PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release : 20 August 1998

ICG Publishes Report Examining Measures to Promote Drvar Returns

The International Crisis Group (ICG) publishes today a report analysing the measures necessary to promote refugee returns to Drvar.

The 20-page report entitled Impunity in Drvar is a look forward at what practical steps can, and should, be taken in the next four weeks before the elections, as well as in the coming months to create conditions for refugee return and ensure that extremists do not, literally, get away with murder.

Croat extremists put Drvar -- whose pre-war population was 97 percent Serb -- in the spotlight in April 1998 with murders and riots against returning Serbs and the international community. In the wake of the riots senior international officials flocked to Drvar, among them the High Representative Carlos Westendorp, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Wesley Clark, the heads of most international agencies in Bosnia and even several US Congressmen.

All the high-level visitors stated emphatically that violence was unacceptable, that the right of Serbs to return would be supported, and that those responsible would be brought to justice. However, despite the uncompromising language, nearly four months later, the international community has failed to restore confidence in the return process.

The paper examines why Drvar warrants special attention, examines the background to the violence as well as the April 1998 riots themselves and the international response. It offers an assessment of the current situation and concludes with a series of recommendations which, if implemented, could help turn about the security situation and support both Croat and Serb returns.

ICG has already examined Drvar in two detailed municipality studies, in House Burnings: Obstruction of the Right to Return in Drvar of June 1997 and Hollow Promise? Return of Serb Displaced Persons to Drvar, Grahovo and Glamoc in January 1998. Moreover, in the wake of the April 1998 riots ICG published a snap assessment of the violence entitled Immediate Measures Urged in Response to the Drvar Violence.

Read the full report, Impunity in Drvar.

For further information and copies of the report, contact ICG in Sarajevo at (+387 71) 447 845, in Brussels at (+322) 502 9038, or in Washington at (+1 202) 986 9750.

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