Serb Rebels Might Oust U.N. Force Security Council Meeting Ends Without Agreement

Leaders of Croatia’s rebel Serbs warned Thursday that U.N. peacekeepers would be expelled if the Security Council changes the rules for their operations in Croatia.

At the Croatian government’s insistence, the Security Council was considering a plan to cut the size of the 12,000-member force and station some troops between the rebels and their Serb allies in Bosnia and Serbdominated Yugoslavia.

With just a day left before its current orders expire, the council ended its meeting Thursday without an agreement.

The Serbs in Croatia, who rebelled after the republic declared independence from Yugoslavia, don’t want any changes in the U.N. mission that has kept the peace since their sixmonth war in 1991.

As the Security Council was meeting in New York, leaders of the Serbs’ self-proclaimed Krajina republic were meeting with U.N. envoy Thorvald Stoltenberg at their headquarters in Knin.

“The draft resolution is not acceptable to the Serb Republic of Krajina,” said Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic.

He said Croatian Serb leaders most likely would “pass the proposal to parliament stating that we thank the peacekeepers, and wish them a happy journey home.”

If that happens, Stoltenberg said, the United Nations would leave - and war is likely.

“We will not stay anywhere if the people do not want us to stay,” he said. “We will go immediately.”

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, after stunning the United Nations in January by ordering the peacekeepers out, agreed to let a smaller mission stay if it set up posts to guard the border that runs along rebel-held territory.

Tudjman accuses the peacekeepers of failing to restore government control over the one-third of Croatia’s territory that is in rebel hands, and says the U.N. presence has only strengthened Serb control.

Croatia says it will allow two weeks to negotiate the terms of the new mission.

On Thursday, however, Foreign Minister Mate Granic said in a letter to the Security Council that Croatia will reject any U.N. mission without the country’s name in its title. That would imply its sovereignty over all its territory, even rebel-held areas.The name currently under consideration is the U.N. Confidence Restoration Operation.

The resolution being considered by the Security Council is vague about how many troops would remain in Croatia and details of their mission.

It says peacekeepers would be “assisting in controlling, by monitoring and reporting, the crossing of military personnel, equipment supplies and weapons,” over Croatia’s international border.

It does not authorize peacekeepers to use force to stop shipments.

Serbs refuse to allow peacekeepers to control the border with Bosnia and Yugoslavia.

“You cannot seriously expect us to agree to a self-imposed embargo on ourselves,” Ilia Prijic, a senior official, said Tuesday in Knin.