Deployment of Bosnia Peacekeepers Thwarted : Balkans: Intensifying battles and demand for a payoff block movement of Canadian soldiers.

Intensifying battles in Bosnia-Herzegovina and a demand by Serbian rebels for a cash payoff from U.N. forces have undermined deployment of peacekeeping troops to the war-ravaged republic, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Serbian guerrillas in the northern Bosnian city of Banja Luka are refusing to allow 100 Canadian soldiers to cross into the city they have been assigned to secure for aid deliveries unless the United Nations pays a $250,000 “security deposit,” the officials said.

Although Serbian authorities characterized the deposit as necessary to cover any unexpected costs they might incur because of the peacekeepers’ stay, U.N. officials said it was more like a bribe, which they said they will refuse to pay.

There were also reports on both Bosnian and Croatian broadcasts that French peacekeepers had been attacked by Serbian forces near the city of Bihac and that an ensuing exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of one Frenchman and seven Serbs.

If the reports are confirmed, the first major rebel casualties from the U.N. deployment could enrage Serbian guerrillas and expose the U.N. troops to even greater danger. But the spokeswoman for U.N. mission headquarters here said there had been no reports from the French unit of any such engagement.

U.N. negotiators had been assured by authorities in the city of Knin, what Serbs call the capital of the Serbian rebel state that calls itself Krajina, that peacekeepers would be allowed to deploy to Bosnia without hindrance, mission spokeswoman Shannon Boyd said.

But as the first of the 900 Canadian soldiers assigned to Banja Luka tried to cross a bridge into the city over the weekend, Serbian forces trained their heavy guns on the peacekeepers and warned them that they could not enter without permission from local authorities.

“The whole point of the U.N. presence is that it is by agreement of the (warring) parties, but there seem to be more parties involved every day,” Boyd said with a note of frustration.

The Canadians have returned to their base in Daruvar, Croatia, until U.N. officials can renegotiate their free passage into Banja Luka.

Serbian nationalists in Belgrade entered into the U.N. peacekeeping agreement a year ago, speaking for fellow Serbs throughout what then was still recognized as the federation of Yugoslavia.

Croatia and Bosnia have since gained international recognition of their sovereignty, and the Serb-held areas of both republics have broken away and declared their own states.

Because the Yugoslav government has been hit with severe economic sanctions, Belgrade has scaled back its support for Serbian rebels waging war against Croatia and Bosnia. That has angered Serbian rebels in both Knin and Banja Luka and prompted them to refuse to abide by terms of the U.N. peacekeeping agreement they never signed.

Heedless of the foreign soldiers who have arrived in Bosnia, Serbian guerrillas have stepped up attacks over the past few days on the few remaining places of refuge for Muslims in Bosnia. Bosnian radio reported that 3,000 shells were fired at the city of Gradacac in the 24 hours before dawn Wednesday. There was also a heavy bombardment of Olovo and Brcko, two other Muslim strongholds in central Bosnia.

Fighting and “ethnic cleansing” have killed at least 24,000, left another 60,000 missing and presumed dead and forced nearly 2 million people from their homes. “Ethnic cleansing” is a tactic that has been employed primarily by Serbs to kill or expel members of other nationalities from the territory they hold to remove potential resistance to eventual annexation to a Greater Serbia.

Mediators from the United Nations and the 12-nation European Community have been conducting peace talks in Geneva for two months in a fruitless effort to prevent the ethnic-based carving up of Bosnia and to try to ease the suffering of besieged civilians by sending them food and medicine.