Udrigovo – demonstrations against SFOR – SRT gave no comment, only pictures of people carrying flags and walking around SFOR soldiers and vehicles.
30 seconds
Last night’s editor of SRT news said that the SFOR and Bijeljina local leadership and SRT officials are at a meeting trying to reach a solution to this problem. ‘Everybody wants to reach a solution because no-one needs misunderstandings.’ [Again recent shots of the site without any comment; a lot of US SFOR soldiers are in front of the repeater in a state of alert; camera showed armed soldiers behind barbed wire; also a lot of APCs; guns targeted towards protesters; protesters carrying posters such as ‘Cowboys go home’ and ‘We don’t want CNN we want SRT’.]
2:00
Pictures are followed by commentary saying that: after a number of obstacles the people of Semberija, Podmajevica and Majevica came to Udrigovo at about 14:00 and circled the TV repeater which had been occupied by SFOR troops. Stopping people who were peacefully protesting in front of the repeater, SFOR was throwing teargas from their helicopters and flying low so that air pressure was throwing people down to the ground. The largest obstacle was right in front of the repeater where the people broke a barricade with their bodies. Some of them injured themselves and were taken to a hospital in Bijeljina. However, SFOR did not react because they had entrenched themselves very well. The noise of more than a dozen of NATO aircrafts and helicopters was horrible, not to mention tanks and APCs. Representatives of municipalities were invited inside the NATO circle to discuss the incident. SRT was not allowed to film the meeting. Protesters shall get their food supplies which indicates that demonstrations will continue into the night.
3:00
Prime Minister Klickovic said in Doboj today that those who illegally took over RS facilities shall take responsibility before the RS law, and there will be no amnesty for them regardless of pressure. In their struggle for the power, those individuals are unscrupulous, but the RS people always knew where the danger is coming from and they will resist, Klickovic said. Klickovic and Minister of Information, Siljegovic, talked with representatives of RS media in Doboj. They concluded that violence has occured against RS media which had been shown through the confiscation of state property and division of the RS being carried out along with the same concept as the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, by attacking the two most powerful institutions in the RS – the police and the state media. Intruders had imposed censorship which would be the envy of even better censors. This act cannot be considered as democratic, because invasion is not democracy, and each one who thinks that that part of the media which was taken away from the state has been democratised, is wrong. The information system will never be destroyed (although they have tried to destroy it for the second time) because it has only one task – to preserve the youngest Serb state together with RS legal institutions.
4:00
Pale – RS Election Commission held a meeting concluding that OSCE sent them voters’ list only three days ago although the deadline was August 22. The Commission supported the Parliament’s decision made on August 26 on the cancelling of Plavsic’s decision on the extension of the OSCE mandate, because OSCE made a lot of irregularities during the voters’ registration, such as their decision, made on August 7, to supervise the local elections, although the Serb side did not agree. The Commission also discussed the local elections in FRY, concluding that only 75,000 refugees will vote (there were 230,000 voters registered at the national elections last year) due to new OSCE rules.
4:00
Flash news:
Greek media reported that the holding of elections on all three levels is the only solution for overcoming present crisis in the RS. This is a period of a silent revision of the DPA, which aims to divide the RS. Le Figaro reported that Clinton and NATO decided to let the RS solve its problems. Although their goal was to attack and kidnap Karadzic, US decided to take less of a risk and leave the RS internal parties to fight among themselves.
Tages Spiegel said that the US directly involved itself with the crisis in the RS by Gelbard’s statement and open support of Plavsic. Belgian foreign Minister said that NATO will probably extend their mandate in BiH, but only European forces will stay in BiH. The US will leave weapons, aviation, and infantry to Germans who will take over the operation.
3:00
Minister of Interior Paleksic invited all RS citizens who possess radios and use different frequencies to report it to the closest police station in their towns by midnight, September 1. MUP will check up on all those who possess radios in order to locate those who do not have permission to have those radios and punish them in accordance with the law. MUP also appealed to the RS citizens to denounce those who illegally possess radios, and show once again their citizen’s conscience and obey the law.
