Bosnia Notes

Ghostly suburbs

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina

The entrances to Sarajevo’s northern suburbs were wide open Wednesday: The few remaining Serbs hastily left by one route while a few miles away, Muslims trickled in by another.

International officials accused Bosnian Serb leaders of manipulating their own people to induce them to leave - mainly by stripping the former neighborhoods of vital utilities and infrastructure. But they also said some of the returning Muslim refugees were harassing Serbs.

In any case, it was clear there would be few Serbs left in suburbs like Vogosca and Ilijas, which Serbs controlled throughout Bosnia’s 3-1/2-year war.

U.N. relief agency spokesman Kris Janowski said the Bosnian government planned to move 3,000 refugees - former residents of Vogosca - back to the area in the next few days. Police of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat federation took control of Vogosca from the Serbs last Friday.

Serbs in Ilijas, which is to be transferred to the federation today, loaded about 10 buses Wednesday with anything they could carry. Most of those leaving were old people, women and children.

“What can we do? Wait to be butchered?” asked Milijana Dragutinovic, who carried a crying baby in her arms and expressed the fears gripping many people after a long, bitter war.

Three miles away, Muslims were entering Vogosca in private taxis.

One man, who identified himself only as Suljo, walked up and down apartment blocks. He said he was a refugee, looking for a new home.

Alexander Ivanko, the spokesman for U.N. police, said that by Wednesday about 14,000 of the 17,000 people who lived in Ilijas until recently were gone. Only about 1,000 Serbs remained in Vogosca, which had a population of 20,000 before Serbs began to leave.

Misery continues

VISEGRAD, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Tens of thousands of Bosnian Serbs fleeing the outskirts of Sarajevo are turning up in out-of-the-way towns like this one, only to discover that the anguished decision to leave the Bosnian capital marked only the beginning of their misery.

More than 1,000 residents from Vogosca, Ilidza and other Serb-populated suburbs of Sarajevo are camped out here in school classrooms, burned-out houses and cramped barracks built years ago for construction workers.

Many have no running water or electricity. Some have to walk more than a mile to get a handout of bread or soup. In one settlement, 200 people share a single outhouse.

“We finally got electricity, but if we all turn on our cookers at the same time, we lose it,” said Vida Kubara, 45, who moved with about 50 co-workers at a Sarajevo-area auto-parts factory to a group of prefabricated buildings here. “If you want to have heat, no one can turn on his cooker.”

NATO: How do we leave?

BRUSSELS, Belgium

NATO faces a serious internal split over the size and shape of a successor military force that may be needed to preserve stability in Bosnia once the current peacekeeping operation ends, alliance officials said this week.

Although Operation Joint Endeavor is only in the third month of a deployment intended to last a year, the problem of how to exit Bosnia without plunging the country back into chaos is emerging as one of the toughest issues confronting alliance planners.

“The whole question of what happens at the end of 12 months is now a very uncomfortable subject,” said one senior official at NATO’s headquarters here. “There’s a potential for a big split between the Americans and some of the other allies.”

For reasons both political and military, the Clinton administration has insisted that NATO’s intervention must end no later than Dec. 20, 1996, precisely a year after the alliance took over peacekeeping duties from a beleaguered U.N. contingent. Facing a reelection challenge in November, President Clinton is adamant about keeping the one-year pledge he made to a skeptical public and Congress, according to U.S. officials.

But several allies have quietly begun questioning whether a calendar-driven endgame is prudent and whether NATO should contemplate a successor force to safeguard whatever stability the Western alliance establishes this year.

British soldier killed

Meanwhile, NATO officials said a British soldier serving in the alliance’s peace force died of gunshot wounds Wednesday.

The circumstances surrounding the soldier’s death were not immediately clear, but NATO spokesman Maj. Chip Krokoski said that none of Bosnia’s former warring factions were involved.

A NATO military police investigation was underway, he said, providing no other details.

Britain has 11,000 troops serving in the 60,000-strong NATO-led peace force in Bosnia. The soldier was the force’s 11th fatality since it took over the Bosnia peace mission on Dec. 20.