960408

Bosnia minister says Serbs should go to donors meet
KUALA LUMPUR: The Bosnian government would prefer to see the Serb side represented at this weekend's aid donors' meeting in Brussels, Bosnian Foreign Trade Minister Neven Tomic said on Monday.
He was reacting to comments on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur by Carl Bildt, the international community's High Representative to Bosnia, who said the conference would likely go ahead as scheduled, but without the Serbs.
Bildt said the Serbs could be excluded if they don't hand over the last of their prisoners of war to the Office of the High Representative to Bosnia, the bureau charged with implementing civilian aspects of the Dayton peace accords.
"Mr Bildt's report is some kind of pressure on the Serb side to join the peace process," Tomic told reporters after meeting Malaysian trade officials.
"We must be careful," because there were two sides to the issue.
"One side will say that the international community wants to show they have a good weapon in their hands because the whole country needs money.
"But on the other side, this decision can be useful for those Serbs in society who don't want to integrate with Bosnia Herzegovina because then they can say the international community doesn't want to help us," Tomic said.
"Serbs must implement all parts of this Dayton agreement and if they are at this meeting, it means they really want to integrate Bosnia Herzegovina as a single state," he said.
Bosnian Serbs have moved to resolve the issue of prisoners of war but still face exclusion from a major financial donors conference next week, international mediators said on Sunday.
The High Representative's office in Sarajevo said the Bosnian Serbs had handed over 16 evidence files on prisoners they hold to the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal.
The Bosnian Serbs are keeping 16 POWs in defiance of the terms of the country's peace deal and instructions that they either release them or provide some proof they should face prosecution for war crimes.
In contrast, the Moslem-Croat federation has complied on the prisoner issue, releasing 46 prisoners on Friday, and is expected to take its seat in Brussels.
A European Union foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday is expected to take the final decision on who should be present at the conference, which hopes to raise $1.2 billion in aid funds for Bosnia this year.
Tomic said that his government, working with the World Bank and other international organisations, has identified reconstruction projects worth $5.1 billion, although war damage to the country was in excess of $50 billion.
The push to rebuild the former Yugoslav state, ravaged by four years of internecine war, received a big boost last week when Bosnia rejoined the World Bank as a member, he said.
Money pledged by international donors that was supposed to be disbursed in the first quarter of this year had been held up, in part, by Bosnia's arrears with the Bank, Tomic said.
But the Bank agreed to defer some $600 million in loan arrears for 10 years, while agreeing to provide $400 million in soft loans and a $150 million grant, he said.
That clears the way for disbursement of other aid pledges, starting next month, he said.
"We solved this problem last week. We are now members of the World Bank and after this the (aid disbursement) process has accelerated," he said.
"The military part of this peace agreement goes very well and now we must, on the civil side of this agreement, go past it. But a precondition is support of the international community, especially money from the donor side," Tomic said.-Reuter