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Christus Rex Information ServiceGROZNY, Russia (Feb 22, 1996 8:39 p.m. EST) -- Guerrillas blew up a gas pipeline in southern Chechnya on Thursday, igniting a fierce fire, and Russia strengthened its forces on the eve of a grim Chechen anniversary.
Leaders of Chechnya's Russian-backed government blamed the blast, and a similar attack in the neighboring republic of Dagestan, on separatist Chechen fighters.
No casualties were reported. But amid reports of a new clash between rebels and Russian troops, Moscow boosted its forces around Chechnya as a precaution against what officials called further provocations by the rebels.
Friday is the 52nd anniversary of the mass deportation of Chechens by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazi army. More than half the population of 425,000 Chechens and Ingush, another Caucasus Mountains people, died on the journey to the steppes of Central Asia.
The Chechens were allowed to return to their home territory in the 1950s.
Last year, separatist leaders threatened to unleash a "bloodbath" against Russian invaders on the anniversary, although they did not follow through. Russian troops entered Chechnya in December 1994 to try to put down the republic's drive for independence.
Doku Zavgayev, the leader of Chechnya's Moscow-installed government, has urged Chechens to maintain discretion in marking the tragic day.
The early-morning explosion near Shelkovskaya in northeastern Chechnya disrupted natural gas supplies from Russia and started a blaze that took firefighters hours to extinguish, ITAR-Tass said.
A separate attack on the pipeline occurred at almost the same time in Dagestan. Dagestani officials said a shell fired from across the River Terek in Chechnya ruptured the line and left many Dagestani villages and towns without gas.
Russian workers stopped the gas leaks and planned to work around the clock to repair the damaged sections, ITAR-Tass said. Work was hindered by the many mines planted in the area -- near the village of Pervomayskaya, where Chechen hostage-takers and Russian troops fought fiercely last month.
Abdulla Bugayev, first vice premier of the pro-Moscow Chechen government, told ITAR-Tass the bombing was a "provocation aimed at destabilizing the situation."
Chechen fighters who were forced from their devastated stronghold of Novogroznensky this week took up positions in another village and were battling Russian forces there, Russian officials said.
The separatist fighters reportedly began shelling Russian troops near Tsentoroi, 35 miles southeast of the Chechen capital, Grozny, late Wednesday. Six Russian soldiers were reported killed.
The guerrillas may have moved from nearby Novogroznensky, just four miles away, after the Russian military claimed victory in a fierce battle for that stronghold.
In Moscow, a commission led by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin met Thursday to work on a peace plan for Chechnya as ordered by Yeltsin.
"Chechnya is our problem, our pain," Chernomyrdin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying before the meeting started. "Chechnya is Russia; that is why nobody will resolve all the issues of the crisis settlement and economic reconstruction for us."
Yeltsin's powerful Security Council is to consider the final recommendations of the Chernomyrdin commission and a separate panel at a meeting on Wednesday. Yeltsin has indicated he will call for a partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.
In recent weeks, Hong Kong newspapers have published reports that China is gearing up for a large-scale military exercise in the southeast province of Fujian, which faces Taiwan.
The exercise has been interpreted as yet another menacing move intended to cool Taiwan's desire to raise its international profile. Taiwan estimates that China has moved 150,000 troops into Fujian.
China is extremely secretive about its military, and only last week, its foreign ministry spokesman, Shen Guofang, said he had no knowledge of any exercise.
But on Thursday, the Chinese-funded newspaper Wen Wei Po, based in Hong Kong, reported in a dispatch about lunar New Year celebrations that holiday chitchat had given way to talk of troops, war games and tensions with Taiwan.
The article in the Chinese-language newspaper did not provide any information about planned maneuvers, troop strength, or other details. But it did discuss military activity in Fujian province and - though low on statistics - it was clearly intended to signal to Taiwan that the war games will take place.
By releasing details about military preparations in Fujian, China would also seem to be trying to influence the Taiwanese election by sending another pointed message: If Taiwanese voters return President Lee Teng-hui to office, they can expect more friction with China.
Lee is expected to win handily, even though tensions with China have unsettled the Taiwanese people and the island's financial markets.
Before the lunar New Year, which fell on Monday, people in Fujian "saw many unusual goings-on - military vehicles and artillery rumbling down roads, military equipment lined up on the beaches for miles, airports often shut at night for military flights,'' the newspaper said.
