Bosnian Serb protesters in Brcko disperse after talks

July 21, 2000
Web posted at: 1:47 p.m. EDT (1747 GMT)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (Reuters) -- Two days of protests by Bosnian Serb refugees facing eviction from Muslim and Croat-owned homes in the strategic town of Brcko ended on Friday after negotiations with local officials.

Up to 500 Bosnian Serb refugees turned out on Friday after a demonstration by several thousand on Thursday during which some protesters tore down the Bosnian national flag from the local government building and burned it.

The top international body overseeing Bosnia's peace process condemned the burning of the flag, which it designed after the country's Muslim, Serb and Croat communities failed to agree on an emblem, and said it expected police to find the perpetrators.

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In a separate incident, Bosnian radio said unknown arsonists burned down an outhouse in Brcko belonging to the Muslim deputy speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament, Munib Jusufovic.

The Bosnian Serb refugees wanted the multi-ethnic housing commission in the town to be dismantled and replaced by a new body chosen by the local assembly.

A spokesman for the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo said the Brcko local authorities and OHR officials in the town had not agreed to dismantle the commission but that it would be absorbed into the town's local government.

Chris Bird of the OHR said the evictions in Brcko were no different from anywhere else in Bosnia, where they are part of a programme to try to allow people who fled their homes during the 1992-5 conflict to go back.

"Property laws are clear across the country," he said, and added that Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats had to obey laws equally.

Bird dismissed recent allegations by some Muslim and Croat refugee associations and politicians that the OHR favoured Serb officials in the Brcko district multi-ethnic government. "There is no favouritism at any level," he said.

The status of Brcko, a strategic river port, was left undecided after the signing of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian conflict in 1995. In March last year an international arbiter declared it a neutral multi-ethnic district.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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