Going Home

Bosnian clubs and associations in Europe (especially in Germany and Austria where there are most of them) which rally the Bosnian Muslims, have started an action aimed at organizing the return of refugees back home.

Without guessing how many refugees will agree to go back, and where they will return, this undertaking is doubtless of great importance to the Bosnian government. First for all, the BosniaHerzegovina Army can count on new men, while the demographic figures (currently in favor of the Serbs) will improve significantly. This is of great importance for official Sarajevo, all the more so as the existing maps on the territorial division of BH are based on percentages and ratios of the 1991 census. These figures however, have been greatly altered (lacking precise data, there are estimates that more than two million people have left BH, in fact, practically a half of its population). Of this number, a great percentage are Muslims.

The ``return home'' action is also interpreted as the result of the agreement on a federation with the Croats. Until recently, strictly controlled Croatian passages into Bosnia have been opened to people and goods. Life in Sarajevo is less arduous. The price of food is in German Marks. The price of sugar has dropped from 60 DM/kilo to 1.5 DM. People from Sarajevo (and more are allowed out now) say that with the right papers, it is possible to travel through Herzegovina to Split like in the ``good old days.''

Sex, Music, Radio And Television

The Croatian RadioTelevision Council has positively assessed the program broadcast by Croatian Radio and Croatian TV in 1993, and approved the one for 1994, reported the Croatian news agency HINA.

HINA says that there is drop in the number of listeners tuning into ``Radio Croatia, not because of a lack of quality, but because of the numerous local, privatelyowned radio stations,'' which some members of the Council said were of very low quality. This is why it has been proposed that the criteria for allotting frequencies be raised. Director of Croatian TV Antun Vrdoljak blamed the situation on ``the surge of new music broadcast by such stations,'' adding that preventative measures must be adopted. He suggested that rock songs should be translated, ``so that the youth would understand the rubbish they were listening to.''

There were suggestions for taking a program devoted to horoscopes off the air. Vrdoljak cautioned that films with violence and sex had a detrimental effect on the youth and that stricter measures should be applied. In this way, the Croatian RadioTelevision Council has joined Serbian Minister of Culture Nada PopovicPerisic in calling for a clampdown. However, no one in Belgrade has yet mentioned translating rock songs or protecting the youth from sex. Belgrade Mayor Nebojsa Covic has also joined the crusade, but has limited himself to banning pornographic magazines from being displayed on news stands.

A New Friend

Yugoslavia has a new friend. The YugoslavGhanaian Friendship Society has been founded in Novi Sad, ``with the aim of setting up cultural, scientific, technical and economic cooperation between the two countries.'' Nada Ranisav Lartej has been elected president, and apart from the founding board, honorary membership has been accorded to the Ghanaian Charge D'Affaires in Belgrade Kobine Sechia, academician Dejan Medakovic, poet Ljubivoje Rsumovic, and Bishop Irinej Bulovic who blessed the work of the society. Yugoslavia has decided on this step deeply moved by the support of nonaligned African countries which had the courage to abstain when sanctions against Yugoslavia were put to the vote.