Cabbage, not usually eaten in southern China, had appeared in large quantity in local markets, the newspaper said, which could indicate that troops have been brought down from northern China, where cabbage is a staple.
And at holiday gatherings this year, Wen Wei Po wrote, "the topics of conversation for Fujian people changed.
"When they met, they found themselves talking about `military exercises' and asking for `military intelligence,''' the newspaper wrote.
Friction between Taiwan and China flared last year after Lee became the first Taiwanese leader to visit the United States. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, accused Lee of pursuing independence for his island - a claim Lee denies.
China responded by holding war games and testing missiles near Taiwan.
The planned military exercises are generally supported by people in Fujian, Wen Wei Po said. It described how a Mr. Lin who was flying back for the New Year was delayed for several hours because the airport at Fuzhou, the provincial capital, was shut for military flights.
When he finally landed, the newspaper said, family and friends who had waited in the cold greeted him with enthusiastic cries of "It's for the reunification of the motherland!''
By The Associated Press
February 22, 1996
Web posted at: 7:30 p.m. EST (0030 GMT)
From Correspondent Brent Sadler
VOGOSCA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- Bosnian Serbs in a Sarajevo suburb frantically packed their bags Thursday, taking flight in the waning hours before their district switches over to the Bosnian Muslim-Croat federation.
Hundreds of Serb trucks and buses clogged the only route out of the Sarajevo suburb of Vogosca as heavy snow pelted the area for the third straight day.
Serbs, unable to find transportation, loaded possessions on their backs and trekked through the wintry conditions, joining a growing trail of refugees in the chaotic exodus.
Meanwhile, Serb-induced flames engulfed shops, offices and homes in Vogosca -- a reminder of the Serbs' unwillingness to accept the imposed transfer of power. NATO troops and international police force officers could only watch.
For Serbs in Vogosca, time is running out. The notion of waiting to see what happens after Friday's government handover is not something they're willing to consider.
And thus, they are taking off by road or foot, casting themselves into a difficult and uncertain future.
"What future? We haven't got one," cried one woman. "We don't know where to go or what to do next."
The status change for the Sarajevo suburbs will affect the lives of tens of thousands of Serbs in the weeks to come. In Vogosca -- the first suburb to be reunified with the Bosnian government --, the mayor anticipates only 800 of the 8,000 residents will remain.
International forces have tried to assure Serbs they have nothing to fear, but their calls have been ignored.
The "tragedy" of the situation is that the exodus is unnecessary, said Maj. Paul Brooks of the IFOR Information Campaign. IFOR is NATO's peace-keeping force.
"The people there are, of course, confused. They think that the federation police looks like a bunch of Mujahideen fighters, which is not true," said Alexander Ivanko with the International Police Task Force.
"When they see that the federation police are the same residents of Sarajevo that they are," Ivanko added, "then maybe the tension won't be as high as it is now."
The NATO-led peace force officially refused a Serb request to escort vehicles, saying it would violate the peace accord's provisions for free movement.
But Serb civilian vehicles in the suburb of Grbavica traveled behind NATO troops as they cleared roads of snow and conducted regular patrols, NATO spokesman Maj. Herve Gourmelon said.
Armored NATO vehicles drove ahead of seven Serb cars and trucks to the outskirts of the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo. The NATO vehicles then turned around and drove back along a transit road through government territory into the Serb suburbs, followed by several dozen empty trucks.
"It may have the appearance of an escorted convoy, with Serb trucks or buses traveling in line with NATO vehicles, but it is not," Gourmelon said.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Feb 22, 1996 8:45 p.m. EST) - In darkness and driving snow, hundreds of cars, trucks and trailers crawled along roads around Sarajevo Thursday night as Serbs made a desperate bid to leave a suburb due to revert to Muslim-Croat control Friday.
Some people trudged through the slush clutching bags. A few had piled their bundles onto toboggans.
At one junction near the airport, a convoy struggled out toward Serb territory. Other vehicles passed the other way in a late effort to reach families and belongings still in the Vogosca suburb.
At one point a caravan of half-a-dozen vehicles led by French gendarmes in a jeep rolled up from a third direction.
A harried-looking gendarme jumped out.
