Nations Beef Up U.N. Force In Bosnia United States, Russia, France, Britain And Germany Resolve To Give Peacekeepers More Muscle
Five of the world’s most powerful countries agreed early today to strengthen and redeploy U.N. military forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina to give them the muscle to prevent further humiliations at the hands of rebel Serbs.
With U.S. Marines and their French and British counterparts heading for the Adriatic Sea and more than 300 peacekeepers held hostage in Bosnia, the foreign ministers from the Contact Group - the United States, Russia, France, Britain and Germany - met here for more than five hours to develop a joint statement that largely reiterated plans that have failed to end the lengthy Bosnian civil war.
A U.S. official said after the meeting broke up early Tuesday that Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev “added two hours to the meeting by nitpicking.” But in the end, all five nations signed on to the agreement.
In addition to calling for a beef-up U.N. force, the Contact Group agreed to make a new try at persuading Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to recognize Bosnia’s independence. U.S. envoy Robert Frasure will go to the Serbian capital of Belgrade soon to renew talks with Milosevic, officials said.
Before the meeting began Monday night, the United States, Britain and France were moving military units into the area, ready to give the beleaguered 22,000-member U.N. force there the muscle needed to take the offensive.
About 2,000 U.S. Marines were pulled off exercises around the island of Sardinia and sent to the Adriatic. The U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, accompanied by the cruiser Hue City, were on their way to the Adriatic, as was the French aircraft carrier Foch.
Britain ordered 6,000 troops, armed with artillery and other heavy weapons, to head for Bosnia and put 5,000 more troops on alert.
British Defense Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said the decision to triple Britain’s presence was intended as a “clear and unmistakable message” to the Bosnian Serbs who are holding 33 British peacekeepers hostage along with more than 300 other U.N personnel.
In their stronghold of Pale, near the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, the Bosnian Serbs showed no signs of backing down. Leader Radovan Karadzic and his army’s supreme command voted Monday to cancel all U.N. resolutions to which they had been a party because the United Nations “interfered in the war and allied with our enemies.”
The Serbian leadership also prohibited the United Nations from changing its mandate without Serb approval, banned unauthorized flights over Serbian air space and vowed to regain full sovereignty over all its territory.
The Serbs’ actions had already effectively ignored U.N. resolutions, which included the banning of heavy weapons around U.N. “safe areas” in Bosnia, but the announcement Monday showed that the Serbian leadership does not plan to negotiate.
There were no reports Monday of additional peacekeepers falling under Serbian control. The total number of hostages stood at around 370, and Bosnian Serb television from Pale took pains Monday night to broadcast pictures of the peacekeepers seated at tables eating, like a scene from any mess hall.
Also, Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic said that the men would no longer be chained but would remain in the areas of potential North Atlantic Treaty Organization targets until NATO promised not to launch additional bombing raids.
There were other ominous signs of Serbian war preparations. Bosnian Serb soldiers continued to loot U.N. equipment, U.N. officials said. In addition to 200 heavy weapons seized during the weekend, they have stolen a total of 36 armored vehicles, including six light tanks, all of which bear U.N. insignia.
In Brussels, French Foreign Minister Harve de Charette and British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd both indicated the major powers were close to an agreement with Milosevic, the onetime mentor of the Bosnian Serbs.
Under the agreement, the Serbian president would formally recognize the mainly Muslim government of Bosnia in return for suspension of the U.N.-imposed sanctions.
“We are quite close to an agreement between the Contact Group and Mr. Milosevic,” Hurd told reporters after a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Such a diplomatic move would isolate the Bosnian Serbs diplomatically and increase the pressure on them to consider a political settlement, many analysts believe.
A senior U.S. official said,
“Although events of recent days may give grounds for skepticism about the degree to which Milosevic has the ability to deliver the Bosnian Serbs, we continue to believe that moving toward mutual recognition and steps to further tighten up Milosevic’s cutoff of support to the Bosnian Serbs could contribute to progress toward a political settlement.”
Milosevic won a partial easing of U.N. sanctions last August when he agreed to cut off a major Bosnian Serb supply line running across the Drina River.
xxxx BURYING CHILDREN Hundreds of grieving Bosnians gathered at a pre-dawn funeral Monday for the mostly teenage and twenty-something victims of last weeks’ Serbian shelling of the U.N. “safe area” of Tuzla. The shelling Thursday of a sidewalk crowded with cafes claimed 71 lives and came in retaliation for NATO airstrikes launched earlier that day. Muslims and Catholics bearing candles joined in a cemetery to bury 48 of the dead in a funeral held in the darkness to avoid becoming a target for another Serb rocket attack. Many were parents burying their children. Coffins draped in green and white were lined in rows on a dirty slope, awaiting interment. “Our message to the world is no one should ever have to bury one’s dead at the crack of dawn,” Mayor Selim Beslagic said.