Balkan Armies Pull Out of Swapped Land

When the deadline for military forces to withdraw from the Serb-held suburbs of this capital passed Saturday night, the same police who Sada, a 67-year-old Muslim, says have been terrorizing her for the last two weeks remained on duty.

The same mayor of Sada’s suburb, Grbavica, remained in power, as did all Bosnian Serb police and municipal officials in the five suburbs that will begin to change from Serbian to Muslim-Croatian hands today.

Hoping to avoid a panicked exodus of tens of thousands of Serbs, international mediators struck a last-minute deal that allows the civilian status quo to continue in the suburbs for the next 45 days, as long as Bosnian Serb officials show movement toward a real transition between now and March 19.

Many Serbs are greatly relieved. The Muslim-led Bosnian government is publicly outraged.

And Sada is just scared.

The police controversy aside, all parties were complying with Saturday’s deadline to remove their armies from an estimated 1,500 square miles of territory that is being swapped, North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials said.

“There is absolutely no evidence that any party is going to renege on this agreement,” Maj. Gen. Mike Willcocks, a senior commander of NATO’s ground troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said in assessing compliance with the terms of the U.S.-brokered peace accord that on Dec. 14 formally ended more than 3 1/2 years of war.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, on a heavily guarded daylong tour of the region, heralded the “excellent” progress in complying with the accord as “one of the really important landmarks” of the peace process.

“True peace is not here, but the war is little by little drawn to a close, and the miracle of everyday life is returning to this beautiful but tragic country,” Christopher said in Sarajevo.

Armies were pulling out of the areas being transferred, but in some cases not quietly.

In the town of Boric, which is switching to Muslim-Croatian control, several hundred Serbs who wanted to stay were forced to leave by Bosnian Serb soldiers who then torched homes, U.N. officials said. In a village near the central Bosnian town of Jajce, about 350 Croats who were willing to live under new Serbian rule were being pressured to flee by Bosnian Croat forces.

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But it is the ring of Serb-held districts around Sarajevo that continues to vex negotiators and pose the most sensitive challenge to peace in Bosnia.

As the date for transfer of the Serbian suburbs approached, humanitarian officials and witnesses have reported widespread looting, robberies and the beatings and harassment of elderly non-Serbs in Grbavica and other areas. In many cases, the culprits have been armed, uniformed men--either soldiers or police.

Sada, who did not want her full name published because she still lives in Grbavica, knew the three policemen who tried to oust her from her apartment and steal her fine leather couch and brand-new washing machine. She had seen the men at the local police station.

Carl Bildt, a Swedish diplomat who is the senior authority charged with executing the civilian terms of the accord, agreed to let police and civilian authorities remain in the Serbian suburbs as a “pragmatic arrangement” that would prevent chaos, his aides said.

Under the arrangement, the stay-behind authorities must heed the constitution of the Muslim-Croatian federation that will eventually get control of the area, according to Bildt’s deputy, German diplomat Michael Steiner.

Overnight, then, police officers who have been a part of the Bosnian Serb war machine will be expected to shift allegiances from Bosnian Serb headquarters at Pale to Sarajevo, the capital of the Muslim-led government.

Such a transformation seems unlikely.

On Saturday, Bosnian Serb police officers who had been brought in from other parts of the so-called Republika Srpska stood arrayed at one end of a newly reopened bridge that connects Grbavica with Sarajevo proper. They denied access to some people, in violation of the peace accord, and said they were following orders “from Pale.”

The Bosnian government protested the decision on the Serb-held suburbs as a violation of the accord reached in Dayton, Ohio.

“The presence of Serb police for another 45 days is illegal,” Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said.

Asked how members of minorities like Sada can feel safe with a police force that has proven abusive, Steiner said that the “international presence” would be relied upon to compel correct behavior by police.

The NATO peacekeeping mission continues to try to keep its hands off what it terms police matters, saying the troops’ mere presence, which is still increasing, enhances security but that they will not be drawn into law enforcement.

Although U.S. officials acknowledge that the policing of ethnic communities is a weak link in the peace accord, Christopher also used a session with Izetbegovic to insist on the expulsion of foreign fighting forces and the release of all prisoners.

Christopher told Izetbegovic that the United States would not be able to provide training and equipment to the Bosnian military until these and all other aspects of the accord are met.

Times staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.