Bosnian Serbs Avert Air Strikes With Pullback

Bosnian Serb gunmen grudgingly withdrew tanks and artillery from around battered Gorazde on Tuesday, U.N. officials said, averting the threat of NATO air strikes against weapons that had been savaging the “safe haven.”

U.N. forces patrolling Gorazde reported evacuation of all known gun emplacements by nightfall, although it remained unclear whether the weaponry had actually been removed from the 12-mile exclusion zone proclaimed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Even before U.N. ground forces in Gorazde relayed their general impression that the Serbs had complied with the withdrawal order, the peacekeeping mission here showed itself to be extremely reluctant to approve the use of force to impose the NATO ultimatum, probably fearing that any outside attack could do more damage to its operation than to the defiant rebels.

“We are not going to go to war over a broken-down tank,” British Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia, said of the uncertain Serbian compliance and mounting Western pressure to show the rebels some military resolve.

The 15,000-plus troops of the U.N. Protection Force in Bosnia are deployed on a neutral, humanitarian mission, and Rose has stated he sees no prospect of “bombing our way to peace.”

Throughout the monthlong crisis triggered by the Bosnian Serb offensive against Gorazde, Rose and other top U.N. officials have played down the severity of the fighting that killed or wounded nearly 3,000. They have also granted vast leeway to the rebels each time they violated cease-fire orders.

“All the sites in the 20-kilometer (12-mile) exclusion zone where the Bosnian Serb army’s heavy weapons were previously located have been reported by U.N. military observers as being cleared,” said a U.N. spokesman, Cmdr. Eric Chaperon.

About 500 U.N. troops have been deployed to Gorazde over the past two days to separate the Muslim-led government forces and the rebel Serbs.

NATO reconnaissance flights in the afternoon showed some tanks and artillery still within the weapons exclusion zone, and Chaperon earlier conceded that some Serbian infantry remained within a 1.9-mile radius of central Gorazde--a safety zone from which the rebels were supposed to have pulled out three days ago.

As the Bosnian Serb soldiers retreated from the inner protected zone Sunday, they looted and burned hundreds of houses and blew up a water plant.

U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi, the civilian head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission for the Balkans, denounced the “scorched earth” tactics and lodged a protest with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the Bosnian Serb leadership had announced itself in full compliance with the withdrawal edict 12 hours before the NATO deadline of 5:01 p.m. PST Tuesday, or 2:01 a.m. Wednesday local time.

When NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner warned Friday that the alliance would call in air strikes against the Serbian war machine unless shelling of the haven ceased immediately, the rebels pulled back their troops to the protected zone border by early Sunday, and all U.N. troops and relief operations were granted unhindered freedom of movement. Yet Bosnian Serb forces have continued to hamper troops and aid convoys throughout Bosnia.

A food convoy was let into Gorazde in the morning after a 24-hour blockade by Bosnian Serb gunmen, but a separate delivery of shelter materials was turned back by the rebels who claimed the tents and plastic sheeting were military materials.

The Bosnian Serbs also have been sighted moving tanks and other heavy weapons back into an exclusion zone proclaimed around Sarajevo in February, after NATO threatened to bomb the hardware if it was not surrendered or pulled back.

Although the rebels have failed to adhere to the letter of any of the recent peace orders, U.N. officials have been reluctant to approve punitive air strikes. Two token attacks by U.S. warplanes on April 10 and 11 prompted a massive campaign of harassment and hostage-taking that handcuffed U.N. operations.

Meantime, in London on Tuesday, a new, international “contact group” on Bosnia--which consists of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia--agreed to begin negotiations with the warring parties in Sarajevo on Thursday, senior U.S. officials said.

But the new diplomatic initiative is dependent on Bosnian Serb compliance with the NATO ultimatum that the rebels pull back their heavy weapons around Gorazde, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher emphasized.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Geneva contributed to this report.