THE SECRET DEBATE ON BOSNIA : Holbrooke to Revisit Balkans to Urge Serb Leaders’ Removal

President Clinton has decided to send his former peace negotiator for Bosnia, Richard C. Holbrooke, back to the Balkans to pressure Serbia to remove two Bosnian Serb leaders from power, a U.S. official said Saturday.

Holbrooke plans to fly to Belgrade to meet with the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, to warn him that the United States is serious about implementing all parts of the Dayton, Ohio, peace agreement, the official said.

The Clinton administration is considering reimposing economic sanctions against Serbia if the two Bosnian Serb leaders are not removed, another official said.

Holbrooke was the principal negotiator behind the Dayton agreement, which ended more than three years of war in Bosnia when it was signed last year.

The United States has been pressing for the removal from power of the two top Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, as part of the peace agreement.

A war crimes tribunal convened by the United Nations issued arrest warrants for Karadzic and Mladic last week after finding that there is sufficient evidence to try them for war crimes.

Holbrooke’s new mission follows increasing concern within the administration that Bosnia’s elections, scheduled for September, could actually cement Karadzic and Mladic in power if they are not removed soon.

Milosevic has long been the leading advocate of Serb nationalism in both Serbia and Bosnia, and was the principal supplier of the Bosnian Serb war effort. But the administration has increasingly asked him to act as the West’s ally in pressing the Bosnian Serb leaders to comply with the Dayton accord.

Holbrooke, who left his post as assistant secretary of state after the peace agreement was concluded, is now an executive with CS First Boston, an investment banking firm in New York.