CROAT, MUSLIMS NAMED IN CRIMES AGAINST SERBS.

Byline: Alan Cowell The New York Times

The United Nations' criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Friday issued its first indictments for crimes against Serbs, charging three Bosnian Muslims and a Bosnian Croat with murdering, torturing and raping Serb prisoners at a detention camp in 1992.

Of the 53 people who had been charged with war crimes up to now, 46 are Serbs and 7 are Croats - all charged with atrocities against Muslims. The new indictments should help defuse the Serbian contention that the tribunal is not evenhanded and has an anti-Serb political agenda, which Serbs have used to justify their lack of cooperation.

The indictment at the tribunal's headquarters in The Hague threw some new light on little-known episodes after Muslim and Croat forces overran the central Bosnian town of Konjic in May, 1992, and allegedly held some 250 Serbs in a camp in Celebici.

There, according to Friday's indictment, the detainees were subjected to "murder, torture, including rape of female detainees, beatings and inhumane treatment" including enforced oral sex between male prisoners. The camp was closed down in December, 1992, the indictment said.

"These are the first individuals indicted for crimes allegedly committed against Bosnian Serb victims," the tribunal's spokesman, Christian Chartier said. The indictment was "the first of its kind," it said.

"It will not be the last," it continued.

The tribunal's investigations have been dominated by inquiries against Serbs, who investigators say pursued a systematic drive to purge entire regions of Muslims and Croats, using murder and rape as weapons in this process of "ethnic cleansing."

The tribunal has charged that many of the Serbian atrocities reflected deliberate policies of the Bosnian Serb leadership, as opposed to being crimes by rogue individuals. Both the Bosnian Serb political leader, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, and the Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic, have been indicted by the tribunal.

Even as Friday's indictments against the Serbs' adversaries were made known, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, was visiting the site of suspected mass graves near the central Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims are believed to have been massacred by Serbs last July.

Of the 53 people indicted before Friday, only two are actually in custody in the tribunal's 24-cell detention center in The Hague.

Friday's new charges in The Hague followed the arrests in Munich and Vienna on Monday of two of the four men indicted Friday, one Muslim and one Croat. The indictments should ease their extradition to the tribunal, a process expected to take weeks.

Referring to the other two who were indicted Friday, both Muslims, Chartier said Bosnian authorities had "given assurances that the accused will be arrested and surrendered to the tribunal".

If it keeps this promise, the Bosnian government would be complying with pledges made by all parties to the Dayton peace accord to cooperate with the tribunal. In contrast, the Serbs and Croats have failed to arrest and hand over many indicted men who are known to be at large within their territories.

The tribunal said Friday that its investigations since late 1994 into the Celebici atrocities had been "difficult and time-consuming" because Serb authorities - who may see any cooperation with the tribunal as dangerous for their own cause - refused to permit access to witnesses.