CROATIA: SERBS DETAINED BY CROATIAN AUTHORITIES

(5 May 1995) Eng/Serbo-Croat/Nat

Croatia is holding about a thousand Serbian men who surrendered in the captured town of Pakrac after being given assurances that they would be granted amnesty.

Croatian authorities said they were searching for war criminals and took the men aged between 16 and 60 away in buses for questioning in the towns of Bjelovar and Varadzin.

Pakrac was recaptured by Croat troops in a 90-minute firefight on Thursday.

About 500 Serbian men, who were rounded up in the recaptured town of Pakrac by Croatian police, were taken 30 miles north to this sports hall in Bjelovar.

Croatian authorities had rounded up about a thousand men of the five-thousand Serb civilians who surrendered in the town of Pakrac, about 55 miles southeast of the capital Zagreb.

The police individually interviewed the Serbians aged between 16 and 60. They said they were searching for possible war criminals.

The men all dressed in civilian clothes were asked to strip down to their underwear before questioning.

The Serbs then waited in the school gym under the watchful eye of Croatian guards to hear about their fate.

Serb fighters in Pakrac waved the white flag on Thursday after a short but intense skirmish with Croatian troops.

The town was divided by the warring parties until this week, when a surprise Croatian attack cut off thousands of Serbs on their side of Pakrac.

The fighting was part of a limited military offensive by Croatian troops to take back some of the third of the country captured by rebel Serbs in a 1991 civil war.

Despite assurances to the United Nations that the Serbs in the town would be granted amnesty, Croatian authorities separated the men from the women and children and took them away in buses.

The women were asked to return to their homes.

Josko Moric, the Croatian deputy interior minister, walked around Pakrac Friday with police officials and talked with townspeople in the street during their inspection.

Gunter Baron, a European Union monitor, witnessed the round-up in Pakrac.

SOUNDBITE:
"The women, the children were the least harmed and only the men were detained and brought into Bjelovar. There were no women and no children between them. And the behaviour of the Croatian police which was in command of this action was absolutely correct, in a good manner, professional, competent."
SOUNDBITE: Gunter Baron, E-U Monitor

The U-N is concerned that there might have been human rights violations during the round-up which took place without their surveillance.

The chief U-N envoy in former Yugoslavia, Yasushi Akashi, commented after a meeting in Daruvar with the Croat interior minister.

SOUNDBITE:
"We expressed our concerns about what has been taking place, but we have been given assurances that our observers will have freedom to visit the camps where people are now being questioned."
SUPER CAPTION: Yasushi Akashi, U-N Special Envoy

Even though Pakrac and the surrounding area are supposed to be under U-N control, the Croatian forces have been giving the orders during recent events.

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