NATO Rescues Bosnian Serbs From Crowd’s Ire

In a dramatic escalation of tensions among Bosnian Serbs, a senior leader, his closest aides and dozens of his gunmen were trapped for hours Tuesday in a hotel besieged by an angry mob and surrounded by rival police.

Most of the captives were eventually rescued--and disarmed--by NATO troops.

Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb member of Bosnia’s three-member presidency, was pelted with gravel, eggs and bottles as he escaped a crowd that branded him and his government as crooks.

The standoff represented the clearest illustration yet of the power struggle between Western-backed Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic and hard-liners who support Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president and indicted war crimes suspect.

Karadzic forces, grouped around Krajisnik, suffered a major humiliation in Tuesday’s siege, diplomats said, and may be left in irreparable disarray ahead of municipal elections this weekend.

They had traveled Monday to Plavsic’s headquarters city, ostensibly for a political rally that fizzled.

Despite hostile crowds, Krajisnik and his entourage spent the night in Banja Luka’s hotel. When they attempted to leave Tuesday morning, they said, they found the hotel surrounded by Plavsic’s police demanding the arrest of some of their more notorious members.

International officials said Krajisnik and his well-armed men may have been planning to stage a coup against Plavsic. At the very least, the officials said, the more than 70 men transported to Banja Luka aimed to cause trouble.

“This was not a political rally,” said Jacques Klein, a U.S. diplomat who was the senior civilian mediator on the scene. “This was a clear case of thuggery.”

Twelve Krajisnik supporters were arrested between Monday and Tuesday, allegedly with forbidden long-barrel weapons.

Once the hard-liners realized they were surrounded Tuesday, they barricaded themselves inside the hotel and detained the other guests, most of whom were Western journalists. Electricity, water and telephone service in the hotel were cut off. “We have a hostage situation here,” Jovan Zametica, a chief aide to Krajisnik and Karadzic, said, speaking in the humid, dark lobby. “We fear for our safety.”

Klein, an official with the agency in charge of implementing Bosnian peace accords, dispatched a team to negotiate with Krajisnik and with Plavsic’s police. Holding Krajisnik’s group responsible for the shooting the night before of a local police officer, the negotiators offered to let Krajisnik and his men return, under NATO escort, to their headquarters in Pale only if they agreed to disarm.

Krajisnik refused. The day wore on, with negotiators shuttling back and forth and an increasingly disgruntled, pro-Plavsic crowd swelling outside the hotel. Mediators grew impatient with what they saw as Krajisnik’s stubbornness.

Five hours into the siege, Krajisnik’s men were finally forced to free the other guests. Two hours later, Krajisnik agreed to allow British troops with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to evacuate most of his men. British Royal Military Police searched the men and seized dozens of automatic pistols and other weapons. Between 65 and 70 men were then escorted through a gantlet of Plavsic police and of crowds hurling rocks and abuse. They were taken in armored vehicles to a nearby British military base, where their identities were to be checked against lists of war crimes suspects.

Krajisnik himself was loath to be rescued by NATO peacekeepers, whom he routinely attacks as an occupying force. Frustrated at his recalcitrance, NATO withdrew and turned the operation over to pro-Plavsic police, who quickly occupied the building. Twelve hours after the standoff began, Krajisnik was rushed to his Mercedes-Benz under a hail of debris. He paused to wave at the crowd even as they screamed for his hide.

Krajisnik’s entourage sped away with the mobs in hot pursuit.

International officials said Plavsic gave up on demanding the arrest of Krajisnik’s former interior minister and security chief, Dragan Kijac, who reportedly fled through another exit. “She wanted this to end,” said one official. “The point is made. Krajisnik is humiliated.”