceeding.

The Americans have argued that elections to form a national legislature and presidency in Bosnia are needed to begin the process of reuniting the warring ethnic factions. They also argue that the elections should be held while NATO troops are still in the country to keep peace, and that if elections are not held soon, the entire Dayton peace effort could unravel.

But human rights groups and many observers in Bosnia fear that without freedom of refugees to return to their homes, and without press freedoms, elections now will only give legitimacy to ethnic separation.

In his statement Tuesday giving the sought-after approval, Cotti made it clear he did so reluctantly.

He said holding elections this fall had "extremely high risks." He warned that if the international community did not succeed in opening up genuine political debate within the three ethnic enclaves of Bosnia, the vote would only consolidate the power of nationalist Croats, Muslims and Serbs.

Speaking in Vienna to a meeting of the organization -- which has 53 members including European countries, Russia and other former Soviet states and the United States and Canada -- Cotti called on foreign countries to take vigorous action to insure conditions for a free vote, including the arrest of indicted war criminals such as the Bosnian Serb leader, Dr. Radovan Karadzic.

"If no actions are undertaken right now against the indicted war criminals," Cotti said, "it can be taken for granted that the elections will very quickly give way to developments diametrically opposed to those which they are expected to yield. There exists the most serious danger that they then degenerate into a pseudo-democratic legitimization of extreme nationalist power structures and ethnic cleansing. Instead of the peaceful evolution in keeping with the peace agreement, the elections would lead to further dramatic tensions."

Western diplomats here said they were encouraged by reports from Belgrade that suggest that Karadzic will not, as many feared, attempt to run in the elections. Under the Dayton accord he is banned from holding office.

The Serbian press agency said that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic informed Bosnian Serb envoys Monday that they must remove Karadzic from office and appoint an acting president to replace him.

Diplomats here said Milosevic threatened the Bosnian Serbs with reprisals unless Karadzic steps aside and the elections go ahead without interference. U.S. and European diplomats have issued stern warnings to Milosovic that Serbia risks renewed sanctions unless Karadzic is pushed aside. Milosovic represented the Bosnian Serbs at the Dayton talks.

While Western officials say they still want to see Karadzic arrested, they have privately made it clear they will settle for now with seeing him out of office and out of the limelight.

The Clinton administration, which wants to stick to the timetable set out in the peace agreement reached last November in Dayton, Ohio, has mounted a vigorous campaign to hold the elections as scheduled, with support from other OSCE members.

The Swiss foreign minister, who has made five trips to the region, said Tuesday that the conditions stipulated in the Dayton agreement for free and fair elections remain elusive. His decision to certify the vote was, he said, based on the possibility that a delay "could heighten political uncertainty and political division even more."

He urged that the next two-and-a-half months before the September 14 vote be used to create conditions for a legitimate vote.

"This period must be employed in order to improve the framework conditions," he said. "This is absolutely imperative for us all."

The Dayton agreement requires that "the parties shall insure a politically neutral environment without fear and intimidation, one which insures human rights and fundamental freedoms." The agreement calls for freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of press and freedom of association, including for political parties.

Cotti said Tuesday that, in his view, none of these requirements have been achieved. He said there were continued "police controls, incidents of intimidation and aggression," as well as "discrimination and violence against minorities."

He also cited the lack of a free press and the inability of people to travel freely. And he noted that only 70,000 of the some two million refugees and displaced people in Bosnia had been able to go home, and in most cases those who returned went back to areas where their ethnic group was in the majority.

But Cotti added that one of the aims of the vote, designed to create a three-person presidency and a Parliament representing all three ethnic groups, was to build joint institutions that would prevent Bosnia from being partitioned along ethnic lines.

And he said that it would be riskier to hold elections after the withdrawal of NATO peacekeeping forces, scheduled for year's end. He called the presence of the force "indispensable" to the election process.

"If we delayed for some months," he told reporters following the speech, "it might not make the situation better, but possibly worse."

"After carefully weighing all factors, I have come to the conclusion that there are no convincing alternatives on the holding of elections," he told the body.