Serbs Prevent Bihac Visit by U.N. Official : Balkans: Mission commander hoped to boost morale of trapped peacekeepers. He terms incident ‘a humiliation.’

Bosnian Serb rebels were joined by their Croatian Serb allies Saturday in provoking the U.N. Protection Force by blocking the U.N. commander for Bosnia-Herzegovina from making a morale-boosting visit to trapped peacekeepers in the Bihac enclave.

British Lt. Gen. Michael Rose sat fuming for five hours at the front-line barricade near Sisak, 20 miles southeast of here, waiting for the Serbian rebels to let his five-vehicle entourage through.

Well after night fell at the makeshift “border” between Croatian-held territory and the rogue Republic of Serbian Krajina, Rose and his party turned back.

“I’m afraid it has been a snub for the people of this country and for the people on whose behalf we are working for peace,” an angry Rose told reporters upon his return to U.N. headquarters in Zagreb. “It’s been a humiliation for the civilian authorities, who gave us clearances to go through and were clearly overrun by their military structure.”

The embarrassing standoff with the Serbian rebels who occupy the Krajina region of Croatia was just the latest in a monthlong series of harassments heaped on the U.N. mission as its leaders struggle to decide whether or how they should retreat from Bosnia.

“I think this incident shows that both the Croatian Serbs and the Bosnian Serbs will give all (U.N. Protection Force) personnel, even a general, a very rough time whenever they want to cross their territory,” said U.N. mission spokesman Paul Risley.

Risley also cast doubt on claims by Bosnian Serbs that they had released the last 187 U.N. soldiers taken hostage by the rebels.

Bosnian Serb leaders in their mountain stronghold of Pale, just east of Sarajevo, announced that they had freed all U.N. captives held at weapons collection sites around the Bosnian capital. But Risley pointed out that the Serbs had demanded that other U.N. troops be sent in place of those released, making the situation more of a hostage exchange.

The rebels continue to deny fuel deliveries to U.N. compounds throughout Bosnia. That has forced the mission to cease patrolling U.N.-designated “safe areas” and the weapons exclusion zones around Sarajevo and Gorazde.

Fuel is so scarce in Gorazde that the 400 troops in that enclave now must turn off their sole emergency generator between midnight and noon, the local U.N. commander informed headquarters Saturday.

U.N. officials in Sarajevo have no fuel for their cars and are expected to run out of diesel power for their generators within a few days, Sarajevo spokesman Lt. Col. Jan-Dirk von Merveldt said.

Dutch troops in the isolated Srebrenica enclave were informed by the Bosnian Serb gunmen surrounding them that they are unlikely to get more fuel unless they prove they used their last delivery for patrolling the safe area. The local Serbian liaison intimated that his commanders “up the chain” do not want the troops storing any for emergencies, according to the daily mission field reports.

Only a day earlier, U.N. officials had sought to portray a turnaround in the Serbs’ attitude toward their mission, suggesting that the threat of a pullout and massive infusion of U.S. and other NATO troops had cowed the rebels into submission.

The first humanitarian aid convoy in more than two months was allowed to reach the Bihac region’s 200,000 starving residents Friday, and Bosnian Serbs had hinted that they might be willing to resume negotiations on an international peace plan.

But a vow by Yasushi Akashi, the U.N. special envoy for the Balkans, to carry on despite the harassment--and similar statements issued by European Union leaders meeting in Essen, Germany--appeared to postpone any immediate moves toward a U.N. withdrawal.

Probably feeling less pressure for compliance, the nationalist rebels in both Bosnia and Croatia resumed their practice of thwarting the peacekeepers.

Rose has repeatedly sought to tour the Bihac safe area, where Croatian Serb rebels have backed an artillery assault by Bosnian Serbs that has trapped 1,200 poorly equipped Bangladeshi peacekeepers. The Bihac pocket is surrounded by Serbian-held territory, making it impossible for outsiders to visit without rebel approval.