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Christus Rex Information ServiceMOSCOW (CNN) -- At least 11 Russian servicemen were killed after Russian troops and Chechen rebels clashed in western Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported Monday.
The Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian official in the Chechen capital of Grozny as saying that 11 soldiers died when their patrol was ambushed by rebel fighters. Another soldier reportedly was killed in a separate attack. Twenty- nine soldiers were injured, according to Interfax.
Over a 24-hour period, the rebels had attacked military posts at least 24 times, mostly in Grozny, according to a Russian military spokesman in Chechnya quoted by Interfax.
IRIAN JAYA PROVINCE, Indonesia (CNN) -- As many as 400 protesters, mainly students from a local university, participated Monday in violent demonstrations in Jayupura, the capital of the Irian Jaya province, military officials said.
Protesters burned cars and a market as well as vandalized several buildings in the capital. Some reports say at least three people were killed and others were injured during the riots.
The protests were triggered by the arrival in Jayapura of the body of Thomas Wapai Wainggai, an Irian separatist leader who died in a Jakarta jail on Tuesday, a military spokesman said.
Wainggai, 59, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for proclaiming an independent Melanesian state in Irian Jaya, the Indonesian portion of New Guinea. He died as a result of heart problems, a prison official said last week.
KIEV (Mar 19, 1996 08:51 a.m. EST) - U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Tuesday criticised as irresponsible the Russian parliament's vote last week denouncing the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Christopher told reporters before launching into talks with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma that the international community would resolutely oppose any attempt to reverse the independence of former Soviet republics.
"Last week's vote in the Russian Duma (lower house of parliament) to reconstitute the Soviet Union was highly irresponsible," Christopher said inside the ornate Marinsky presidential palace.
"It was disturbing to us as I know it was for Ukraine. Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union are independent, sovereign nations. Any unilateral attempt to change their status will be rejected by the international community."
The Communist-dominated Duma last Friday voted by a large majority to denounce the Russian parliament's 1991 resolution confirming the breakup of the Soviet Union and creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin denounced the parliamentary vote, which has no legal status but is viewed as a Communist-inspired move to hurt the president in his bid for re-election in June. Kuchma and leaders of other former Soviet republics also denounced the vote.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Mar 19, 1996 08:09 a.m. EST) -- Muslim-Croat Federation police drove into the former Serb district of Grbavica today, uniting Sarajevo after nearly four years of war and ending the looting, arson and terror campaign of Serb gangs.
To the waves of a few early risers, 100 federation police drove over the bridge from downtown Sarajevo shortly after 6 a.m. (1 a.m. EST).
Three hours later, thousands of people started crossing the bridge into Grbavica, led by five men carrying the white and blue Bosnian flag with gold lillies. There were hugs, kisses and tears of joy as families separated by four years of war were reunited.
Rade Ognjanovic, 37, sneaked across the bridge Monday night and was reunited with his mother, whom he hadn't seen since the war began. He said she prepared a pie for him, but was so excited she forget to turn the oven on to bake it.
"My legs were trembling, not from fear, but from excitement," he said. "It is a feeling words cannot describe."
The handover came just hours after departing Serbs tossed grenades and set more buildings ablaze before fleeing Grbavica, the last of five Serb areas handed over to the federation. NATO-led troops seized 12 arsonists and a Bosnian Serb policeman who tried to rape a woman at gunpoint Monday, but Serb police freed them immediately.
"Federal police will guarantee full security for all people here. We don't expect any problems," Sarajevo police chief Enes Bezdrob said today as he arrived.
The chains around Sarajevo have broken "absolutely and definitely," he declared.
Bezdrob said police would control entry to Grbavica for several days to prevent a repetition of the violence that followed the turnover of the four other Serb suburbs, especially Ilidza.
"Today, we arrived in our Grbavica. In this part of the city, we finalize the reintegration of Sarajevo into its historic entity," Interior Minister Avdo Hebib said at a ceremony outside the Grbavica police station.
The mixed federation police force -- 75 Muslims, 20 Serbs and 5 Croats -- immediately broke into groups of threes and started patrolling the district.
Most Serbs have left Grbavica and their other neighborhood enclaves in Sarajevo, saying they can't live securely under the control of their former enemies. Bosnian Serb leaders have been accused by international officials of intimidating residents into leaving.
The exodus that has turned Sarajevo, once multi-ethnic, into a much more Muslim city. Still, with Sarajevo united, a key provision of the U.S.-brokered peace accord has been achieved.
By today, all areas to be transferred by the warring parties under the peace agreement must be completed. Hebib said federal police moved into a number of villages today, including several near the southeastern city of Gorazde.
The departure of the Serbs and takeover by the government brought overwhelming relief to some Grbavica residents, including Abdulah Alajbegovic, a 57-year-old Muslim, and his wife, Mileva, a 64-year-old Serb.
"For me, the last four years were hell," he said. "Today is my second birthday, like I've been born again."
During the war, Alajbegovic said Serbs tried to kill him several times and once hung him, but let him down. During the past few days of arson and looting in Grbavica, he and his wife remained barricaded in their apartment.
It took 30 minutes for them to remove the barricade this morning.
Franjo Bogdanic, 63, a Croat who lived in Grbavica through the war, said he was so frightened he never left his apartment. His wife, Rada, 60, would get food for them.
"The most important thing is that we have stayed alive. All the days we stayed in Grbavica were horrible, but the last few days were a nightmare," he said. "If it wasn't for the NATO soldiers, I think either we would be killed or our apartments would be burned."
Bosnia's Muslim-led government also came under pressure from the NATO-led peace force to withdraw its troops and military equipment from most of Sarajevo.
A 2.5-mile demilitarized zone reflecting boundaries agreed in the Dayton peace plan comes into effect at midnight along a 625-mile line cutting through Bosnia. The main change is in Sarajevo, where the separation zone is being widened.
Bosnian army commander Gen. Rasim Delic told Associated Press Television that army units would withdraw from barracks in the zone, but will remain in Sarajevo.
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