U.S., Allies Forge Strategy on Bosnia to Contain Fighting : Balkans: U.N.-protected ‘safe havens’ would be set up for Muslim refugees. Washington agrees to launch air strikes if needed. The plan awaits Security Council vote.

The United States and its major U.N. allies announced Saturday a package of modest new steps designed to prevent fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina from spreading to other parts of the Balkans and to further pressure Bosnian Serbs into agreeing to a political settlement.

The measures, worked out over the past few days by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the foreign ministers of Russia, Britain, France and Spain, would establish “safe havens” in Bosnia--enforced by additional U.N. troops--to help protect displaced Bosnian Muslims.

The allies also would increase the number of U.N. troops in Macedonia, the southernmost province of the former Yugoslav federation, and seek to put U.N. monitors in Serbia’s ethnic-Albanian enclave of Kosovo in hopes of discouraging Serbian attacks in those areas that could spread the conflict beyond Bosnia.

U.S. officials said the new allied proposal will be taken up in stages by the U.N. Security Council, beginning early this week, with a view toward pushing the program through entirely by early June.

The officials said the United States has agreed to protect the U.N. troops that would guard these new safe areas by launching air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces that may attack them. It also may conduct military exercises in Macedonia as a symbol of American resolve.

Macedonian officials in the capital of Skopje tentatively welcomed the proposal but said they must have more details about the operation before they could agree to it.

In a statement Saturday, the five allied governments warned that Serbian aggression against Macedonia would have “grave consequences” for the Serbs. They also cautioned Serbian leaders against extending “ethnic cleansing” measures to Kosovo.

But U.S. officials said that as President Clinton has promised, Washington will not send American ground troops to Bosnia itself--a step that both Congress and the public oppose--lest the United States become embroiled in a long-term land war in the Balkans.

Except for the agreement to effectively establish safe areas, the accord offered little that the allies have not already put into place. And reaction to it among key members of Congress was lukewarm.

Even President Clinton, in New Hampshire on Saturday to promote his economic program, was less than enthusiastic about what admittedly was the best arrangement his Administration was able to negotiate.

Asked whether it would have any impact, he replied, “It could, it could,” adding, “At least we (the allies) are together again.”

But he also insisted later that Americans “should be reassured that,” as a result of the accord, “there is (only) a limited possibility of a quagmire” in Bosnia “and a strengthened possibility of ending (the Serbs’ campaign of) ethnic cleansing.”

He said the safe areas had been “defined in such a way as to end the slaughter and provide humanitarian relief.”

The Administration has been reluctant to support the creation of safe areas, fearing that doing so would effectively ratify territorial gains the Serbs have made by force and set up what could become huge refugee camps for Muslims.

Clinton had hoped instead to persuade the United Nations to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia--which has disproportionately affected the Bosnian Muslims--and launch air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs.

But the Europeans and Russians refused to go along, leaving the allies split--and seemingly paralyzed--over what action to take.

U.S. officials conceded that in the end the Administration agreed to the “safe havens” plan in the belief that even a modest gesture was better than continued allied inaction, which only seemed to encourage the Bosnian Serbs to step up their attacks.

Christopher said in a Saturday briefing that the agreement demonstrated that the allies are “determined the international community will act together” to increase the pressure for a negotiated peace.

Besides establishing the safe areas and increasing the number of U.N. troops in Bosnia, the allies also plan to monitor Serbia’s recently announced move to close its border with Serb-held areas of Bosnia, offering to send U.N. observers to the boundary line if Belgrade permits.

They also warned Belgrade that the United Nations will continue the economic embargo that it imposed on Serbia earlier this year--and “rigorously” enforce it--until the Bosnian Serbs withdraw from “the territories occupied by force.”

Officials later interpreted that to mean that “at a minimum” the Bosnian Serbs must adhere to the peace plan devised by U.N. envoy Cyrus R. Vance and European Community diplomat Lord Owen, which calls for splitting Bosnia into 10 autonomous cantons ruled by Muslims, Serbs or Croats. The Serbs have rejected the pact four times.

