NEWS ANALYSIS : NATO Show of Force in Bosnia May Strengthen Serb Leader’s Support

Instead of bombing the Bosnian Serbs into submission, the sudden show of force by the United States and its European allies may have the unintended effect of strengthening hard-line Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic among his radical followers.

And if that happens, U.S.-backed efforts to isolate Karadzic in the interest of finding a peaceful settlement will suffer.

The Bosnian Serbs responded to the first of two NATO attacks with an especially brutal shelling of Tuzla, a Muslim “safe area” in northern Bosnia. There, more than 70 people, including several small children, were killed. And later, the Bosnian Serbs seized U.N. peacekeepers and used them as human shields against new NATO strikes.

The escalation came at a time when Serbian rebels in both Bosnia and Croatia were in trouble. They experienced their first significant military losses of the war; their leadership was embroiled in an internal power struggle; grass-roots morale was on the wane.

Now, observers here believe, Karadzic and his supporters will use the attacks--which officials on both sides of the Atlantic hastened to commend as a necessary response to an escalating offensive by Bosnian Serb separatists--to rally their troops, close ranks and fight onward.

For the Bosnian Serbs, there is little to lose.

Karadzic faces likely prosecution as a war criminal, and the Bosnian Serbs have lost their patron, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The most radical of the Serbs have shown little interest in a peaceful settlement to the war they have waged for three years as part of a messianic campaign to unite Serbs throughout the Balkans into a Greater Serbia. Warfare has been their preferred option.

“We have been fighting for 1,000 years, 1 million Serbs gave their lives, and what is ours, we will not give up,” declared ultranationalist Serbian politician Vojislav Seselj, a staunch supporter of the Bosnian Serbs who also has a large following in Serbia.

“Each dead Serb should be paid for with the lives of at least 100 Muslims,” he said in an interview in Belgrade. “So the real victims of the NATO air strikes are going to be the Muslims. The U.N. has declared war on the Serbian people.”

Still, the Bosnian Serbs, who have seized 70% of Bosnian territory, are stretched thin as they try to hold such a large area, while the Muslim-led Bosnian government’s army has gradually strengthened.

The air strikes Thursday and Friday by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were intended to punish the Serbs for their attacks on the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and their flouting of U.N. rules governing weapons.

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But, at least in the short term, the last two days have increased the carnage in this part of the world, rather than limiting it, and have caused an already untenable situation to deteriorate further.

The internationally mediated peace process may also suffer.

The strategy behind the world powers seeking a negotiated settlement has relied on driving a wedge between rebel Serbs and Milosevic, the powerful president of Serbia, the largest republic in the rump Yugoslavia.

Escalating attacks on the Bosnian Serbs could destroy the peace process by forcing Milosevic to defend his onetime disciples.

Thus far, however, Belgrade has been extremely careful to keep its distance.

In an unusually mildly worded statement released Friday, the government treated all warring parties on an equal footing and voiced support for U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi--the same man Bosnian Serbs were branding a war criminal for having authorized the air strikes.

“The new escalation of armed conflict undermines the peace process and favors those who advocate a violent solution of the Yugoslav crisis,” the Serbian statement said. It called for a halt to all military activity.

Belgrade television and radio, most of which is controlled by Milosevic, have downplayed the violence at Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale, burying the first day’s air strikes at the end of newscasts. The shelling of Tuzla was portrayed on evening news broadcasts Friday as “Muslim propaganda,” yet the government also refrained from condemning the NATO strikes.

Milosevic cannot be overly critical of Karadzic when Karadzic is under attack, seemingly, from the world. That would alienate true believers who are still a powerful force in Serbia.

At the same time, it is unlikely that Milosevic will want to lend much support to his rival.

Milosevic’s nationalistic rhetoric originally inspired Serbian separatists throughout the Balkans, and he is widely blamed for starting the war in Bosnia.

But eager to recast himself as a peace-broker and international statesman, Milosevic has used the last year to distance himself from Karadzic and his allies, favoring instead those Serbs who are more willing to negotiate.

U.N., U.S. and NATO officials, expressing confidence that their tougher stance will eventually help bring peace, portrayed Karadzic’s reaction as that of a desperate man merely sealing a fate of increasing isolation.

While he may improve his standing among his own followers at least temporarily, these officials say, he has simply gone too far in defying the United Nations and the international community.

“Karadzic is truly aware that we are indeed at a turning point, that the international community can no longer accept to be humiliated, that all decisions of the Security Council are not respected,” NATO Secretary General Willy Claes said at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “From that point of view, it is a turning point.”

In the end, several analysts said, the course charted by Karadzic is one of doom.

“Karadzic is taking his cue from Somalia,” said Milos Vlasic, editor of Belgrade’s principal independent magazine, Vreme. “He’s saying, ‘Let’s make this war so disgusting for them, they’ll quit.’ The U.N. then faces a very unpleasant choice of whether to continue. And if they leave, Karadzic wins a tactical victory, and we’ll have low-intensity war for five to seven years.”

Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Brussels contributed to this report.