Serbs Persist in Harassing U.N. Peacekeepers

A U.N. soldier trapped by Serbian gunmen in Bosnia’s besieged Bihac region died of a lack of medical treatment, and rebels thwarted the rescue of a hostage peacekeeper with a life-threatening heart condition, U.N. officials said Sunday.

The latest evidence of harassment of the U.N. Protection Force--coming even as the Serbs released a token number of peacekeeper hostages--coincided with a visit by the British and French foreign ministers to Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, to warn that U.N. troops may pull out of Bosnia-Herzegovina within weeks unless rebel Serbs agree to peace terms.

But Bosnian Serb gunmen loyal to warlord Radovan Karadzic have made it clear that they want the peacekeeping contingent to leave, and they have spurned the international community’s proposals for a negotiated settlement.

A Bangladeshi peacekeeper from among the 1,200 deployed within the besieged Bihac pocket died Saturday of a heart attack brought on by bronchial asthma that was aggravated by a Serbian blockade of supplies for the troops, mission spokesman Paul Risley said.

One 15-truck convoy was finally allowed into the peacekeeping bases Sunday, and U.N. officials were hoping to evacuate the body of the dead soldier with the trucks returning to Zagreb, Croatia’s capital.

The Bangladeshi battalion was deployed hurriedly by the U.N. mission in October, without adequate food, fuel, medicine or winter clothing, and Serbian gunmen had been refusing to allow vital supplies through the surrounding territory they hold.

“These were clear contributing factors to his death,” Risley said of the desperate conditions that have resulted from the Serbian blockade.

And despite repeated pleas for the urgent evacuation from Banja Luka of a seriously ill U.N. military observer, Bosnian Serb officials have failed to respond to the appeals from U.N. headquarters here, Risley said.

Bosnian Serb nationalists continued to refuse medical evacuation for the unidentified Jordanian officer in Banja Luka whose congenital heart disease has been seriously aggravated by his having been used as a human shield against air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Risley said that the ailing officer and three others have been forced to lie on the runway at the Banja Luka military airfield at least twice when their captors feared that NATO was about to strike.

Karadzic continued to taunt U.N. officials here by holding more than 350 U.N. peacekeepers as pawns in a high-stakes confrontation with the outside world.

Yasushi Akashi, the U.N. special envoy for the Balkans, had claimed to have obtained Karadzic’s promise to release all captive peacekeepers after weekend meetings that U.N. sources described as embarrassingly unproductive. Only 53 of 412 captive troops--20 British and 33 Dutch peacekeepers who had been held in eastern Bosnia for more than a week--were released Sunday.

Bosnian Serbs and their Croatian Serb allies continued their coordinated assault on the U.N.-designated “safe area” of Bihac, and heavy artillery fire was concentrated on the northern town of Velika Kladusa, the former power base of ousted Muslim warlord Fikret Abdic.

A quisling for the Serbian nationalists who have occupied all the Bosnian and Croatian territory surrounding the Bihac pocket, Abdic has mobilized at least 5,000 vanquished Muslim supporters from refugee camps and led them into battle against the Bosnian government in hopes of recapturing his private fiefdom.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe took what six months ago was termed a “take-it-or-leave-it” peace plan for Bosnia to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to discuss possible revisions.

Hurd told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the U.N. mission might be within weeks of a pullout unless the Bosnian combatants end the war.

“We will take a little time to do that, but if it fails, then I think lift and withdraw--that is to say, the lifting of the arms embargo preceded by the withdrawal of the U.N. forces--may become unavoidable,” Hurd told the BBC.

The “leave and lift” option appears to have supplanted “lift and strike,” an earlier push by the U.S. government to lift the arms embargo shackling the Bosnian government and protect endangered Muslims with NATO air strikes.

At a news conference following his talks with Hurd and Juppe, Milosevic reiterated his support for the peace plan. But it remained highly uncertain that the Serbian strongman can exert any influence over the Bosnian Serbs, whom he armed and instigated but now claims to have cut off.

The U.N. reluctance to use force against recalcitrant Serbs for fear that such a move would provoke retaliation against peacekeepers has neutralized what little clout Western diplomats had to insist on Serbian acceptance of the peace plan.

A proposal by the five-nation Contact Group--the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany--seeks to bring peace to Bosnia by dividing it, with 51% destined for Bosnian government rule and 49% for the Serbian nationalists behind Karadzic.

The United States sent its former special envoy for the Balkans, Charles E. Redman, to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the rebel stronghold of Pale for parallel talks over the weekend. But Redman reported no progress in winning Serbian compliance with the peace plan, nor was Washington trying to strong-arm the underdog government into making further concessions, said sources familiar with the Sarajevo discussions.

Serbs and Croats also escalated their battles along the Bosnian-Croatian border over the weekend.

Karadzic has accused the Croatian government of sending troops and equipment to back Bosnian Croats in southwestern Bosnia and has threatened to “target Zagreb” if the cross-border support continues.

U.N. officials say they have no firm evidence that the Croatian government is involved in fighting in the area of Livno, 30 miles inland from the Adriatic Sea port of Split. But the mission has for weeks been denouncing Croatian Serb involvement in the assault on Bihac.

In another likely indication of mounting Serbian-Croatian hostility, the explosion of a military helicopter at an airfield near Zagreb prompted U.N. officials to speculate that the chopper was being used to ferry ammunition to the front lines.

The Saturday night blast was heard throughout the Croatian capital.

Fighting between Croatian army troops and Serbian gunmen in Croatia’s breakaway Krajina region has been steadily intensifying in recent days as government forces seek to distract the Krajina Serbs from the Bihac offensive.

A Mission for Peace

At least 36 countries have contributed to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Croatia and Macedonia. Here are some of the nations contributing troops: France: 4,489 Britain: 3,405 Jordan: 3,367 Pakistan: 3,017 Canada: 2,111 Netherlands: 1,817 Malaysia: 1,550 Russia: 1,477 Turkey: 1,464 Spain: 1,295 *

HEAD COUNT

Total number of U.N. military personnel: Bosnia-Herzegovina: 22,288 Croatia: 11,982 Total (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia): 38,978 Note: Figures are as of Nov. 25, 1994

Source: United Nations