U.S. to Boost Bosnian Peace Process

In an attempt to breathe new life into the stalled Bosnian peace process, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday announced a package of new measures aimed at promoting ethnic integration and thwarting those opposed to the 18-month-old U.S.-brokered peace agreements.

The package includes a cutoff of funds to local Bosnian political and military leaders who refuse to comply with the peace accords, injection of an additional $80 million to bolster Bosnia-Herzegovina’s shattered judicial and police systems and a rebuilding of the still-disputed city of Brcko--whose ownership is due to be determined by arbitration--as a symbol of the larger goal of a multicultural Bosnian state.

“The Clinton administration’s purpose is to help renew the momentum of the peace process in Bosnia so that it becomes irreversible,” Albright said in a speech in New York.

The plan she unveiled marks the latest in a series of recent initiatives by the administration that collectively indicate a new sense of commitment to bringing the peace agreement, hammered out in 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, to a successful conclusion. The moves come in the wake of a six-week full-scale government review concluded last week and approved by President Clinton on Monday.

Albright said she will travel next week to Sarajevo and at least two other towns outside the Bosnian capital--Brcko and Banja Luka--to press home the new effort.

She also said that new pressure would be exerted on both Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his Croatian counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, to arrest indicted war criminals, many of whom continue to live relatively normal and open lives in the region.

Earlier this week, Clinton nominated David Scheffer, who was a senior Albright advisor when she served as United Nations ambassador, as an ambassador at large for the war-crimes issue. That move appeared to signal a new resolve to win the arrest of at least some of the 67 indicted war criminals--mainly Serbs and Croats--who remain free.

Albright also recently excoriated Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic for his country’s failure both to arrest war criminals and act more aggressively to permit the return of Serbian refugees to ethnically mixed areas recaptured by Croatian forces in the summer of 1995.

Despite these measures and Albright’s announcement Thursday, however, in Bosnia there were many questions about the real level of commitment by U.S. and other Western powers.

The senior civilian in charge of executing the peace agreement, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, is to step down in June, and his replacement will be a Spanish diplomat lacking the political clout that many see as necessary to enforce terms of the pact, diplomatic sources said.

Carlos Westendorp, the U.N. ambassador who also served briefly as Spain’s foreign minister, will replace Bildt, according to sources who said senior officials in Bildt’s office were notified of the decision Thursday.

Critics, including many involved in the peace process, said the replacement sends the wrong message.

“What does it say about the world’s commitment when someone who has no experience in Bosnia [issues], from a country that has little weight, is sent in at such a critical stage?” said one international official in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. “This is not the time to send in the second string. There is no time for a learning curve.”

Diplomats see the next couple of months as particularly crucial because of complicated municipal elections in September--registration is taking place now--and the anticipated summertime return of refugees. Bildt has been involved in intricate negotiations to persuade recalcitrant local officials to allow minorities to return home, as well as other negotiations to change laws that would enable Bosnia to function as a country--from what passports will look like to deciding on a common currency.

All of these negotiations are likely to come to a sharp halt in the ensuing changeover, especially as officials unschooled in the Balkans takeover, diplomats in Sarajevo said.

The U.S.-led efforts to restart the peace process come as an uneasy calm hangs over the region. A year and a half after a heavily armed peace implementation force led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--including 20,000 Americans--moved into Bosnia to separate warring Serbs from their Croat-Muslim opponents, large-scale fighting has ceased and rival forces have retreated to their barracks. However, attempts have failed to knit Bosnia back into the integrated, multiethnic state it was before the war began five years ago.

In most instances, local leaders have instead played on easily fanned ethnic hatreds to prevent minority refugees from returning to their communities. With the existing international military stabilization force, including 8,500 Americans, scheduled to leave Bosnia by June 1998, many of the region’s leaders believe that they merely have to wait out this deadline before they can separate into ethnically based states.

The package released Thursday is directly aimed at preventing that.

“Today and in the days to come, we will be rededicating ourselves to the goal . . . of a single Bosnian state with two multiethnic entities,” Albright said.

Marshall reported from Washington, Wilkinson from Sarajevo.