February 5, 1996
U.N. Tries to Ally Fears of Sarajevo Serbs
By CHRIS HEDGES
LIDZA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Simo Tusevljak, the chief of the criminal division for the Serbian police in this suburb of Sarajevo, is now required to uphold the laws and constitution of what he calls "those Muslim fanatics" in his more diplomatic moments.
"You must be kidding?" Tusevljak said when the latest United Nations-brokered agreement was explained to him. "Is this a joke?"
The agreement, negotiated Sunday morning, permits the Serbian police to remain for an additional 45 days as long as they honor the laws of the Muslim-Croatian federation. The police were due to withdraw on Saturday as part of the transfer of the Serbian-held suburbs to the Bosnian government.
The arrangement is part of a last-ditch effort by the United Nations to allay the fears of the 50,000 Serbs in the five suburbs of the capital who say they will flee once the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government takes control.
The suburbs will be handed over to the Bosnian government on March 19 as called for by the peace agreement reached in Dayton, Ohio, in November. About 10,000 Serbs have moved out of the suburbs since the peace agreement was signed in Paris in December.
"As long as we remain, the Serbs who live here will have enough confidence to stay," said Rajo Kolic, 30, a policeman who sat Sunday afternoon with four other officers in downtown Ilidza drinking coffee.
"The moment we are forced to go, everyone will go with us. The only hope of keeping the Serbs here is keeping us here."
U.N. officials say that in the next 45 days they will try to create a mixed police force of Serbs and Muslims to patrol the suburbs once the Bosnian government takes control. But the United Nations, overseeing the civilian aspects of the Dayton agreement, is understaffed.
The United Nations plans to deploy about 1,600 unarmed international police monitors to Bosnia, 400 of them to oversee the building of such a force. But of the total force, only 300 have arrived, including 117 in Sarajevo and 12 in Ilidza.
It could be weeks before the bulk of the monitoring force arrives, U.N. officials said. And without the international police force, the establishment of a joint Muslim and Serbian force, already difficult, will be impossible.
"The biggest problem is that the U.N. has failed to live up to its part of the agreement," said a senior European police monitor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We should have had all these police deployed by now."
Sunday's agreement was hammered out between the Bosnian government and top officials from NATO and Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden, who is overseeing the civilian part of the peace accord.
A Bosnian government statement Sunday, adding to the fragility of the agreement, called for the disarming of the Serbian police, who are allowed to carry pistols. The Bosnian government also accused the Bosnian Serb leadership of putting soldiers in police uniforms.
"Serbian troops are still where they had been in Sarajevo suburbs all these years, only in different uniforms," said Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic, who recently replaced Haris Silajdzic after he resigned.
U.N. officials said it appeared that the number of police officers in the Serbian-held suburbs had increased. They also said some police officials had been replaced with new, unfamiliar faces.
The Bosnian government has also charged that the Serbian police are overseeing the dismantling of heavy industry from the suburbs for transfer to the Serbian-held part of Bosnia.
As part of Sunday's agreement, NATO-led forces, which have tried to avoid any police work, will increase their presence in the suburbs.
Sunday afternoon 10 U.S. soldiers, wearing body armor and carrying M-16 assault rifles, moved through the drizzle distributing handbills and putting up large yellow posters that explained the agreement to the Serbs.
The Serbian police officials, in blue camouflage uniforms with the silver double-headed eagle over their breast pockets, dismissed any possibility of ever taking directives from the Bosnian government.
"My loyalty is to the Serbian leadership in Pale," said Tusevljak, seated beneath a large picture of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader. "The Muslims have no interest in professional police work. They only want to create an Islamic state. They can't expect us to help them do that."
