Begin the U.N. Withdrawal

On Monday, Croatian forces swept past U.N. peacekeepers to recapture a border enclave held since 1991 by separatist Croatian Serbs. On Tuesday, Croatian Serbs from the affected region, western Slavonia, struck back, firing fragmentation bombs into the heart of Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Meanwhile, fighting between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats flared in northeastern Bosnia, and heavy shelling was reported in Sarajevo.

In the violent aftermath of the cease-fire that ended Monday, an ominous widening of the war appears to have begun. Zagreb, as close as it was to the intense fighting in Bosnia, had not previously been struck. On Tuesday, five were killed there and 121 were wounded.

The prospect that Croatia might be on the verge of a major attempt to recapture the Krajina area along its southern border--like western Slavonia, held by separatist Croatian Serbs since 1991--prompted a condemnation of the Croatian Serb attack on Zagreb by Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia, and by Andrei V. Kozyrev, foreign minister of Russia, as well by U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith. Censure by Belgrade, Moscow and Washington may matter less to the Croatian Serbs, however, than support from Pale, headquarters for the separatist Serbs of Bosnia, whose leader, Radovan Karadzic, is ready for all-out war.

The sad fact is that all of the contending groups in Bosnia and Croatia have ceased to treat the United Nations as other than a logistic element to be exploited or frustrated as the moment requires. Though U.N. General Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali professed optimism Tuesday (in New Zealand), 115 U.N. troops are now prisoners of war, arrested by Serbs who blame them for the success of the Croatian offensive. The secretary general’s optimism has been overtaken by events. The U.N. peacekeepers should begin an orderly withdrawal. Let them return later only if and when there is at least a semblance of peace to be kept.