NO PROGRESS IN DAYTON ACCORDS WITHOUT ARREST OF WAR CRIMINALS

SARAJEVO, Nov 14 (Hina) - At the moment there is no necessary pressure by the international community which would lead to the apprehension of key war crimes suspects in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which significantly hinders the implementation of the Dayton Agreement and the return of refugees and displaced persons, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) official, Holly Cartner, said in Sarajevo on Saturday. Cartner, acting HRW director for Europe and central Asia, told reporters that crucial progress in the consolidation of peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot be achieved until all war crimes suspects are brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague. At least twenty suspects are walking freely around parts of Bosnia- Herzegovina which are under the control of Bosnian Croats or Serbs. If Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, Milan Martic and Ivica Rajic are not arrested, it could jeopardise the implementation of the basic provisions of the Dayton Agreement and bring into question the return of refugees which has been under all expectations this year as it is, she stressed. An analysis of the situation ion the field carried out on a regular basis by HRW representatives shows that the violation of human rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina was for the most part ethnically spurred, with minority ethnic groups and returnees are most often the targets. President of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Srdjan Dizdarevic, said that the police and judicial authorities had not to this day discovered the perpetrators of 26 murders which had occurred during the past two years, 12 Bosniaks (Moslems, 10 Croats and four Serbs. The victims were killed because of their nationality, he said. Progress in the improvement of human rights conditions is blocked because the authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina are the same structures which were earlier responsible for human rights violations, Dizdarevic stressed. (hina) lml