British 1st on Scene, Find Serbs ‘Ready for Peace’

The first and only NATO soldiers stationed in Serb-held territory spent their afternoon Saturday giving tank rides to smiling Serbian children.

In a nearby bistro, residents of the village of Krupa Na Vrbasu, five miles north of the cease-fire line welcomed the British soldiers encamped here by serving them slivovitz, a popular Bosnian plum brandy.

“We are ready for peace,” declared Milorad Hamidzic, a 20-year-old Serbian soldier, as he watched the children ride a 25-ton Warrior armored personnel carrier in the village’s main street.

While most of the 20,000 U.S. troops to be deployed in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been unable to cross the Sava River from Croatia, British soldiers have already established a strong presence in the territories of all three of Bosnia’s formerly warring factions--the Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

Just after NATO officially assumed authority in Bosnia on Wednesday, a British military tractor bulldozed blockades at the key military checkpoint here, long a hated symbol of the war. Then a squadron of 140 light dragoons moved into this Serbian stronghold, giving the NATO-led forces in Bosnia a base in rebel Serb territory.

The British forces, eager to bring about peace in Bosnia, have been able to move more quickly than the Americans in part because they already had troops in Bosnia assigned to a U.N. peacekeeping force, whose mission ended last week.

Despite upbeat reports on the progress of the deployment, two NATO aircraft on relief missions came under fire as they flew over Bosnian battle lines near the capital, Sarajevo, NATO officials said Saturday, prompting a stern warning from the senior commander of the peacekeeping forces.

A British Sea King helicopter transporting two sick infants and their mothers from Tuzla to Sarajevo and an American C-130 cargo plane ferrying humanitarian supplies to Sarajevo were attacked Friday at about dusk, a NATO spokesman said. There were no injuries, and both aircraft landed safely.

It was not clear who fired the shots, but Bosnian Serbs, Croats and the Muslim-led government have all been ordered to find out, NATO spokesman Maj. Simon Haselock said in Sarajevo. Tensions have been high around Sarajevo because Serb-held suburbs will be returned to Muslim-Croat government control under a Bosnian peace agreement reached in Dayton, Ohio, this month.

“I hold all parties responsible for making sure their people know this is a peace mission,” U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, commander of the 60,000-strong Bosnia operation, told reporters at U.S. military headquarters at the Tuzla air base.

“I’m going to put the onus on the leaders of the parties . . . to knock that stuff off.”

NATO’s Implementation Force suffered its first casualties Saturday when two British soldiers drove over a land mine near the northwestern Bosnian town of Sanski Most, held by the Serbs through most of the war until the government captured it in October.

An armored personnel carrier rescued the two soldiers from the minefield. One of the men suffered injuries to his legs and underwent surgery, while the other was bruised by the blast, Haselock said. Neither is considered seriously hurt.

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The British soldiers arriving in Krupa have been pleasantly surprised to find that the war-weary Serbs are just as happy to see them as Muslims and Croats had been on the other side of the line.

“They’re the friendliest people we’ve found since we’ve been in Bosnia,” said Lance Cpl. Jim Cameron, a tank commander in Krupa.

Although NATO planes bombed rebel Serb areas earlier this year, the villagers of Krupa seem to hold no grudge. They more easily remember how the Serbs were allied with Britain and the United States during two world wars.

“It’s not strange that we consider the British nation our friends,” said Mladen Ilic, a 57-year-old native of Krupa who lost a son in the Bosnian war.

Gen. Mike Jackson, the commander of the sector of Bosnia patrolled by the British, flew by helicopter Friday to the Serb-held city of Banja Luka and met with Rajko Kasagic, the “prime minister” of the self-declared Serb republic. Uncertain at first of what to expect, Jackson was greeted on the street by waving children, and he received assurances from Kasagic that the Serbs will fulfill the conditions of the Balkan peace agreement.

On Saturday, in a large tent near the site of a bombed-out motel, Jackson met with generals of the three factions and again was encouraged by their response. “I think there is a genuine desire to make it work,” he said of the peace accord. After the meeting, the two predominantly Christian factions--Serbs and Croats--announced that they had agreed to the simultaneous release of some prisoners of war today in a Christmas Eve gesture of goodwill.

In addition, Momir Talic, a rebel Serb general, pledged that Muslims and Croats who remain in Serbian territory will possess all the rights granted to Serbs. However, Talic did complain that the peace accord was not fair, because it left some Serbian populations living under the authority of the Muslim-led Bosnian government.

“We have an unjust peace,” he protested.

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In the village of Krupa, however, many of his countrymen seemed ready for an end to the war. A 34-year-old villager, one of a handful of adults who also got rides on the tank, said afterward that he was pleased the British had arrived.

“I think with them there is going to be peace and freedom,” said the man, who gave his name only as Tipcina. “The people who haven’t been fighting would like the fighting to continue, and the ones who have been fighting want it to stop.”

Throughout the war, the Serbs have maintained an effective propaganda machine, and the villagers in Krupa see themselves as victims, not aggressors.

“The Serbs were only defending themselves and their property and their children,” said Ilic, a retired hotel operator who serves as the leader of the local civil protection group.

Ilic denied that the Serbs had committed “ethnic cleansing” and asserted that they had maintained concentration camps only so they could later trade for their own people.