Brcko – The head of the Brcko police Budisa said that the current security situation in Brcko is stable regardless of dramatic events that were not caused either by citizens or legal police forces, but by those who don’t think good of their country. He also said that an attempt to take over the police station in Brcko by force, and the establishment of para-police forces resulted in a spontaneous gathering of citizens who took measures to protect their own police. Speaking about activities of former chief of the Brcko police, Bjelosevic, Budisa said that Bjelosevic was one of the organisers of the action on the police station. He said that the Minister of Interior, Brcko leadership and the police will find a joint solution regarding cadre changes of the Brcko police in future. Brcko citizens should calm because this town will be held by the real Serb police who will work in favour of the RS, in line with the MUP law, implementing the system of police unity, and under the command of the legally appointed Minister of Interior and the RS legal Government.
3:00
Summary SRT TV News Banja Luka
Headlines- Momcilo Krajicnik, member of B&H Presidency from RS spoke today in Pale with Vladimir Kuznjecov, OSCE Ambassador; No public release given
- Prime Minister Klickovic visited Doboj today
- The Majevica mountain: an incident with SFOR, the Beta agency reports
- The school year in RS delayed
- The RS Prime Minister, Gojko Klickovic attended the session of the municipal board of SDS in Doboj, at which he evaluated the actual political situation in RS and condemned the actions of SFOR in Brcko. Gojko Klickovic called the RS President, Biljana Plavcic to take part in the forthcoming municipal elections and to check her reputation before the people.
He assessed that 3% of whole population, including the members of the IC, supported the RS President, B. Plavcic, and added that the group gathered around the President was preparing the crime, not the fight against it.
The RS Prime Minister asked: “What would have happened if America gave us some dollars?”, and answered that in that case Pale would have been accused of crime.
Klickovic called the actions of President Plavcic -the high treason, and added that no one could expect that from Mrs. Plavcic who had been a fighter for interests of Serbs from the very beginning. Klickovic pointed out that the culprits of illegal takeover of state owned facilities would be responsible before the law, regardless of the pressure that may be extorted.
“After SFOR’s intention to occupy the public security stations in various towns, the situation in RS normalizes, and the citizens are again doing their daily jobs, ” Klickovic claimed.
According to the RS Prime Minister, the people had to protect their institutions and constitutional order from SFOR’ units. Klickovic said at the end that the state authorities would continue the reorganization of the police, as well as the democratization of society.
- Serb Party of Krajina and Posavina considers that the municipal elections should take place on 13&14 Sep, and that the parliamentary elections should take place in October, but this party is severely against presidential elections.
This party considers that the presidential elections should be organized when the crisis in RS is resolved. This party protests against the decision of the IC which forbid many Serbs to vote in the forthcoming elections, such as Serbs expelled from Croatia.
President of Party of Krajina and Posavina, Pedrag Lazarevic stated at today’s press conference, held in BL that the state media must become the people’s media, media must be impartial, and that all parties must be equal regarding their presentation in the media. “Serbs living on both sides of the Drina river are one people, they have one church, so we demand that the church voices about the crisis in RS,” Predrag Lazarevic stated.
- Ne|o uric, Vice president of Socialist Party of RS stated that the parliamentary and presidential elections were the only solution for the crisis in RS.
- The Municipal Board of Socialist Party of RS from Prijedor repeated that their representatives would not participate in the work of the RS National Assembly, because they considered the RS National Assembly to be dismissed.
- Shortly before we started broadcasting this News, we were informed that Milovan Stankjovi}, people’s representative and the owner of the Alternativa magazine was released from prison.
- The Electoral Commission of RS evaluated at its today’s session, held at Pale, that in RS there were no conditions for free, fair and democratic local elections to be held on Sep 13&14. This Commission supported the decision of the RS National Assembly on nullifying the decision of the RS President by which she gave the right to OSCE to observe and organize the municipal elections.
- The IPTF spokesperson informed today that the group of Serbs had stoned American members of SFOR who had occupied the SRT transmitter in Udrigovo near Bijeljina two days ago. “It was a demonstration more than an assault,” the spokesperson said, and added that SFOR had asked the intervention of local police, and that no one had been wounded.
- The session of Banja Luka Assembly was delayed because of deficiency of quorum. Amongst others, major of BL, Savo ]uk failed to attend.