"Can you ask these people where they are going? I don't have an interpreter," he asked reporters.
He was one of the few members of the international police force or the NATO-lead peacekeeping army IFOR to be seen during a tour of the roads after dark.
Breakdowns of old jalopies compounded the misery and delays. The lines of headlights piercing the gloom and lighting up war-shattered buildings added an apocalyptic air to the scenes.
Serb civilians have failed to be reassured by the international presence in Sarajevo and have dismissed appeals from IFOR and the Bosnian government for them to stay in the suburbs.
Vogosca is the first of five suburbs which will be handed over to the Muslim-Croat Federation by March 19 under the terms of the Dayton peace accord, which ended 43 months of war pitting neighbor against neighbor.
In Vogosca, the last of the Serb policemen were abandoning their headquarters and climbing into a waiting bus. The Federation police were scheduled to arrive at 6 a.m.
Other townsfolk were busy loading vans and cars while on a hillside, three buildings in a farm were ablaze.
An Irish policeman at the International Police Task Force post said it was likely the houses had once belonged to Muslims and were torched by Serb refugees who had occupied them and were now fleeing once again.
The school was also on fire, he said. Scattered shots had been heard in the town.
"I don't think anyone's going to get much sleep tonight," he said.
ITALIAN soldiers from the Nato-led peacekeeping force, Ifor, came yesterday within an ace of confronting, and possibly arresting, the Bosnian Serb "president", Radovan Karadzic, who heads the wanted list at the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. The Italian patrol, on a routine mission to Pale, the Bosnian Serb "capital", were barred by Serb bodyguards from the car park outside the building in which Bosnian Serb politicians work.
They had no idea that Karadzic was on the premises, according to an Ifor spokesman, Maj Peter Bullock. He said: "The Italians were . . . escorting Serbs back from a meeting in Sarajevo. They delivered the three men, then left."
The bodyguards reacted as if the vehicles carrying the armed Italians had come to pull in Karadzic. The scene was witnessed from a distance by Dusan Stojanovic, the Associated Press reporter in Pale. "They were turned back by dozens of Karadzic's personal security guards, who cocked their machine-guns," he reported. "The Nato troops turned round and left."
Moments later Karadzic came out of the building and began ranting about the charges which have been laid against him in the Hague. Nato troops have been issued with a poster showing photographs of 16 Serb and Croat leaders wanted by the Hague court - the faces of Karadzic and his military leader, Gen Ratko Mladic, prominent among them.
"Some people are behaving as if we are already convicted," Karadzic said yesterday. "This is disastrous for the tradition of the law in the West and I can't understand why they are only accusing, and not trying to understand. "The international community is doing what is easiest, just accusing the Serbs."
When a photographer snapped Karadzic as he left surrounded by bodyguards, the Bosnian Serb leader barked: "Am I ever going to see this picture, or is it going straight to the Hague?" Had Karadzic left his office a few minutes sooner, the Italians would have been in a quandary. Under the Dayton peace accords, Ifor troops are bound to arrest suspected war criminals on the wanted list.
This was clarified in Rome at the weekend at the special summit on the Bosnian peace agreement. The Italian Foreign Minister, Susanna Agnelli, said the 52 now indicted would have to be apprehended "but there might be amnesty for those not accused by name." In Rome there was speculation that it had been agreed among the international powers trying to enforce the Dayton accords that a major effort is to be made to arrest Karadzic. It has been recognised that arresting Gen Ratko Mladic would be trickier as it might start serious fighting between the Bosnian Serb forces and Ifor.
Mladic still rides high in the affections of the Bosnian Serbs, and his personal following extends beyond the Bosnian Serb Army to much of the Serb-based Army in the rump Yugoslav Federation, now consisting of Serbia and Montenegro. The President of the Hague War Crimes Tribunal, Antonio Cassese, said yesterday that he expected Bosnian Muslims to be indicted by the court next month. So far all those accused are Serbs and Croats.
Judge Cassese was in Paris to rally support and raise more funds for the war crimes investigation. The French government wants all suspects named by the court to be brought to trial in the Hague as soon as possible. But yesterday Hervey de Charette, the French Foreign Minister, was uncharacteristically downbeat about the way the Dayton accords were being enforced in Bosnia. The brave words in Rome, he suggested, were not being matched by developments on the ground.
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