18
Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
Amnesty International September 2001
·
Former Minister of Defence General Anibal
Guevara and former Minister of the Interior
Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz of Guatemala;
·
Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon of Israel;
·
President Laurent Gbagbo, former President
General Robert Gueï, Minister of Interior Emile
Boga Doudou and Minister of Defence Moïse
Lida Kouassi of Côte d’Ivoire;
·
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
B O S N I A -
H E R Z E G O V I N A
General political background
Following the general elections of November 2000, a
new government was formed in Republika Srpska
(RS) in January 2001, headed by Mladen Ivani
. In
the Federation, Karlo Filipovi
was elected President
in February and a new government led by Prime
Minister Alija Behmen was sworn in in March. Also
in February a new state government was formed by
Prime Minister Bo
idar Mati
, a member of the
Alliance for Change (a coalition representing ten non-
nationalist political parties which had been formed in
January). However Prime Minister Mati
resigned on
22 June after the state parliament failed to pass a new
election law. In June, Jo
o Kri
anovi
took over the
function of state President from
ivko Radiši
.
In both entities multi-ethnic Constitutional
Commissions were formed in order to implement
decisions issued by the Constitutional Court in 2000,
in particular its ruling granting equal constitutional
rights to Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslim), Croats and
Serbs
throughout
the
country.
Until
full
implementation is achieved the Commissions’ role is
to safeguard the interests of all ethnic groups in each
of the entities, and to prevent ethnic discrimination in
the legislative process. However, by the end of June
neither entity had yet amended its constitution in line
with the Constitutional Court decisions.
On 7 March the High Representative removed
Bosnian Croat Presidency member Ante Jelavi
and
three other officials of the Bosnian HDZ (
Hrvatska
demokratska zajednica - Croatian Democratic Union)
from their positions in reaction to their role in a
declaration of self-administration for Croat-controlled
Cantons in the Federation several days earlier. The
declaration was apparently motivated by the
dissatisfaction of HDZ-led politicians with newly
imposed amendments on electoral procedures and
constitutional changes, which they feared might
adversely affect the position and rights of Bosnian
Croats. In March and April, in the wake of these
events, several thousand Bosnian Croat members of
the police and armed forces reportedly refused to
recognize the newly appointed Federation authorities
and pledged loyalty to the Croatian National
Assembly - a self-styled body of Bosnian Croat
representatives, which had issued the declaration of
self-administration - although there were indications
that many of them did so under pressure.
In April, violence erupted in Mostar and some
other predominantly Croat towns in southern
Herzegovina when Stabilization Forces (SFOR) led
by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
conducted a number of raids on branches of the
Hercegovacka banka, which was suspected of having
conducted substantial illegal money transfers on
behalf of the Bosnian Croat armed forces (Hrvatsko
vije
e obrane - HVO). Protestors, who threw stones at
SFOR troops and attacked staff of the local Office of
the High Representative, reportedly included Bosnian
Croat police officers who had left the Federation
police forces earlier in the year. The Cantonal Interior
Minister, Dragan Mandi
, who was present at these
demonstrations and apparently condoned the violence,
was removed from his position by the High
Representative in late April.
Also in April, a bomb was planted in a car in front
of the house of the family of two Bosnian Croat
brothers, Mladen and Jerko Ivankovi
, in Široki
Brijeg near Mostar. Both men are politicians
representing the non-nationalist Alliance for Change
as well as influential local businessmen, and had
several days previously refused to pay taxes to the
Croatian National Assembly. In the same month the
High Representative issued a decision authorizing the
Sarajevo Cantonal judiciary to investigate and
prosecute incidents of violence and intimidation that
had taken place in the Cantons in which Croat self-
administration had been effectively established. No
criminal prosecutions had been launched by the end of
June.
In May, the political crisis was partially resolved
when Bosnian Croat army units, who had left their
barracks after the declaration of self-administration,
returned to the Federation Army.
Political violence
Throughout the period of review, AI expressed
concerns about the high incidence of politically and
ethnically motivated violence, particularly that which
targeted minority returnees in various parts of the
country. In many cases the authorities failed to
adequately investigate and prosecute the perpetrators
of such attacks. In the majority of cases in the RS
impunity for return-related violence was the norm,
especially in the eastern part of the entity. In Bratunac
and Bijeljina (RS), the United Nations International
Police Task Force (IPTF) Commissioner removed
several police chiefs from their positions in
respectively February and March, primarily for their
failure to adequately respond to and investigate
repeated incidents of ethnically-motivated violence.
There were some prosecutions related to
ethnically motivated violence in the Federation. In
January, two Bosnian Croats were found guilty by the
Sarajevo Cantonal Court of attacking an IPTF unit
which was attempting to inspect the local police
station in Stola
in December 1998, in the context of
endemic return-related violence in that area. They