After the fall of Jajce AFTER successfully resisting a five month siege, the Bosnian town of Jajce fell to the Serbo-Yugoslav army on October 29, only after bombing from the air. Of course, Radio Belgrade has denied that the Serb air force took part in the fighting (which would have been contrary to the undertakings made by Serb leaders in Geneva to cease using combat planes against Croat and Muslim civilians). SLAVKO MIHALJCEK — November 6, 1992 H OWEVER, speaking on the telephone, inhabitants of Banja Luka, the Serb army's biggest air base inside Bosnia, confirmed that many sorties had taken off
Lesbians and gay men in the United States army THE ECCO conference was also attended by the American Citizen Soldier organization, which has existed since the Vietnam War. It has supported and still supports, Gis who refused to fight in the Gulf War and has taken up the fight against racism. Citizen Soldier is currently involved in a campaign over lesbian and gay rights in the US army. The notes below are based on Citizen Soldier's report to the Prague ECCO conference.
According to US Department of Defence Directive no. 1332/14: "homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission".
The enlistment contract involves explicit statements that the enlistee is not homosexual or bisexual.
In fact, however, tens of thousands of Americans who are homosexual have served and continue to serve in the US armed forces. The result is a permanent witch-hunt. Over the past 10 years over 13,000 Gls have been discharged for homosexuality. Military and civil police work closely together. They send undercover agents into clubs and discos that cater to gay men or lesbians. Soldiers already facing trial for sodomy are used as informers. For some reason female Gis are three times more likely than males to be discharged for homosexuality. In the Marines the rate climbs to eight times as high. * contirmed that many sorties had taken oft from the base in the last days of the siege of Jajce.
The loss of Jajce is a big blow to the Bosnian population. The Red Cross has indicated that tens of thousands of refugees have fled under fire towards Travnik which is already overflowing with some 30,000 previous refugees. If the SerboYugoslav army continues its advance, Travnik's poorly armed self-defence
A symbolic town
THE small town of Jajce has been a symbol for generations of Yugoslavs. Liberated by the
Communist partisans from the
Germans and the Serb Chetniks - who had already massacred tens of thousands of Muslim civilians in the region - it was here that the Constituent
Assembly of all the Yugoslav peoples proclaimed the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia in 7
November 1943. *
November 23, 1992
ex-YUGOSLAVIA forces will not be able to resist for long. The very survival of some 200 to 300,000 Muslim and Croat inhabitants of central Bosnia is threatened; their situation is made even more precarious because neighbouring Croatia, where there are already more than 1,800,000 refugees, is refusing to accept more.
The tone of the military communiques coming out of Belgrade is highly disturbing. They talk of the decisive battle with the "Islamic enemy". Serb military officials are no longer even trying to deny the massacres of Muslim civilians denounced by the Mazowiecki Commission. According to Belgrade's official radio, the mass graves, which can be smelt near the besieged towns, do not contain the bodies of civilians executed in cold blood but "the bodies of hundreds of Islamic fanatics who threw themselves disarmed against Serb fire"
In the background to these battlefield developments is a clash between Milosevic's regime in Belgrade and the prime minister of the rump Yugoslavia, Milan Panic, who is now supported by the Serb had gone on to lose a further vote in the Upper House, in which an equal number of Serbian and Montenegrin deputies sit.
To general surprise, however, the Upper House voted down the censure motion by one vote. This was due to the votes of the Montenegrin deputies, under Russian influence. The previous Sunday evening, the Moscow news agency had warned Milosevic against "an adventure that will be a catastrophe for the Serb people".
### Milosevic continues offensive
Despite this setback, which may open the way for new elections in Serbia, Milosevic has continued his offensive. His formidable military machine is continuing to lay waste whole areas of Croatia and Bosnia. Over the weekend of October 31-November 1, some regions that have been "cleansed" of their Croat and Muslim inhabitants proclaimed their fusion with the "Serb fatherland".
Milosevic has recently reorganized his police forces with the unconcealed aim of unleashing a massive repression inside Serbia if needed.
The terrible economic and social cost of this ever-spreading war has resulted in deepening social despair. The violence that this releases has been used by the lumpen Communist regime against Muslims, Croats and Albanians. However any significant defeat for the Serb army in Bosnia increases the likelihood of an social explosion inside Serbia; a social mobilization would, in its turn, lead to the disintegration of the army.
That, at least is what was passing through the mind of an army spokesman when he wrote: "How far will the regime go in subordinating the political system to its own narrow caste interests and how would the army react if there were a social explosion?
"When hungry people start attacking supermarkets there will only be two parties left in Serbia: those who no longer have anything and those who defend their privileges. The outcome of the conflict is completely uncertain." * democratic opposition and the peace movement. The dictator and his party urgently need to make territorial gains to remain in power. On the other hand, Panic and his supporters want a ceasefire in order to restart negotiations and economic relations in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
### Decisive power struggle in Belgrade These two orientations cannot be reconciled and a decisive power struggle is now underway in Belgrade. After a sharp 90 votes to 20 defeat in a motion of censure in the federal House of Deputies (dominated by a coalition of Milosevic's party and Seselj's fascists) the federal government would have had to resign if it
Milosevic's police MILOSEVIC's 48,000 strong special police force is equipped with heavy weapons and armoured cars. A warning was recently given to "traitors of all stripes" (the Federal government, Serb oppositionists and wavering military men). At the very moment when Federal prime minister Panic was meeting Croat president Tudjman in Geneva, the Serb police stormed the Federal police headquarters in Belgrade. The aim of this operation was to give a show of force, but also to seize documents that would prove that the Yugoslav war in all its phases has been ordered and led 8 by the Serb dictator. *
The Panic alternative THE possibility that Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic may lose his internal power struggle with the rival duo of Milan Panic and Dobrica Cosic, respectively prime minister and president of the rump Yugoslav Federation does not, unfortunately, herald an approaching end to the crisis in the Balkans.
Panic, an American businessman, was brought in by Milosevic himself to be the acceptable face of Serbia to Western official opinion. In the eyes of Western diplomats a more amenable government in Belgrade would be highly welcome. From the Serb side, such a government could perhaps negotiate an end to sanctions and diplomatic isolation without surrendering too much of the "gains" of the war.
However, it is by no means clear that Panic/Cosic will get the upper hand over Milosevic. Furthermore, their present willingness to negotiate with all the adversaries of Milosevic's Greater Serbia policy - including leaders of the Kosovo Albanians — does not tie them to specific and concrete concessions.
Cosic was at one time the ideologue of Milosevic's Greater Serb policy. The Panic/Cosic ticket, meanwhile, enjoys the support of the current and former heads of the Yugoslav army. The former, Zivota Panic, bears responsibility for, among other things, the destruction of the Croatian town of Vukovar in November 1991.
While individuals can, of course, change their allegiances to save their skins, it is unlikely that the Yugoslav army as a whole would be inclined to contemplate a democratic settlement of such "internal" Serbian matters as the issue of Serbia's Albanian majority province of Kosovo. Nor is it obvious that Panic/Cosic could control the activities of various armed militia spawned by the Milosevic regime.
Nor is Milosevic the only Balkan leader guilty of an expansionist policy. The Croat leadership, for example, is pursuing a Greater Croatia. It should, furthermore, be borne in mind that there are a whole series of interlinked flashpoints in the Balkans and the surrounding countries; thus the solution to the crisis does not lie in Serbia alone. - C. M. *
International Viewpoint # 239 • November 23, 1992
BRAZIL