Serbs Cut Contact With Nato Over Arrest Of Officers Pair’s Arrest On Charges Of War Crimes Infuriates Bosnian Serbs

In the strongest blow yet to the peace process, the Bosnian Serb army severed contacts with the NATO-led force Thursday and blocked civilians from moving freely to show its fury over the arrest of two senior officers on suspicion of war crimes.

Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic were arrested Jan. 30 when they made a wrong turn around Sarajevo and entered government-controlled territory. Further angering the Serbs, the arrests were endorsed by the international war crimes court, which asked that the two men be held until it decided whether they should be indicted.

Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted for war crimes, on Thursday banned civilians in Serb territory from crossing into other parts of Bosnia. The Serbs already had suspended all contact with the Muslim-led government to protest the arrests.

Relatively free movement of civilians and steady dialogue among NATO commanders and the rival sides were two of the main achievements of the peace accord thus far.

The Serbs’ heated reaction to the arrests has placed the entire delicate process in limbo, prompting Richard Holbrooke, the chief U.S. mediator, to head back to the Balkans on Thursday to try to head off the crisis.

“The United States is sending a strong signal to all the parties that the United States wants the Dayton accords fully implemented,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns.

“The Muslims have jeopardized peace, and those who support them also support the option of war,” Mladic’s closest aide, Lt. Gen. Milan Gvero, said Thursday during a rare news conference at Serb military headquarters in the eastern town of Han Pijesak.

The NATO-led Implementation Force, buoyed by its success so far disengaging the combatants, now faces its sternest test yet: Trying to restore contact with the Serbs while upholding its duty to make war-crimes prosecutions possible.

Capt. Mark Van Dyke, a spokesman for the force commander, U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, said the force was awaiting confirmation of Mladic’s order from other Serb officials. “We do not recognize Gen. Mladic as a legitimate authority” because of his own war crimes indictment, Van Dyke said.

In the short term, Mladic’s order halts everything from negotiations on prisoner releases to work on the demarcation of buffer zones. The Serbs say Djukic and Krsmanovic must be released before contacts are resumed.

The International Red Cross and members of an international police force have been allowed to see the detainees at their prison in Sarajevo. But Red Cross spokeswoman Anne-Sophie Bonefeld said her colleagues were denied permission to speak privately with Djukic or Krsmanovic, even though this is required by the Geneva convention on POWs.

Djukic, in his 70s, has had serious heart problems, and on Wednesday was allowed to see a doctor.

Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev, visiting Belgrade on Thursday, said Djukic could die soon.

“He’s very sick,” Grachev said. “This man, whose name is not on a list of war criminals, must be released, especially since he could die without medical care.”

Richard Goldstone, chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal, said Thursday the arrests in Sarajevo were not a violation of the Dayton peace agreement.

Serb claims that Bosnian authorities breached the accord were “completely without foundation,” Goldstone told a news conference in Vienna, Austria.

The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, accused the peace force of a pro-Muslim bias.

“The Serb people are astonished that IFOR did nothing to release the Serb officers,” the Serb news agency SRNA quoted Karadzic as saying.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the main regional power-broker, backs the Bosnian Serb decision to break off talks until the two officer are freed, sources in Belgrade said.

Milosevic is crucial to the implementation of the Bosnian peace accord, and any change of mind on his part could mean serious trouble for the peace plan.