15 - 28 September 1996

Compiled by Stefan Krause and Fabian Schmidt

An ongoing chronology highlighting events and deadlines connected
with the Balkan peace effort and the implementation of the Dayton Accord

15 September

• One day after the Bosnian elections, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) monitors call the ballot a success. Voter-turnout estimates range from 65 percent to 80 percent.
• Election returns show a clear victory for the leading nationalist parties.
• Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Serbian Democratic Party candidate Momcilo Krajisnik, and Croatian Democratic Community candidate Kresimir Zubak are far ahead of their respective challengers for the Muslim, Serbian, and Croat seats on the Bosnian collective presidency. Krajisnik wins by the smallest margin, with only about 66 percent of the Republika Srpska vote. His challenger, Mladen Ivanic of the Alliance for Peace and Progress, which is close to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, garners nearly 32 percent.
• Izetbegovic leads in total votes, which puts him in line to be the first to hold the rotating chairmanship of three-man presidency.

16 September

• The ruling Muslim Party of Democratic Action challenges the elections held on Bosnian Serb territory, saying that there was no freedom of movement and that various discriminatory measures were taken against Muslim refugees wanting to go home to vote.
• The International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization, issues a statement that, "against this background of adverse conditions, electoral engineering, and disenfranchisement, these elections cannot be described as free, fair, or democratic." The Daily Telegraph cites one case in which a polling station recorded a turnout of 107 percent.

17 September

• The Independent quotes Judge Richard Goldstone of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as saying that his court and international justice in general will be dealt a "fatal blow" if NATO fails to arrest indicted Bosnian Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Goldstone charges that Implementation Force (IFOR) commanders are primarily interested in self-preservation and avoiding risks and casualties. He notes that ordinary soldiers "feel a tremendous frustration that they aren't able to go out and get [alleged war criminals]." He concludes that "there is no political will to make [international justice] work."
• The war-crimes tribunal rejects the request by defense lawyers to abandon 21 of the 31 charges against Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, who has been charged with killing 13 Muslims and torturing 18 others in detention camps in northwestern Bosnia.
• Bosnian government and Bosnian Serb forensic teams start to work together for the first time on recovering the remains of Muslims scattered on hillsides near Srebrenica. Up to 8,000 Muslim men are still unaccounted for after the former Muslim enclave was overrun by Bosnian Serbs last year. The head of the Bosnian Serb commission for the return of prisoners of war and missing persons, Dragan Bulajic, says the victims were soldiers, while his Bosnian government counterpart, Amor Masovic, claims they were civilians.

18 September

• Republika Srpska Deputy Prime Minister Velibor Ostojic says that Izetbegovic's election victory was "the result of manipulation." He argues that the Serbs had a "realistic expectation" that their candidate, Krajisnik, would win the most votes, but adds that the Republika Srpska will stand by the result. Bosnian Serb television waits more than six hours to announce that Izetbegovic will be Bosnia's president.
• General George Joulwan, NATO's supreme commander in Europe, says he would recommend only a limited reduction of IFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina until municipal elections are held. The exact date for the elections has yet to be decided, but Joulwan said they may be held in November. He adds that it is premature to say whether a NATO force will be needed in Bosnia next year to prevent a new war.
• NATO decides to send a new military command to oversee IFOR's withdrawal from Bosnia.

19 September

• Zubak meets separately with Izetbegovic and Krajisnik to prepare the groundwork for a joint meeting of the three-man collective presidency. Differences remain about where it should meet. Krajisnik says he fears for his safety in Sarajevo and offers Pale as an alternative, which is unacceptable to the Muslims and Croats. The Muslims reject the Serbian proposal for a meeting place on the demarcation line, saying that would underscore the division rather than the unity of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Another dispute involves the length of Izetbegovic's term as chairman. Izetbegovic demands that Krajisnik take an oath of loyalty to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
• OSCE election coordinator Edward van Thijn suggests that the OSCE hold off on election certification until the Serbs bring their constitution into line with the Bosnian one set down in the Dayton agreement.
• NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana says that the international community, including NATO, must remain engaged in Bosnia after the departure of IFOR in December. He tells the International Institute for Strategic Studies that there may have to be a continued military presence in Bosnia, albeit smaller and for a strictly limited term. UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warns the international community against an early disengagement from Bosnia. U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry warns that sending U.S. troops into Bosnia again next year would "pose a very substantial problem."
• A patrol of Czech IFOR troops asks Simo Drljaca, the police chief in Prijedor, to hand over a submachine gun found in his car. Drljaca points the weapon at the troops. More armed Serbian police arrive in reinforcements and surround the Czechs, and both sides fire into the air. Subsequently Admiral Joseph Lopez, NATO's top commander for Bosnia, asks Biljana Plavsic, the Republika Srpska's acting president, to remove Drljaca by noon the next day. "IFOR will take remedial action to remove this threat to our troops," Lopez's spokesman says.

20 September

• Bosnian Serb authorities fire the Prijedor police chief following the incident with Czech IFOR troops.
• Bosnian Serbs say they will boycott arbitration talks over the northern town of Brcko because the maps of the disputed region have not been made public.
• The UN Security Council criticizes Croatia for "numerous incidents" in areas it has retaken from rebel Serbs, which, it says, are threatening efforts to reintegrate refugees and displaced persons.
• The Croatian parliament ratifies the 23 August accord normalizing relations with Belgrade. It also adopts legislation granting amnesty to ethnic Serbs who fought against Croatia in 1991, excluding war criminals and those who violated human rights.

