Shelling Fails to Stifle Hopes for Bosnia Truce : Balkans: U.N. officials see ‘the beginning of the end of the war’ despite nearly 100 explosions on several fronts.

The latest attempt to bring peace to Bosnia was greeted Friday with shelling on two fronts, but U.N. officials remained optimistic that the truce eventually will take hold.

“We are seeing the beginning of the end of the war here in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” predicted Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, the British commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia.

Within hours of the cease-fire, U.N. military observers reported nearly 100 explosions on various fronts, and the Bosnian government and Bosnian Serbs blamed each other for other violations. Fighting, however, appeared to subside by day’s end.

Numerous truces have failed in the 26-month-old war. But Rose said the latest truce, which began at noon (3 a.m. PDT) Friday, was “wider than a cease-fire. It’s keeping the door open to further talks.”

The agreement, reached in Geneva on Wednesday, commits the Serbs on one side and the Muslim-led Bosnian army and its Bosnian Croat allies on the other to refrain from military activity for one month. The U.N.-brokered plan also calls for an exchange of prisoners and information on the missing.

The Serbs had wanted a much longer cease-fire agreement, but the government feared that a longer-term truce might freeze land holdings as they stand--with the Serbs in control of about 70% of the country.

The Bosnian government and Croatian forces, allied since their political leaders formed a federation in March, have been making slight gains against the Serbs in recent fighting.

Commenting on the latest truce’s viability, Rose acknowledged, “There is a fear that the month will be spent renewing (forces) for conflict.”

In the first four hours of the cease-fire, U.N. military observers recorded 63 detonations around the north-central town of Ribnica, one of the most active front lines between Bosnian government and Serbian forces, said Cmdr. Eric Chaperon, a U.N. military spokesman.

Chaperon said military observers were too far from the actual line of fire to say who was violating the cease-fire.

U.N. observers also reported 31 detonations during the same period south of Vares along another government-Serbian confrontation line north of Sarajevo.

Government- and Serbian-controlled media reported other violations shortly after the cease-fire deadline and blamed each other for them.