Croatia Adamant About Massive Repatriation Plan U.N. Official Warns Of Further Instability, But Land Preoccupies Warring Parties By Hrvoje Hranjski

Defying international condemnation, Croatia said Thursday it would proceed with plans to send tens of thousands of refugees back to Bosnia, a move that would help cement territorial conquests.

“Croatia will start the repatriation in an organized way and in phases,” said Adalbert Rebic, the head of Croatia’s refugee agency. “This is a state policy, and as such it is irrevocable.”

Forces of the Muslim-led Bosnian government and its Croat allies have swept across large swaths of territory once held by rebel Serbs in western Bosnia. It is land they would likely claim under a U.S.-backed peace plan that would divide the country into ethnic segments.

The warring sides have agreed on basic principles of the plan, but one of the toughest issues - who gets what territory - has yet to be negotiated.

About 80,000 Serbs fled the offensive in western Bosnia. By settling non-Serb refugees on the vacated land, the other sides hope to strengthen their claim to the area.

“Presence of the people on the ground in Bosnia will assist a political settlement,” Rebic said.

U.N. spokesman Chris Gunness in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, warned Thursday that any forced return of refugees to a war zone violated their international rights and basic humanitarian principles.

Rebic set no timetable, but Croatia already has stripped about 100,000 people of their refugee status. Most are Bosnian Croats.

“These people should be sent back only in the context of an overall peace settlement,” Gunness said. “If Croatia were to follow through its decision, this would add considerably to a highly unstable situation in a region already extremely disturbed by the conflict.”

The top U.S. negotiator on Bosnia, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, was to leave Washington on Thursday for another round of shuttle diplomacy to keep the peace process going.

Both sides have suggested peace could be within reach, though battlefield skirmishes continue.

Bosnian Serb rebel leader Radovan Karadzic said Thursday in the northern Serb stronghold of Banja Luka, where many Serb refugees have fled in recent weeks, that peace could be achieved “in a few weeks.”

Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic made a similar prediction Wednesday, but cautioned that peace was possible only if the international community remained firm in pursuing a settlement.