21 September

• The OSCE withdraws its earlier, tentative election returns. Spokesmen say there were numerous computer mistakes and other technical errors. Hrair Balian of the International Crisis Group calls the tally "a royal mess," charging that the OSCE's conduct was "irresponsible" and that its mismanagement invited challenges from nationalists who wanted to discredit the entire electoral process.
• IFOR forces confiscate about a dozen weapons found among a group of Muslims who had returned to repair houses in Jusici, a Muslim village in the Bosnian Serb entity in a separation zone where weapons are banned.

22 September

• The OSCE declares that a recount shows Izetbegovic to be the presidential candidate with the highest number of votes. The "preliminary final results" give 731,024 votes to Izetbegovic; 690,130 to the Serbian candidate, Krajisnik; and 329,891 to the Croatian Zubak.
• A quick recount of votes confirms that the three nationalist parties won the 14 September vote, but more questions are raised about how free and fair the ballot was. No single example of gross fraud is given, but various violations across Bosnia-Herzegovina lead to vote totals vastly exceeding the originally estimated 60 percent to 70 percent turnout. In some cases, the "turnout" is as high as 111 percent.

23 September

• Bosnian Serb authorities give an ultimatum to the Muslims who returned to Jusici in eastern Bosnia. The Muslims are told to leave by the next day or be thrown out.
• International experts working at the mass grave site in Pilica in eastern Bosnia say they have recovered 50 bodies so far. The grave -- the fourth Srebrenica-area site to be excavated -- is believed to contain about 100 bodies of Muslim men killed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.
• War invalids and dependents of soldiers killed in the war demonstrate in Tuzla and the village of Gornji Rahici to demand their pensions. They have received no payments in six months.

24 September

• OSCE election coordinator van Thijn says he will recommend that the vote be certified. He adds that freedom of movement and association will have to be ensured before local elections can be held and that the nagging problem of voter registration lists will have to be solved. That means the local elections could be postponed until early 1997.
• A disagreement between Moscow and Washington leads to the postponement of a UN Security Council resolution on lifting sanctions against Belgrade. Under the Dayton accord, sanctions were to be removed 10 days after elections took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Russia's ambassador to Belgrade, Sergei Lavrov, argues that sanctions should be lifted immediately, since that deadline has passed. Washington responds that the 10-day period cannot be considered to have commenced until the election results are validated.

25 September

• Izetbegovic warns the UN General Assembly that the conflict could resume in Bosnia-Herzegovina if the Dayton accord is not enforced. He argues that an international military presence will be necessary "for a certain and limited period of time" and criticizes the local Croats for maintaining their para-state of Herceg-Bosna. He singles out the Bosnian Serbs for criticism because they have blocked Muslim and Croatian refugees from going home and because they have refused to hand over indicted war criminals to the Hague tribunal. He says that "if genocide without punishment is possible, then Bosnia and Herzegovina is not possible."
• In Bergen, Norway, NATO defense ministers announce for the first time that the alliance will plan a possible role in Bosnia after IFOR's mandate expires at the end of the year. British Defense Secretary Michael Portillo says NATO "can't abandon the investment we've made there."
• U.S. General George Casey says the Muslim refugees who returned to Jusici must leave and process the necessary paperwork before they can live there. Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic agrees to that formula. The number of returnees has grown to 300. A UN police spokesman accuses the Muslims of taunting the local Serbian police.
• International experts suspend excavation of mass graves in eastern Bosnia until next spring.

26 September

• Federal ombudsmen accuse the police of violating human rights in every canton. They say the police hold prisoners for longer than the legal limit without notifying families. Despite an amnesty, charges are still being brought against people who served in the Serbian or Croatian armies, and investigations can drag on for up to three years.
• Foreign ministers of the International Contact Group issue a statement saying they "looked forward to early certification of the Bosnian elections and to the lifting of sanctions by the UN Security Council soon thereafter."

27 September

• The OSCE's own legal-advisory body calls for a recount. The OSCE rejects the idea, claiming that the various isolated irregularities did not add up to massive fraud.
• British IFOR troops announce that they have discovered the headless bodies of six Bosnian Serb soldiers in a ditch in northeast Bosnia. The men appear to have been killed in the last stages of the war.
• A Muslim man is shot and wounded when his car is hijacked on Bosnian Serb territory along the busy but dangerous Route Arizona in northern Bosnia.

28 September

• The OSCE declares the preliminary final election results valid, opening the way for a meeting of the Bosnian presidency and for lifting of the sanctions against Belgrade and Pale.
• Nedzad Ugljen, the deputy head of the controversial Bosnian government intelligence organization Agency for Research and Documentation, is killed by unknown assailants in Sarajevo.
• In Mostar, a hand grenade lands on the apartment balcony of Josip Jole Musa of the opposition Joint List, causing material damage. He was recently elected to the Bosnian Federal Assembly.
• Officials of more than 30 countries meet in Ireland to discuss plans for a modern and democratic police force for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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