U.N. Chief Asks for Peacekeepers in Croatia Soon

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, fearing a fragile truce in the six-month Yugoslav civil war could soon collapse, Thursday recommended the rapid dispatch of as many as 13,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops to the Balkans, U.N. officials said.

Boutros-Ghali will send a written recommendation to the Security Council early next week, asking that the force be deployed immediately, U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani told reporters. Diplomats predicted that the council would swiftly approve the recommendation.

The secretary general acted shortly after receiving a report from Cyrus R. Vance, the U.N. special envoy for Yugoslavia. Vance, a former U.S. secretary of state, reportedly urged the dispatch of U.N. troops after being assured that forces of the Croatian independence movement would abide by the terms of an internationally supervised cease-fire.

Giuliani said that as soon as the council approves the large multinational force, the first soldiers will begin arriving “within a couple of weeks.” This peacekeeping force would be the second largest in U.N. history, after the 20,000-man Congo operation in the 1960s. He said the Yugoslav deployment would cost an estimated $400 million a year.

On Wednesday, Boutros-Ghali received a letter from Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, repeating his unconditional acceptance of the U.N. peacekeeping plan in Croatia and its Serbian-controlled enclaves.

While Tudjman has indicated acceptance of the U.N. peace plan, leaders of the Serb-held Krajina region in southwestern Croatia remain opposed to the deployment of international forces. Milan Babic, the leader of Krajina, the principal ethnic Serbian enclave in Croatia, rejected the U.N. plan and Thursday warned of “large casualties” if peacekeepers are sent.

“We are not going to accept them. They are occupying us on behalf of Croatia,” Babic’s spokesman, Lazar Macura, told Reuters news agency from Knin, capital of Krajina. “We will give them our hospitality and then ask them to leave. We will have to give them petrol, food and accommodation, but we do not have enough for ourselves.”

Giuliani said Boutros-Ghali is aware of the opposition but decided to send the peacekeepers to prevent the current cease-fire from unraveling.

“We are not going in with eyes closed,” Giuliani said. “Certainly we are concerned. But there also is a judgment that the decision to deploy is the best possible in view of the dangers on the ground if the decision is not taken.”

On Thursday, Boutros-Ghali met with the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council to discuss the mission. The five are the United States, which heads the council this month, Britain, China, France and Russia. No date was set for formal action on the peacekeeping mission, but U.N. officials said it likely will occur early next week.

The composition of the multinational force was not announced, although about 30 nations, most of them European, have been asked to contribute personnel for the force. Excluded will be Germany, whose constitution forbids it, and Yugoslavia’s neighbors, such as Austria, Italy and Hungary.

In eastern Croatia, new cease-fire violations were reported Thursday, and at least two people were killed and seven were wounded, Zagreb Radio said. Croatia’s mid-Adriatic port of Zadar also came under attack overnight, according to the radio reports. It also said an infantry attack on nearby Zemunik Donji from a federal air base was repelled. No casualties were reported.

But at least 10,000 people have died since fighting erupted in Yugoslavia after the western republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the disintegrating federation last June.

Yugoslav federal troops joined forces with the dominant republic of Serbia in the effort to prevent Croatia’s secession, hoping to preserve as much of the former Yugoslav state as possible. Already one of the largest standing armies in Europe with 180,000 troops, the Yugoslav People’s Army would have no reason to exist without the Balkan federation, and landlocked Serbia could not afford to support the massive infantry, air and naval forces by itself.

The Serbian-dominated federal army initially tried to halt Slovenia’s bolt from the federation, as well. But the army gave up after a 10-day war, during which the rag-tag forces of the tiny Alpine republic handed the federal Goliath a humiliating defeat.

Serbia has pressed a more determined campaign against Croatia, ostensibly to protect the 600,000 ethnic Serbs who live there.

Many Serbs fear they would be persecuted in an independent Croatian state, citing the atrocities committed against their people during the World War II-era Nazi puppet regime that reigned during Croatia’s last spate of independence. The fascist Ustasha leadership that took power in 1941 was responsible for executing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

When a nationalist, non-Communist government won Croatia’s first multi-party elections in half a century in the spring of 1990, Serbian militants within the republic began arming themselves in anticipation of confrontation with the Zagreb leadership.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic vowed to preserve a united country in which all Serbs could live, and he is believed to have organized the rebellions that broke out in Serbian communities of Croatia in August, 1990.

Citing the rhetoric of Tudjman and a need to protect Croatian Serbs from a feared genocide, rebels like Babic declared vast areas of eastern Croatia independent from the secession-bound republic. That sparked conflicts with Croatian police and security forces dispatched by Zagreb to quell the revolts.

Those clashes gradually escalated, expanding into full-scale war after Croatia declared independence and the federal forces joined the Serbian militants and guerrillas. Outgunned and outmanned, Croatia has since lost about one third of its territory to Serbian control.

The U.N. troops are expected to deploy to three designated crisis areas along Croatia’s 350-mile eastern border; most of the areas are now occupied by Serbs and the federal army. The deployment plan includes many of the ethnically mixed towns and villages that have been the scenes of intense fighting.

Babic controls a chain of predominantly Serbian communities scattered throughout southwestern Croatia in the Krajina region--the military frontier.

Although Milosevic is believed to have instigated the Krajina uprising, Serbia has tired of the war because of heavy casualties and the utter destruction it has inflicted on the economy. Milosevic joined Tudjman in appealing for U.N. intervention as part of a cease-fire agreement that took effect Jan. 3.

Both Milosevic and Tudjman expect the arrival of U.N. forces to work to their advantage.

The Serbian strongman believes that the U.N. troops will halt fighting and preserve the status quo, which is Serbian control of broad areas of Croatia. The Croatian leadership is convinced the U.N. deployment will allow them to regain control of the land seized by Serbian and Yugoslav forces, since the plan calls for withdrawal of the federal army and disarmament of guerrillas.

If the U.N. troops are seen by either side as aiding the other, they could come under fire by hostile or renegade fighters who feel they’ve been cheated in the intervention deal. Forces loyal to Babic have already warned they will shoot at any foreign troops who enter their territory without their leader’s permission.

Diplomats of the 12-nation European Community attempted to mediate in the Yugoslav crisis and negotiated more than a dozen cease-fires, all of which collapsed shortly after their signing.

When the EC’s effectiveness appeared to be waning, the U.N. appointed Vance as special envoy to Yugoslavia and asked him to endeavor to find a solution to the conflict that threatened to draw in other areas of the Balkans. As war fatigue set in on both sides, the combatants appeared eager for a face-saving way to end the fight. The leaders of Serbia, Croatia and the federal army agreed on the general terms of the current deployment plan in late November.

Broder reported from Washington and Williams from Budapest.