But the officials also indicated that the allies may be willing to negotiate further if the Serbs can suggest changes that “build upon” the accord.

For all the allies’ newfound unity, however, Saturday’s accord still leaves the Bosnian Serbs in control of all of the territory that they have taken by force--which amounts to about 70% of the total land in the former Yugoslav republic--with little prospect that it will be returned.

It also contains some risks--though admittedly fewer than the risks posed by air strikes, which Clinton had hoped to order--that U.S. Air Force elements assigned to protect U.N. ground troops will be drawn into a long-term commitment in the region.

Although Clinton insisted Saturday that the new allied accord “does not contemplate” sending U.S. troops to the area, analysts pointed out that the agreement obligates America to provide air cover as long as U.N. troops there request it.

Under the allied proposal, six safe areas would be established in Bosnia-Herzegovina--the current capital of Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Zepa, Gorazde and Srebrenica--with more to be named later. Each would be protected by troops from a different allied country.

Although plans are not yet complete, officials said Canadian forces, which already are in Srebrenica, would remain in place there, with British forces staying in Tuzla and French troops in Bihac. Sarajevo already has British, French, Canadian and Spanish forces.

Officials said that Russia also may send as many as 2,000 troops into Bosnia as part of the U.N.-sponsored operation. Moscow already has some forces in Croatia. It was not known whether those would be increased.

Besides the authorization to establish safe areas, the allies also are seeking to send monitors to Kosovo and to the Serbian-Bosnian border and to set up a war crimes tribunal to punish those who have committed atrocities in the Bosnian war.

And, in an attempt to extend their diplomatic pressure to the newly aggressive Bosnian Croats as well, they also warned Croatia that it too could be saddled with economic sanctions if the Bosnian Croats continue their latest assault on Bosnian Muslims.

They also agreed to continue humanitarian relief efforts in Bosnia and enforcement of the “no-fly” zone that the allies imposed there earlier this year in an attempt to prevent Serbian forces from using aircraft to bomb Muslim enclaves or transport their troops.

Of the five governments that joined in Saturday’s proclamation, the United States, Russia, Britain and France all are permanent members of the Security Council, while Spain is temporarily on the 15-member panel. China, the fifth permanent member, is expected to abstain when elements of the new plan come to a vote.

Despite the obvious relief that the five were able to agree on a single set of measures, there was little pretense by the allies Saturday that the accord had achieved anything beyond the lowest common denominator among the various allied positions.

At a news conference called to announce the new plan, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd cautioned that “these are only the first steps” and that “no one is pretending this is going to be an easy road.”

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the agreement “modest” but asserted that it was all that could be expected given the impasse among the allies on other steps.

“We’ve been searching for . . . more limited measures to reach more limited objectives, and that’s what I think we’ve done,” Hamilton added. But he warned: “It’s going to leave us with a messy situation. . . . There are going to be outbreaks of violence” in months to come.

There was no immediate indication of precisely how the allies would begin enforcing the “safe havens” plan, which by some estimates would require more than double the 9,000 British, French, Canadian and Spanish forces now in Bosnia.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization already has developed a series of contingency plans to provide military power for various diplomatic options that the allies have been considering, including the “safe havens” approach.

Pentagon officials said the United States most likely would provide A-6 attack planes and A/F-18C and F-14 fighters from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, now in the Adriatic Sea, and Air Force attack planes from bases in Italy.

U.S. warplanes from the Theodore Roosevelt already are flying combat missions to enforce the no-fly zone over Bosnia.

NEXT STEP

Many of the measures announced by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Spain to contain the strife in the Balkans have already been put into place. But the package will be presented in stages to the U.N. Security Council, which will then vote on resolutions that will give international authority to the plan. U.S. officials said the package could be presented to the council as early as Monday. Quick action is expected on resolutions authorizing border monitors, a war crimes tribunal and safe areas, and some officials said they hope to push the entire program through by early June.