CRIMES IN BOSNIA ARE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, BASSIOUNI SAYS

WASHINGTON, Apr 4 (Hina) - The UN expert commission has submitted a 3,500-page report on international law violations in former Yugoslavia to the UN Security Council. The report is to be published by the end of April. Commission chairman Cherif Bassiouni yesterday outlined the main points of his report before the US Congress Helsinki Committee. According to the Commission report, 200,000 people have been killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina; 500,000 have been detained in one of the 800 prison camps; 50,000 of the prisoners are believed to have been tortured. The Commission also investigated the "world's biggest mass rape case," looking into over 1,600 cases and interviewing 223 rape victims and witnesses. "We have 575 statements by victims, identifying the perpetrators," Bassiouni said. Rapes were conducted repeatedly and en masse, mostly in prison camps, he said. He stressed the "staggering" amount of suffering inflicted on people in Bosnia-Herzegovina over such a brief period. "We have confirmed the existence of mass graves containing three to five thousand bodies each," Bassiouni said. The Commission thoroughly investigated the Ovcara mass grave (near occupied Vukovar) where 204 Croats from the Vukovar hospital had been killed in the open. But Bassiouni said local authorities prevented the Commission from completing the investigation. The Commission also investigated Sector West, where there had been reports of 1,700 killed Serbs. "We found 19, not 1,700 bodies," Bassiouni said. The Commission did not complete the investigation because it was cut short by UN officials without a proper Security Council decision. The Commission also investigated the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which, according to Bassiouni, was not conducted on a haphasard basis. It was the same pattern in Foca, Gorazde, Srebrenica, Brcko, Banja Luka and Bihac, Bassiouni said. "The ethnic cleansing policy followed a strategic and political logic and was carried out according to a consistent pattern," Bassiouni said. The goal was to delimit Serb entities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia and connect them with Serbia and Montenegro. Referring to a "shortshigted" decision of UN bureaucracy to cut short the Commission's work, Bassiouni said the decision was aimed at a definite political goal. "Undoubtedly, there cannot be peace without justice, and there is no justice if truth is not established," he said. The Commission report classified crimes in Bosnia as "crimes against humanity." Asked if there was any evidence linking Serb leaders, namely Serbian President Milosevic and Bosnian Serb chieftain Karadzic, with the crimes, Bassiouni said that in cases such as attacks on Sarajevo, responsibility could be assigned to Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic. As for the responsibility of political leaders, it was necessary to prove a chain of command linking political and military officials. Recalling the crimes committed by troops mustered by Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan, first in Vukovar and then in Prijedor, Bassiouni said it was not very likely that this and many similar cases could have been carried out unbeknownst to high political leaders. (hina) mm as 051127 MET apr 95