SREBRENICA WOMEN GATHER IN FRONT OF WESTENDORP'S OFFICE

( Editorial: --> 7101 ) SARAJEVO, July 11 (Hina) - A group of 30 women from Srebrenica and Podrinje gathered on Saturday in front of the Sarajevo-based office of the international high representative for Bosnia to hand him a list with the names of members of their families who are still filed as missing. The women demanded that light be finally shed on their fate. July 11 this year is the third anniversary marking the day when Srebrenica fell in memory of the largest massacre which took place in Europe after World War Two. On July 11, 1995 Serb forces commanded by Ratko Mladic entered the UN-protected enclave in eastern Bosnia and killed at least 8,000 Muslims. Unlike previous years, there was no mass gathering of women from Srebrenica in Sarajevo this year, as the central event marking the tragedy was organised in Tuzla, a town in north-eastern Bosnia. "They have sent our people to Tuzla so that we could not bother them in Sarajevo", an older woman shouted in front of the high representative's office and produced a photograph of two young men. While waiting, deputy high representative Hanns Schumacher talked to five children from Srebrenica who lost their parents. The children handed him a letter demanding that someone finally establish what exactly happened to their fathers. The women had to wait almost an hour to be received. One of them told a reporter "(...) we are not here because we like it. We have come here because (Bosnian Presidency chairman) Alija (Izetbegovic) did not want to either receive or hear us out." Appearing a while later, the high representative's spokesman Simon Haselock passed on Ambassador Schumacher's message that he could not receive them because he was busy, but that he would like to read any written messages. Haselock suggested talks with the high representative in the near future. In an ensuing discussion, Haselock and the Srebrenica women tackled the fate of the missing, the Srebrenica massacre, the fact whether Yugoslav President Milosevic ought to be addressed as Sir or if he was a war criminal, and whether Generals Janvier and Morillon, and Yasushi Akashi and Butros Gali, should go to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Haselock could not say when the fate of 8,000 missing persons would be determined. The process has just begun and will take time, he told the women. "We have been promised everything and today we have nothing", said a woman whose husband and son were killed in 1992. "Not even the sirens have been sounded today", she added quietly. (hina) ha 111848 MET jul 98