NEWS ANALYSIS : Recalling Broken Promises Over Past 2 Years, Sarajevans Skeptical : Bosnia: But residents are grateful for the truce. They can only hope and pray it will last.

Whether the peace that now reigns in Sarajevo can be preserved and extended elsewhere in war-racked Bosnia depends on how long the world powers that have created it are willing to stand watch over a costly end game.

The Bosnian Serb artillery that savaged this multicultural city for more than 22 months has been rendered silent, because the gunners sensed for the first time in this conflict that the Western countries of the NATO alliance were serious about striking back.

But much of the weaponry remains within easy reach of the Serbian besiegers, either still dug into the surrounding hills now watched over by token and temporary U.N. patrols or at new venues outside the protective 12-mile zone delineated around Sarajevo.

The silencing of the artillery cordon has been proclaimed a major success by U.N. officials here, and many capital residents share the West’s appreciation for that genuine breakthrough.

Yet there is unshakable skepticism on the part of most Bosnians toward Western assurances that the horrors of war are nearly over here, and much of that doubt has been instilled by nearly two years of broken promises of military or moral support to break the siege.

The head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, Kofi Annan, has repeated the world body’s urgent appeal for 2,500 more troops to reinforce the cease-fire and weapons-monitoring patrols for Sarajevo. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has backed the call with a warning to member countries that more resources are needed for Bosnia if momentum toward peace and a credible threat of enforcement are to be maintained.

Nearly 1,000 U.N. troops on peacekeeping assignments elsewhere in the troubled Balkans had to be rushed to Sarajevo last week to provide the armed strength to enforce the NATO-ordered weapons withdrawal and cease-fire.

Their absence from other hot spots, such as the central Bosnian town of Vitez and Serb-occupied areas of Croatia, has made those areas vulnerable to stepped-up conflict, adding to the pressure for more U.N. troops.

The fact that major troop-contributing nations are speaking more of pulling out than of reinforcing their Bosnian contingents is a major source of insecurity and fears here that bombardment could one day haunt Sarajevo again.

“The war still isn’t over here,” said Drazenka Kravic, a dejected young mother selling slices of a homemade cake at the central market. “Even when the rest of the world thinks there is peace, there won’t be. They don’t see that it is a pause that will end as soon as they stop looking.”

With NATO’s acceptance of an imperfect Serbian compliance with its ultimatum to withdraw all heavy weapons from around Sarajevo, the threat of Western intervention in the form of punitive air strikes has greatly receded.

The commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia, British Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, has laid his credibility on the line by pressing NATO to hold off strict enforcement as long as the guns still inside the exclusion zone remain silent.

Rose’s gamble and a similar one by Russia’s special envoy to the Balkans, Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly Churkin, will likely pay off in continued peace here as long as the Serbs are made to feel that swift punishment will follow any breach of the cease-fire.

But concern is widespread that the recent U.N. actions to shore up the cease-fire will do more to cement the status quo of division in Sarajevo than to provide a formula that can be exported to other areas of Bosnia still under siege.

The shelling here may have stopped, and the risk of death may have been removed from an act as simple as walking downtown streets in daylight. But the city remains under blockade by the Serbian forces who encircle it and bar any flow of goods and people in or out of the capital.

Water taps and power lines remain in the hands of the Bosnian Serb forces who have sought to conquer Sarajevo for inclusion in an ethnically pure state built, acre by acre, through armed force and strategic deprivation.

Hopes for relief were raised Tuesday when the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees resumed aid convoys and the lifesaving food airlift to Sarajevo after a two-day suspension. The refugee agency also sent back in dozens of foreign staff workers who had been evacuated last week.

But Sarajevans hunger for the time that they will not be dependent on U.N. handouts for their survival and can restore normal trade and social ties with the outside world.

The U.N. mission has identified several potential next steps following the Sarajevo cease-fire, most of which involve fully enforcing the exclusion zone but some of which are also aimed at allowing free movement for the capital’s 380,000 remaining citizens.

Lt. Col. Bill Aikman, U.N. mission spokesman in Bosnia, said restoration of utilities and removal of barricades are top priorities.

Bosnian government leaders have publicly accepted the U.N. promises that other steps to lifting the siege will be taken, apparently confident that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can be compelled to brandish the threat of air strikes again if needed.

Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic expressed uncharacteristic confidence that the international community will follow through, noting that the very success of the NATO ultimatum in forcing the Serbs to silence their guns has provided proof positive to Western societies that they can make a difference here without risk to themselves.

“We have received assurances by the U.N. that they will try to immediately help refugees return to their homes,” Ganic said when asked if the planned deployment of thousands more troops here to patrol Serb- and government-held areas would secure the territorial status quo, as has happened during two years of U.N. intervention in Serb-occupied Croatia.

“I hope (U.N. troops) won’t now be employed by the Serbs to keep the territory they have conquered, like they did in Croatia,” Ganic said. “We will not accept that.”

But efforts to build on the achievement of the Sarajevo cease-fire will likely be met with firm Serbian resistance, at least at the onset, leaving the capital at the mercy of its former attackers while lengthy negotiations ensue.

A protracted standoff would likely encourage government forces outside Sarajevo to take it upon themselves to end the blockade by advancing through the Serbian cordon that has ostensibly been stripped of its heavy weapons.

That is the nightmare scenario for many in Bosnia, as it would compel Serbian rebels to seize back the weapons only nominally under U.N. control, reigniting the artillery clash that has been halted for the past 11 days.

But Rose has been struggling to convince all involved in this faceoff that his success in stopping the shelling will be lasting and that his optimism is not based solely on the naive hopes of a newcomer.

Rose’s accomplishments in little more than three weeks on the job were possible because NATO sought to capitalize on the international outrage sparked by the Feb. 5 bombing of an open-air market that killed 68.

If he is to deter any repeat of that horror and avoid becoming the West’s fall guy on Bosnia, Rose will have to keep the pressure on the international community to make good on its promises to keep the guns silent and gradually restore some semblance of normal life to this battered country.

What’s Ahead

Some of the options being considered for Bosnia now that the situation in Sarajevo has cooled:

OPTION: Put Sarajevo under U. N. administration (proposed by Russia, France)

OUTLOOK: The Bosnians have said they would accept U.N. administration if it didn’t dilute their sovereignty over their own capital.

OPTION: Force a cease fire in Mostar (proposed by the U.N. commander in Sarajevo)

OUTLOOK: The United States was wary about issuing another threat. U.N. negotiators say they are close to negotiating a cease-fire without any explicit threats of force.

OPTION: Extend new Sarajevo-style protection to the five other “safe areas.” (proposed by France)

OUTLOOK: The United States and Russia both oppose the idea.

OPTION: Hold an international peace conference (proposed by Germany and Russia)

OUTLOOK: The United States and most other countries, pessimistic about chances for success, have said such a meeting would be premature.

OPTION: Take a few limited steps, such as reopening Tuzla airport or relieving Canadian peacekeeping troops in Srebrenica (proposed by United States as a fallback)

OUTLOOK: The United Nations says it plans to reopen Tuzla airport March 7 and relieve the Canadians as soon is practicable.

OPTION: Spur Muslim-Croat diplomatic talks on combining their areas into a single state (proposed by United States)

OUTLOOK: The United States sees this as a way of possibly resolving the war and getting a stable division of territory.

Source: Times Washington Bureau