February 21, 1996
Bosnian Serbs Pressed to Flee Area Near Sarajevo
By STEPHEN KINZER
OGOSCA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- In violation of the spirit if not the letter of the peace agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio, Bosnian Serb leaders are urgently pressing all Serbs living near Sarajevo to abandon their communities before the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government assumes control in the coming weeks.
The campaign collides with efforts by NATO and U.N. officials to assure Serbs that their rights will be protected and that they have nothing to fear from the government of President Alija Izetbegovic.
"We must not allow a single Serb to remain in the territories which fall under Muslim-Croat control," Gojko Klickovic, head of the Bosnian Serb Resettlement Office, told the Bosnian Serb news agency on Tuesday. "We know what treatment they would get under the regime of Alija Izetbegovic and his mujahedeen."
The United Nations and other relief agencies are refusing to help Serbs leave the Sarajevo area, and have condemned the Bosnian Serb leaders' campaign to foment fear.
"This is all part of a campaign of manipulation to get people out, to create a psychosis," said Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Under terms of the peace accord, Sarajevo's Serbian-held suburbs are to come under Bosnian government control by March 19. U.N. and NATO planners hope that Serbs will stay so that Sarajevo can become a model for the rest of Bosnia of the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups.
Many Serb civilians, however, fear that the Muslim authorities will arrive thirsty for revenge against Serbs who have been fighting them for years.
According to U.N. estimates, about 20,000 Serbs have already left the Sarajevo area and as many as 50,000 are either waiting for transportation or undecided about leaving. Now, the undecided are under pressure from their leaders to join the flow away from Sarajevo. The Bosnian Serbs have been at best suspicious of the Dayton accords, where they were represented by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
The northern suburb of Vogosca is scheduled to be the first to come under government control. Government police officers are to be deployed on Friday, with foreign monitors accompanying them on patrols, supervising them when they conduct searches or make arrests, and checking the treatment of any prisoners they take.
Hundreds of Vogosca residents, desperate to leave and angry that promised buses and trucks did not arrive to pick them up, staged a tumultuous protest in front of the town hall Tuesday. Several had to be hospitalized after fainting or being injured in the crush.
The Italian officer who commands NATO troops in Vogosca, Gen. Agostino Pedone, helped calm the crowd by promising that everyone who wants to leave will be able to do so and that those who cannot depart by Friday will be protected. Many who had the means to flee Tuesday, however, rushed to depart, saying they have no faith in international guarantees of their safety.
"Who can give me a real guarantee?" asked Jovo Mastilo, 50, as he and two friends loaded firewood, window panes, insulation panels, a bathtub, an electric fan, a water heater and a motorcycle onto a truck they had managed to borrow.
"My grandfather fought the Muslims," Mastilo said. "My family has fought them for three generations. They are going to arrest me and my children. My children are going to learn their language, their rules, their religion, their way of life. I don't want that."
Many residents of Vogosca had planned to delay their departure until mid-March. The announcement that Muslim officers will arrive Friday has sent them into near-panic, but there is no indication that the United Nations will agree to a postponement.
"Friday is D-day here," said Patrick Barron, an Irish police officer who is one of the monitors assigned to supervise the arriving Muslim force. "It's going to be pretty rough."
Vogosca's mayor, Rajko Koprivica, said that the impending arrival of the government police officers, the appeal by Bosnian Serb leaders for a mass exodus, and the resulting mob scene outside his office -- combined with a storm that covered many roads with snow and ice -- made this the worst day he can remember since the Bosnian war began more than three years ago.
"It was chaos here today," Koprivica said. "Everyone wants to be evacuated in three days, but it's impossible in three or even 10 days. People are afraid, they're upset, they think they've been betrayed. Since this morning, God is against us as well as everyone else."
Koprivica described the refusal of the United Nations to help the evacuation, as well as its decision to bring government police officers so soon, as inhumane.
Emotions also flared Tuesday in Mostar, 110 miles west of Vogosca, where Croats and Muslims, nominally allied in a federation, were supposed to begin joint police patrols at noon.
Croatian officers failed to appear at the appointed time, and several Muslim youths who crossed into the Croatian part of town through a newly-opened checkpoint were chased back by angry Croats. In a series of incidents, shouted insults were exchanged, rocks were hurled and shots were fired. There were no reports of casualties.
At mid-afternoon, after frantic efforts by the European Union administrator of Mostar, Hans Koschnick, Croatian police officers agreed to join the joint patrols. As in Vogosca, a full-blown crisis that could have threatened the peace accord appeared to have been averted.
NATO officers also repaired what might have become a dangerous threat to peace efforts by re-establishing contacts with the Bosnian Serb military leadership. A top Bosnian Serb commander, Gen. Zdravko Tolimir, did not appear at NATO-sponsored military talks Monday, but Tuesday he received the commander of NATO ground forces in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Michael Walker, at his headquarters in Pale.
The Bosnian Serbs announced earlier this month that they were suspending contacts with NATO to protest the Bosnian government's arrest of two Bosnian Serb officers suspected of war crimes.
In Washington, President Clinton praised the Balkan leaders for recommitting themselves to the Bosnia peace effort, and announced Tuesday that he would ask Congress to approve $820 million for U.S. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and for reconstruction efforts there.
The request, which will be sent to Congress on Wednesday, would shift surplus funds from the National Reconnaissance Office, the super-secret agency that manages spy satellites, to the mission in Bosnia.
It calls for $620 million for hazard pay for all soldiers and increased pay for reservists who went on active duty. It also includes $200 million for economic reconstruction of Bosnia, deployment of international police monitors and mine removal.
Lawmakers are expected to support the Pentagon's request for pay increases. But many Republicans oppose dipping into the military's budget to pay for economic reconstruction efforts and want that money to come out of other State Department funds, which Secretary of State Warren Christopher has resisted.
Clinton began making the case for the reconstruction funds Tuesday. "The sooner the Bosnian people recover the blessings of a normal life, the surer the chances for a peace that endures," he said in a statement released after he met with his senior national security advisers at the White House to review two days of meetings in Rome called by American officials to push the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia to comply with all the provisions of the Dayton peace plan.
