Friendly words and harsh deeds in occupied town

TRAVNIK - The affable Colonel Nafir Dedic welcomes visitors to his well-appointed office with coffee and a recording of a military band playing the rousing march, 'The British Grenadiers'.

Col Dedic, a former Yugoslav army officer, is in charge of morale in the Muslim-led Bosnian army's 17th Krajina brigade, which seized Travnik, a central Bosnian town, during its offensive against erstwhile Croatian allies last May.

The officer also takes pride in his unit's handling of what is left of Travnik's Croatian population. The Croats once held most of the important commercial and government posts in Travnik and owned some 80 per cent of the farmland. But to be a Croatian civilian nowadays is a decidedly downwardly mobile affair.

'Do you know,' Col Dedic said, 'we actually encourage our Croat soldiers to celebrate mass and feast days. Why, only the other day we laid on a special dinner for Croat prisoners of war and invited the local priest to attend. They couldn't believe it.'

On the other side of town, Pavo Nikolic, a Catholic priest, remembers the dinner all too well. 'I couldn't help but wonder during the meal what had happened to all the other prisoners,' he said. 'I wrote to thank the military authorities and I enclosed two protest notes about what is happening to us in Travnik.' He has heard nothing more.

Father Nikolic said 30,000 Croats were spread across six parishes from Travnik to Turbe, but only his still functions. He says most of the 3,500 Catholics remaining in the area are now concentrated in Travnik. 'I don't doubt the sincerity of senior Muslim officers like Dedic. But one suspects that nothing will ever come of our meetings or my letters and telephone calls except promises.'

Fr Nikolic has many stories of looting, of people forced from their homes at gunpoint, of stores of food and medicine plundered and sold on the black market.

'Able-bodied men are taken away every night and forced to dig trenches for the Bosnian army.' He agreed the harassment was largely the action of ill-disciplined troops.

Outside, the bell tolled for morning mass. The church was packed with well-dressed Croats. Two foreigners in uniform stared at two young women standing on the church steps. One of the gunmen raised his hand, pointing the index finger like a pistol at the girls.

'Bap-bap-bebap,' he shouted, imitating an automatic weapon, grinning at his 'joke'.