More than a thousand supporters of the Bosnian Muslim ruling party, the SDA, attended a rally on Saturday (August 31) in the strategic land corridor linking the town of Gorazde to the Muslim-Croat federation. Alija Izetbegovic addressed the rally, near the village of Grebak, in the run-up to general elections on September 14.
About 100 soldiers of the Bosnian army's Seventh Brigade also attended the rally, dressed in their white or black uniforms and sporting their green headbands with Arabic writing. Before Izetbegovic addressed the crowd, prayers were held.
Izetbegovic said that he had received assurances from United States envoy John Kornblum on Friday (August 30) that the United States would never accept a division of Bosnia and if the Serbs tried to separate, the so-called Republika Srpska would be isolated.
31st August 1996
