U.N. Official Vows to Seek Renewal of Bosnia Truce

The United Nations’ chief civilian official in Bosnia-Herzegovina vowed Thursday to try to win renewal of an expiring cease-fire negotiated by former President Jimmy Carter, but he acknowledged that “it will not be easy.”

The truce, already rent by fighting in Sarajevo and other areas of Bosnia, is to expire at the end of April. But Yasushi Akashi of Japan, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to the Balkans, said extending the cease-fire is “a matter of grave concern” to the Security Council.

He said he plans to meet with Bosnian government leaders in Sarajevo and Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale next week but anticipates great hurdles to extending the cease-fire.

“The parties for different reasons are unhappy with the way the agreement was honored--or dishonored,” Akashi told a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.

After a dramatic meeting with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in Pale almost four months ago, Carter brokered an accord that halted the fighting through the bitter winter months. With the arrival of spring, however, the Muslim government launched a series of attacks in hopes of regaining some of the ground lost to Serbian rebels.

In retaliation, the Serbs resumed shelling and sniping in Sarajevo and harassing U.N. convoys transporting food and medicine to besieged towns throughout the country.

Akashi refused to comment on news reports that Serbian government documents link atrocities in Bosnia to the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Akashi said the documents were a matter for the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, which reportedly received copies of the documents.

“Certainly it should not be the role of the U.N. or anyone else to interfere in the judicial process,” he said.

The documents, if verified, would corroborate longstanding U.N. accusations that the Serbian government and military were party to the terror inflicted on Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian Serbs’ campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”

Akashi staunchly defended the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, which is often condemned for its failure to roll back Bosnian Serb aggression.

He said the 38,000 peacekeepers in Bosnia, Croatia and Macedonia make up “the largest and most complex peacekeeping operation in the history of the United Nations.”

“The criticisms and disappointments are a function of erroneous appreciation and unjustified expectations,” Akashi said, calling peacekeeping “a thankless job.”

Akashi also explained the United Nations’ failure to broker a peace agreement.

“Peace ultimately depends on the political will of the parties in the conflict,” he said, “and that will does not exist in sufficient amounts.”