U.N., NATO Call Off Strikes as Serbs Comply

NATO and the United Nations on Wednesday called off air strikes against Bosnian Serbs after determining that the rebels had complied with demands for withdrawal of their heavy guns from around this besieged capital.

Halting the aerial bombing campaign takes pressure off the Bosnian Serbs, who in the past 10 days have suffered their greatest territorial losses in 3 1/2 years of war. It may also clear the way for a cease-fire, U.N. officials said.

About 250 of the more than 300 mortar and artillery pieces that the Serbs had installed in the hills around Sarajevo were removed during the past 72 hours to meet a U.N. deadline that expired Wednesday night, U.N. military spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Vernon said.

The Serbs had been granted a six-day reprieve from NATO air strikes--first launched in late August--to allow them to pull back their weapons.

“We are happy compliance has been achieved,” Vernon said.

The Serbs are allowed to keep in place mortars with calibers under 82 millimeters and artillery of less than 100 millimeters.

Another U.N. demand--that its personnel be given unimpeded land and air access to the capital--has also been met, Vernon said.

For most of their 41-month siege of Sarajevo, the Serbs have routinely blocked roads and subjected U.N. peacekeepers to harassment at checkpoints. And they had closed the airport, Sarajevo’s lifeline for humanitarian aid, by shooting at aircraft.

A resumption of NATO air strikes over Bosnia is “currently not necessary,” said a joint U.N.-NATO statement issued by the United Nations in New York.

Civilians still do not enjoy the freedom to move into or out of the city, nor do they have electricity, water or gas--all cut off by the rebels.

Meanwhile, a military offensive by the Bosnian government army and its Croat allies in northern Bosnia appeared to have slowed as Serbs were digging defensive lines around the threatened stronghold of Banja Luka, U.N. officials said.

The Bosnian-Croat advance appeared to have stopped near the towns of Prijedor and Sanski Most, both about 25 miles west of Banja Luka, a U.N. military intelligence source said.

In an ominous development, a notorious Serbian paramilitary leader and his men were reported to have arrived in Banja Luka to rally the city’s defenders and strike terror in the hearts of the challengers.

“We came here to defend the people and get back what is ours,” said Zeljko Raznatovic, according to the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA.

“We will not allow Ustashi knives to slaughter Serbs again,” said Raznatovic, also known as “Arkan.”

“Ustashi” refers to the World War II-era Croatian government, a puppet of the Nazis.

Raznatovic and his troops have been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in a war that is full of them.

In a sweeping 10-day offensive, the Muslim-led Bosnian government and Croatia have racked up territorial gains that now give them about half of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Concerned that their ongoing peace initiative was endangered by the fighting, U.S. officials on Tuesday sought--and received--assurances that the offensive would stop.

But while Washington urged restraint, the U.S. ambassadors to Croatia and Bosnia appeared to endorse the offensive when they took a field trip to the newly recaptured town of Bosanska Krupa, Reuters news agency reported.

Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith and Ambassador-designate to Bosnia John Menzies praised Muslim troops for reuniting a town that had been divided by the Una River and ethnic hatred.

“We commend 5th Corps for the liberation, and the heroism they’ve displayed over the years,” Menzies said.

The Bosnian army’s 5th Corps is considered its best fighting force.

The Bosnian government, in the rare position of having the upper hand in the war, wrote the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday demanding demilitarization of Banja Luka.

In its letter, the Bosnian government encouraged Serbian civilians to remain and pledged to guarantee their rights and property.

In contrast to that spirit of reconciliation, however, Bosnian TV Wednesday night broadcast interviews with Muslim villagers who had been ousted by rebel gunmen from their western Bosnian homes.

The villagers recalled the murder and rape of their townspeople by Serbian troops on a campaign to “ethnically cleanse” the region.

Even as Serbian weapons were being trundled outside a 12.5-mile ring around Sarajevo, there were troublesome incidents.

Serbian gunmen fired two missiles at a NATO plane Wednesday, and the Bosnian government army fired four mortars from within the city toward Serbian positions, U.N. officials said.

The joint U.N.-NATO statement signing off on Serbian compliance Wednesday was delayed by hours of debate over how to describe the cessation of air strikes.

A draft of a statement signed by the U.N. commander in the former Yugoslav federation, Gen. Bernard Janvier, and NATO’s southern force commander, Adm. Leighton Smith, recommended that the aerial campaign “indefinitely be suspended.”

But the political commands of both institutions debated wording that governs how quickly air strikes could be ordered again.

“The debate is whether to say ‘permanent cessation’ or ‘temporary suspension,’ ” a U.N. source said. “The U.N. is on the permanent cessation side, NATO is on the temporary suspension side. One keeps the hammer over [the Serbs’] head, the other doesn’t.”

Also at issue is the United Nations’ role in calling air strikes. After a year in which the world body was viewed as reluctant to use force against the Serbs, even as U.N.-designated “safe areas” fell to the Bosnian Serb army, the authority to order warplanes into action was removed from the hands of U.N. civilian bureaucrats in July and given to U.N. and NATO military commanders.

Many Western officials believe that this streamlining of the chain of command contributed to the resolute swiftness with which bombings were ordered Aug. 30.