BOSNIAN refugees in Germany are attempting suicide rather than face expulsion. On September 24, in the wake of the Bosnian elections, Germany announced that it would start returning refugees from October I.
Two unsuccessful suicide attempts followed. Last month, one middle aged Bosnian killed himself. Such is the confidence of refugees who fled from ethnic cleansing that the Dayton agreement and the elections have solved anything.
Most Bosnian refugees in Germany, although "ethnically cleansed" from areas now under Serb control, would be sent to areas under the Bosnian-Croat Federation's control. This would pro---I - -Socialist Outlook and International Viewpoint can be yours for the next year at a special discount price. IV is the hard-hitting monthly review of the Fourth International, the world socialist organisation. Send your cheque for £30 payable to 'Outlook International, PO Box 1109, London NA 2UU. Offer available in Britain and Ireland only. Name ¡Address voke a hostile response from the Croat authorities, and could lead to a resumption of the war between Bosnia and Croatia.
The outcome of the elections held few surprises, with nationalist parties succeeding in all three parts of Bosnia. Most attention has been given to the fact that in Bosnia, President Izetbegovic of the Party of Democratic Action defeated his rivals Zubak of the Croat Democratic Party and Krajisnik of the Serb Democratic Party. Within Republica Srpska, some divisions do seem to be opening up.
While the United List, with a clearly multi-ethnic platform, received only I per cent of the vote, Ivanic of the moderate nationalist Alliance for Peace and Progress took 31 per cent-not a small ...-Post code achievement given the conditions under which the voting took place.
Media attention has focused on validation of the elections. It seems likely that the OSCE will agree the results; not to do so would undermine the basis of the Dayton agreement. But it was clear from the start that the elections could not be free or fair.
For example, the Dayton Agreement insisted that electoral lists from 1992 were used! Since then hundreds of thousands have been killed.
In addition, none of the conditions set by OSCE for the elections were met There was no freedom of movement, preventing large numbers from voting in their former places of residence. Refugees were not permitted to return to much of Bosnia.
Nor was freedom of the press established. The nationalist parties dominated written and broadcast media all over Vast abuses of human rights continued and were sanctioned, seen most grotesquely in the funding by OSCE of the candidacy of mass murderer and rapist Arkan in Republika Srpska. Pro. tests of intimidation have been ignored.
The United List also complained to the OSCE that in some other areas-including a number in which they expected to do well-significant numbers of voting papers were missing.
They originally called on September 17 for the results in the affected cantons to be nullified, but less than a week later they seem to have retracted.
The effect of the Bosnian elections has been to sanction the partition of Bosnia and the results of ethnic cleansing.
1Un UMBERTO Bossi, leader of the Northern League party, proclaimed the birth of the independent and sovereign federal republic of Padania last month. Padania is the name of Italy's northern plain.
The republic's provisional gov. ernment aims for secession from Italy in a year's time.
The declaration, made in Venice, followed three days of often mystical demonstrations and rituals by the rightist Northern League while Bossi sailed down the river Po, the region's main waterway.
To some, Bossi appeared to be just a pompous, ignorant dema-