27 October - 9 November 1996

Compiled by Stefan Krause

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

27 October

• No notable events were reported.

28 October

• Admiral Joseph Lopez, the Implementation Force (IFOR) commander, meets with the Muslim and Croatian members of the Bosnian presidency, Alija Izetbegovic and Kresimir Zubak, to discuss a recent spate of attacks on buildings. The attacks are apparently aimed at intimidating refugees into not returning to areas from which they have been "ethnically cleansed." At issue are the blasting of more than 90 Muslim homes and two mosques near Serb-held Prijedor and the torching of 65 Serbian houses in Croat-held Drvar. On 26 October, Lopez met the Bosnian Serb presidency member, Momcilo Krajisnik, to discuss the issue.
• Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb on trial for war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, denies ever having been in two of the three concentration camps at which he is accused of abusing and murdering Muslim and Croatian prisoners.
• AFP reports that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has started an investigation into Bosnian Serb authorities' alleged intimidation of independent media in the Republika Srpska. Several independent papers were denied access to the Glas Sprski printing house, which is controlled by the ruling Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), and SDS officials sued several journalists for linking them to attempts to prevent opposition meetings during the recent election campaign.
• Meanwhile, representatives of the major independent Bosnian Serb media meet in Banja Luka to discuss their response to the government campaign. They debate coordinating their marketing, starting an independent journalists' union, and setting up an independent printing house.
• IFOR opens a railway bridge at Bosansko Petrovo Selo to reconnect Bosnian train lines with Western Europe.

29 October

• Colum Murphy, a spokesman for the international community's high representative, Carl Bildt, says that Bildt's office has known for some time that at least four indicted war criminals work for the Republika Srpska police. The men -- Mladen Radic, Miroslav Kvocka, Nedjelko Timarac, and Zeljko Mejakic -- are serving in the Prijedor-Omarska area and are wanted for war crimes allegedly committed in the Omarska or Keraterm concentration camps in that area. Murphy says: "We have spoken to the leadership in Pale on the subject." But he adds that war criminals should be arrested only "by those who have the ability to do so."
• In Athens, Republika Srpska President Biljana Plavsic says her government has no intention of turning over indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic to the Hague tribunal.
• The Bosnian three-man presidency accepts Serge Robert to the post of governor of the new central bank. Under the Dayton peace accord, the central bank's governor is chosen by the International Monetary Fund and approved by the collective presidency. Three additional senior bank officials are appointed: Kasim Omicevic and Jure Pelivan from the Bosnian Federation and Manojlo Coric from the Republika Srpska.

30 October

• The Hague tribunal demands that the Bosnian Serb authorities "immediately arrest" the four policemen who are indicted war criminals and slams the Bosnian Serb authorities for keeping the men on the force in violation of the Dayton agreement and international law.
• Bildt's office claims that it didn't know anything about the four policemen until a few days earlier, but international police officials tell The Boston Globe that their office filed a report on the four in June. An IFOR spokesman says the peacekeepers have no mandate to engage in "manhunts."
• The United States and the OSCE charge that the Bosnian Serbs are violating arms-control provisions of the Dayton agreement by keeping a "significant number" of extra World War II tanks in service. The Serbs have exploited a loophole in the text that allows parties to retain such weapons if they are intended for export, research, or museums.
• Bosnia's UN ambassador, Muhamed Sacirbey, says his government will cooperate with investigations to determine whether Bosnian police forced a Serb into testifying falsely against Tadic in The Hague.
• The UN ambassadors of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia send an appeal to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali requesting that Serbia-Montenegro not automatically inherit the UN seat of Tito's Yugoslavia.

31 October

• IFOR searches 109 Muslim houses in Jusici for arms and other contraband but finds nothing. Muslims began returning this summer to that village on the Serbian edge of the tense interentity border. The resettlement has caused consternation among the Serbs and IFOR, which tends to regard them as troublemakers.
• Oslobodjenje reports that representatives of Bosnian Muslim, Serbian, and Croatian refugees who want to go back to their homes despite nationalist opposition have formed a group in Sarajevo to coordinate their efforts. The Coalition for Return says it rejects "the ideology of ethnic separation."
• The anti-nationalist opposition Social Democrats (UBSD) criticize Krajisnik for ignoring incidents against non-Serbian refugees and their property in the Republika Srpska, and the UBSD slams Izetbegovic for not providing full security for Serbs in Ilidza. The party also criticizes Zubak for not responding to the destruction of Serb-owned property in Drvar or to the expulsion of Muslims from western Mostar.

1 November