CROATIA: UNITED STATES ENVOY MADELEINE ALBRIGHT GREETED WITH ABUSE WHEN SHE VISITS VUKOVAR

Record ID: 338457

  • Title: CROATIA: UNITED STATES ENVOY MADELEINE ALBRIGHT GREETED WITH ABUSE WHEN SHE VISITS VUKOVAR
  • Date: 21st March 1996
  • Summary: ERDUT AND VUKOVAR, EAST SLAVONIA, CROATIA (MARCH 21, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) ERDUT 1. SLV/SV U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT RECEIVES FLOWERS (2 SHOTS) 0.16 2. SV ALBRIGHT ATTENDS MEETING WITH EAST SLAVONIA AUTHORITIES (3 SHOTS) 0.31 VUKOVAR 3. GV RIVER PAN TO ALBRIGHT WALKING 0.42 4. SV ALBR
  • Embargoed: 5th April 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ERDUT, VUKOVAR, EAST SLAVONIA, CROATIA
  • City:
  • Country: Croatia
  • Reuters ID: LVAEINMC84X7836FBDN4BU9LEAAZ
  • Story Text: INTRO: Rebel Serbs shout abuse and throw stones at United States envoy Madeleine Albright as she visits the town of Vukovar due to be returned to Croatia to Croatian rule.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebel Serbs shouted abuse at United States (U.S.) envoy Madeleine Albright and stoned her motorcade on Thursday (March 21) when she visited Vukovar which is being returned to Croatian rule after more than four years of insurrection.

    Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.), cut short a walk round Vukovar's market place after she was mobbed by a crowd shouting "bitch" and "fascist".

    Watching Serb police, stood by smiling as Albright, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, hurried back to her car and drove off under a hail of stones while the protesters yelled "this is Serbia".

    Albright's car was apparently not hit but stones broke two windows of a press bus.

    She was visiting Vukovar on Croatia's River Danube border with Serbia to discuss the east Slavonian region's return to Croatia with local Croatian Serb officials.

    Serbs seized it in 1991 in protest at Croatia's break with former Yugoslavia.

    The incident in Vukovar occurred shortly after Albright said in neighbouring Erdut that the return of eastern Slavonia should not lead to an exodus of Serbs fearing ethnic reprisals.

    She urged Croats and Serbs to set a rare example in former Yugoslavia by becoming good neighbours in Eastern Slavonia.

    Her one-day visit was to check on preparations for reintegration, to begin in early May after 5,000 U.N. enforcement troops are in place.

    Minority Serbs seized almost a third of Croatia in a 1991 revolt against its secession from federal Yugoslavia -- now composed only of Serbia and Montenegro -- and drove out 250,000 Croat inhabitants.

    The insurgents, after years of ignoring Croatian demands to negotiate "reintegration", lost virtually all their domain aside from the far east to government troops blitzing over U.N. ceasefire lines last year.

    Albright's plea for co-existence reflected U.N. concern that most of the region's 100,000 Serbs could flee the handover for fear of reprisal from vengeful returning Croats.


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