3 Balkan Leaders Sign Treaty; U.S. Role in Peace Bid Praised : Bosnia: Clinton urges former combatants to ‘go forward together.’ Formal end to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since WWII triggers deployment of 60,000 NATO-led troops.

By SCOTT KRAFT and PAUL RICHTER

Dec. 15, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

PARIS —

In a gilded room of the French presidential palace, the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia solemnly signed a treaty Thursday to end Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, setting in motion the deployment of 20,000 American soldiers and 40,000 other NATO-led troops to the snowy Balkans.

The ceremony, which formalized an agreement reached last month in Dayton, Ohio, launched both a risky attempt at peace for the still-seething Balkan factions and a massive Western commitment of troops and money.

“Mr. Presidents, you have bound yourselves to peace,” President Clinton told the leaders. “But tomorrow you must turn the pages of this agreement into a real-life future of hope for those who have survived this horrible war.

“I know the losses have been staggering, the scars are deep,” Clinton added. “But Bosnia must find a way, with God’s grace, to lay down the hatreds, to give up the revenge, to go forward together.”

Driving the point home, Clinton bluntly reminded the leaders that he, along with other foreign presidents, were putting up troops “in the face of skeptics who say the people of the Balkans cannot escape their bloody past, that Balkan hearts are too hard for peace.”

The treaty was signed in the space of three minutes by Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia.

Then Clinton, French President Jacques Chirac, British Prime Minister John Major, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin and Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez--for the 15-nation European Union--added their signatures.

Taking their turns at the podium in the Salle des Fetes, beneath the crystal chandeliers and frescoed, cherub-covered ceiling, the three Balkan leaders singled out the United States for praise, promised to stand by the agreement and issued pleas for the estimated $6 billion needed to return an estimated 3 million refugees, rebuild the country and establish democracy.

“My government is taking part in this agreement without any enthusiasm but as someone taking a bitter, yet useful, potion or medication,” Izetbegovic said. “That being said, may I add that the signing of this agreement is being done with full sincerity on our part, and the agreement will be duly respected.”

Izetbegovic added: “We pay tribute to the American government, the American Congress and President Clinton for their endeavors past, present and future, so that war may be brought to an end in this region and peace be ushered in.”

Izetbegovic and Milosevic--the leader of Serbia, the dominant state in the rump Yugoslavia--had earlier exchanged letters of mutual recognition, considered an important step in cementing the agreement.

But Milosevic and Tudjman have yet to formally recognize each other’s countries, a move that analysts say would lower tensions in Eastern Slavonia, the last region of Croatia still held by Croatian Serbs. The area is scheduled to return to Croatian control after a two-year transition phase.

Milosevic, whose dreams of a Greater Serbia led him to fan regional hostilities for years, said that while the treaty “does not solve all problems between people who have been at war for years, I am convinced that the common language will be found so that people may be able to live in peace.”

Looking ahead to the arrival of NATO troops, Milosevic added that the “key to the success of this mission is evenhandedness. Partiality will mean failure.”

In the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the Paris signing--and perhaps more important Clinton’s handshake and private discussions with Milosevic--were treated by the state-run media as proof of Milosevic’s political rehabilitation in the West.

Six of eight Serbian television stations broadcast the signing ceremony live, and the entire 45-minute evening news was dedicated to the story.

Today’s edition of the government daily Politika shows Clinton and Milosevic on the front page, with a headline describing them as “two statesmen” having a “one-hour friendly conversation.”

The state-run television broadcast messages of congratulations to Milosevic from political leaders throughout the rump Yugoslavia, as well as man-on-the-street interviews praising the peace agreement and expressing hope for economic recovery.

The only naysayers could be found on independent radio and television, where opposition leaders criticized Milosevic for delivering his speech in English, a particular irony since not long ago Serbs were discouraged from even listening to English-language music.

In the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, as the signing ceremony took place, explosions and gunfire rang out for the first time in weeks.

About half a dozen mortars and shells slammed into the ground near Sarajevo’s Jewish cemetery and near the Brotherhood and Unity Bridge that is now barricaded but connects the government and Bosnian Serb parts of the capital.

No casualties or significant damage were reported. It was the first significant shelling since a cease-fire went into effect in October as a preliminary step in the peace process.

Also Thursday, Bosnian government troops fired on a U.N. helicopter that Bosnia had called in to help rescue several soldiers trapped in snow.

The French helicopter was hit three times and forced to make an emergency landing. No one was hurt.

There were signs that disgruntled Bosnian Serbs in the suburbs of Sarajevo had begun to act on their fears.

