‘Mass Executions,’ Being Held, Official Says

A senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday he heard credible accounts of “mass executions” by Bosnian Serb rebels who overran the eastern Bosnian enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa last month.

John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for human rights, this week visited Tuzla and Zenica in central Bosnia, where thousands of refugees from the two U.N.-designated “safe areas” fled.

Shattuck said he interviewed about a dozen refugees. Among them were two alleged survivors of firing squads.

“I have heard credible eyewitness ac counts from refugees of mass executions of men and boys by Bosnian Serb soldiers,” Shattuck told reporters at Zagreb airport, before flying to Geneva to complete a report for President Clinton.

Shattuck said this constitutes “substantial new evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity in eastern Bosnia.”

He said that if confirmed, they could “lead to additional indictments of the Bosnian Serb military and civilian leadership for the most serious crimes known to mankind.”

Two Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, have been indicted by an international war crimes tribunal.

Shattuck’s mission followed reports that Bosnian Serbs killed Muslims taken prisoner after Srebrenica fell July 11.