U.N. Leader Overrules Halt to Bosnia Aid

In an embarrassing slap, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali overruled the organization’s top refugee official Friday and ordered the resumption of U.N. relief supplies to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The halt in aid, ordered by High Commissioner for Refugees Sadaka Ogata only 24 hours earlier in a fit of frustration over the harassment of relief efforts by all sides, had shocked U.N. and international aid agencies.

The reversal by Boutros-Ghali, fresh from an official visit to Japan, amounted to a public reprimand of one of the highest-ranking Japanese in the United Nations. By his action, Boutros-Ghali may have offended the country that finances more of the U.N. budget than any other except the United States.

He informed the press of his decision soon after the Security Council, in a separate action involving the former Yugoslav federation, extended the mandate to maintain up to 14,000 peacekeeping troops in Croatia until March 31.

That was designed to give peace negotiators Cyrus R. Vance, a former U.S. secretary of state and now a special U.N. envoy, and Lord Owen, a former British foreign secretary and a special European Community negotiator, more than a month to work out a new cease-fire agreement between the Croats and the Croatian Serbs.

The resolution also empowered the U.N. troops to fire their weapons in self-defense. Up to now, the peacekeepers in Croatia, unlike their colleagues in Bosnia, had no such authority. The new authority was designed to ensure that neither the Croats nor the Croatian Serbs could push the peacekeepers aside with impunity.

In Washington, meanwhile, top national security advisers agreed Friday to recommend to President Clinton the use of U.S. military airdrops into eastern Bosnia to help besieged Muslims, the Washington Post reported. The size of the airdrop was not known, the report said.

Such a move, if approved by Clinton, would interject American forces for the first time into the yearlong Balkan conflict without permission of all the warring parties.

Though described as a strictly humanitarian operation, the airdrop would bring food to a region that Serbian militias have sought to starve into submission, and thus could be regarded by the Serbs as frustrating their war aims.

U.S. military planners said they are warning Clinton to expect Serb attempts to shoot down the American planes.

Asked about the report Friday night, White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said: “The President is still reviewing his options.”

Boutros-Ghali did not hide the disciplinary nature of his order to Ogata. He told reporters that “I already sent a message to Mrs. Ogata to resume the aid as soon as possible.”

Asked if she agreed, he replied, “I am supposed to direct this operation.”

Ogata is visiting refugee camps in Burundi and declined to comment until she has spoken to Boutros-Ghali, Geneva-based spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told the Associated Press.

Although U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization and UNESCO operate independently of the secretary general and the U.N. Secretariat in New York, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees is different.

Ogata was appointed by the General Assembly in 1991 on the recommendation of then-Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar; her agency functions under the aegis of the United Nations.

In halting the aid to Bosnia, Ogata had complained, “The political leaders on all sides have made a mockery of our efforts, and I deeply regret that their behavior has obliged me to take this decision.”

Ogata’s order came after gun-wielding Bosnian Serbs prevented food convoys from reaching eastern Bosnia and the Muslim-dominated government in Sarajevo decided to refuse all supplies there in protest.

In Sarajevo, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic welcomed the reversal by Boutros-Ghali. “I hope convoys will reach eastern Bosnia,” he said, “and that Sarajevo once again will receive its fair share of humanitarian assistance.”

A Bosnian government official said that Sarajevo city leaders will meet with U.N. officials today to discuss the refusal by Sarajevo to accept aid. This variation of a city hunger strike was announced by the city last week as a demonstration of solidarity with the 100,000 Muslims in sore need in eastern Bosnia.

Sarajevo Radio broadcast an appeal Friday from Cerska, one of the besieged and trapped towns. The appeal said that “20,000 civilians, including 1,000 wounded, 2,000 invalids, about 3,000 children, 500 pregnant women . . . have been under incessant shelling for 36 days. . . . They are . . . also dying of hunger.”

In the resolution on Croatia, approved by a unanimous 15-0 vote, the Security Council still set limits on the use of force by peacekeepers.

It said that force could be used to “ensure the security of the U.N. Protection Force,” as the peacekeepers are known.

The Security Council could not give the peacekeepers any more authority to use force because of objections from China, which has a veto.

“Our idea is not to change the nature of the force to move from peacekeeping to peacemaking,” French Ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee said. “We are moved solely by considerations of preventive security.”

The mandate for the Croatia operation would have ended sometime near the end of this month. Acting on the recommendation of Boutros-Ghali, the Security Council extended the term for only one more month while Vance and Owen try to negotiate a new cease-fire.

In a report to the Security Council last week, Boutros-Ghali warned that the United Nations might have to withdraw its peacekeepers from Croatia if Vance and Owen fail.

The secretary general said that the United Nations had been able to maintain a reasonable cease-fire for almost a year until the Croatians launched an offensive against the Serbs a month ago.

The United Nations, however, has been the object of scorn by both sides. The Croats blame the world body for failing to push the Serbs back from the territory they seized. The Serbs blame it for failing to prevent the Croatian offensive that caused Serbian casualties.