In Ilidza, a Bosnian Serb-held suburb, some Bosnian Serb residents were packing and leaving, according to witnesses. Many left on buses and in trucks. City officials reported that several dug up the graves of their relatives before departing. Serbian tradition holds an almost mythic regard for the burial places of ancestors.

Serbs who live around Sarajevo have been protesting the peace agreement’s decision to restore the districts to government rule. Many have said in recent days that they cannot accept the authority of their enemy and would rather fight or leave.

But a 72-year-old widow, whose first name was Jelena, watched the Paris signing on television in her walk-up apartment in the Bosnian Serb-held Sarajevo district of Grbavica. She was pleased that the war was ending and recalled the life she shared with Muslim and Croatian neighbors.

“My son in Belgrade has been reassuring me that there will be French police here and we don’t have to worry,” she said. “If I had guarantees it would be all right. . . . I don’t want a separate wall, like the Berlin Wall, but I do want a distinct separation between them and us.”

Under the U.S.-brokered Balkan accord, the country will be divided into two regions under control of the Bosnian Serbs and a Muslim-Croat federation.

Refugees among the Bosnian Muslim, Croatian and Serbian populations can return to their homes and vote within nine months, though it is unclear how many will risk returning to regions controlled by their former foes.

The international community is to provide money for reconstruction, and on Thursday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Michel Camdessus backed Bosnia’s bid for membership in the organization. He said the IMF is ready to give the war-battered nation emergency loans once it joins next week.

The accord also says war criminals must be pursued.

Bosnian leader Izetbegovic promised “no revenge, no vengeance.”

But, he added, “human rights must be respected and guilty parties must be punished,” a clear reference to Bosnian Serb military commanders accused of slaughtering civilians during the war.

Chirac opened the signing ceremony in the 18th-century Elysee Palace by paying homage to the 56 French soldiers killed during the U.N. peacekeeping operation. “This rampage of horror will leave a deep wound in the heart of Europe,” he said. “We must prove ourselves to be worthy of their memory, worthy of their suffering.”

The treaty, as each of the Western leaders stressed, is only a beginning, though it has raised hopes worldwide for the first lengthy period of tranquillity in the Balkans since 1991, when fighting broke out in a war that has left an estimated 250,000 dead.

“The peace remains to be built in the hearts of minds of the people of the region,” Chirac said. “Now let us reach out to them.”

Clinton has by many accounts put his presidency on the line with the Bosnia mission, and at this event he showed how he intends to cope with that: by continuing to sell the effort, as hard as he can.

Clinton scheduled long interviews with all four U.S. TV networks on the event, which the networks broadcast live. And he talked up the boost he had gotten from the Congress in a series of votes Wednesday night, even though the votes signified a grudging, rather than an enthusiastic, approval.

The task of persuading the American public does not end with the treaty, said Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, but “will take very patient and continuing work.”

Clinton said Thursday that he was “quite pleased with where the Congress came out yesterday, compared to where they were a month ago,” when leaders in both houses were vowing strong efforts to block the deployment.

The Senate voted late Wednesday to allow Clinton to “fulfill his commitment.” Both houses of Congress also voted not to cut off funds for the mission.

The Paris ceremony gave the president cause for satisfaction.

Since the three Balkans presidents initialed the agreement on Nov. 21, Clinton has passed early but critical tests--both with Congress and with the warring parties themselves, which have complained mightily about the agreement but have not broken it.

“They’ve actually gained some ground since the signing,” said Patrick Glynn, a former Reagan Administration arms control official. “The fact this has held up this long shows there is some basis for believing in the prospects for peace.”

But Michael Williams, a senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Affairs in London, cautioned Thursday that the treaty was little more than “a dressed-up cease-fire. This could easily turn into the most expensive cease-fire in history. The political work is still to be done.”

For Clinton, another principal goal of the signing was to soothe the feelings of the European allies--particularly the French--who have been embarrassed and annoyed to see the American diplomacy prove decisive in brokering the long-sought peace.

Chirac showed no evidence of lingering animosity, saying, “I must hail the decisive contribution made by U.S. diplomacy.” Clinton, equally magnanimous, began his remarks by listing the contributions of others to the peace, beginning with Chirac “for his vigor and determination.”

Clinton said he wanted to help persuade the Bosnians of the value of peace by showing them that their neighbors would help them rebuild.

To that end, he announced that the United States would quickly provide $85.6 million in aid, most of it for humanitarian assistance and “winterization.”

The aid has already been authorized and appropriated. The administration hopes to provide an additional $600 million over the next three years, about a tenth of the estimated need.

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson in Sarajevo and Dean E. Murphy in Belgrade contributed to this report.