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| YUGOSLAVIA armed conflict undid 1990?s promising advances in human rights and brought about serious new human rights violations. The armed conflict claimed thousands of lives by year?s end, including those of many civilian noncombatants. In the areas most affected by the fighting., there wore widespread and credible reports of atrocities, including the massacre of villagers, the killing of prisoners, the use of human shields. and the taking of hostages. Such behavior was rarely punished. Croats and Serbs both fled areas of Croatia that came under the control of the other ethnic group4 In the autonomous province of Kosovo, Serbian authorities intensified repressive measures against the majority Albanian population, eliminating virtually all Albanian—language schooling. They arrested and beat hundreds of Albanians on trumped-up charges and suppressed the Albanian cormiunity?s attempt to organiEe a referendum on Kosovo?s future. In March Serbian police and army troops in Belgrade used force to repress large-scale opposition demonstrations to demand the Serbian government?s ouster, resulting in two deaths and hundreds of injuries. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Section 1Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a.Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing Political killings occurred with increasing frequency in 1991, spurred by violent rivalry between political and ethnic groups and the breakdown in civil order. Serbs and Croats regularly accused each other of "massacres? and "genocide" against innocent civilians (see Section i.g.). While both sides were prone to exaggerate for propaganda purposes and hard evidence was often scarce, the statements of those fleeing the fighting and other evidence make clear that many deaths resulted from sumary executions on ethnic or political grounds. For example, some 80 Croatian residents of the town of Dalj were reportedly massacred in August. At least 35 Croats, mostly elderly, in the Croatian village of Vocin, were murdered and mutilated in December, apparently by Serbian irregular forces. Displaced persons alleged that in at least one instance Croatian journalists who witnessed the killing of Croatian civilians by Serbian irregulars were themselves executed. There were also credible reports of Croatian forces killing unarmed Serbian villagers in the Sisak area and in Sarvas. In a Croatian village near Glina, Serbian irregulars reportedly murdered 21 Croatian civilians aged between S and 65; Serbian authorities in the area acknowledged the incident and promised to investigate. There is no reliable way to ascertain the number of such killings. In an armed conflict with constantly shifting battle lines and weakening civil authority throughout the country, there were numerous reports of killings in areas not related to the fighting. For example, two Muslims were shot in Bosnia, apparently by Serbs angered by Muslim resistance to conscription. A number of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo died at the hands of police or the army; nine ethnic Albanians residing in a contested area of Croatia were reportedly murdered by Serbian irrequlars in November. Several Croatian policemen were arrested in Pula in connection with the murder of a Serb. 47 |
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