March 18, 1996
NATO Troops Have to Watch as Sarajevo District Burns
By CHRIS HEDGES
ARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Grbavica, the final Serbian-held enclave in the Sarajevo area that will come under Muslim-Croat control, was rent by huge explosions Sunday night as fires swept through the area and gangs armed with cans of gasoline dodged NATO patrols in an effort to ignite high-rise apartment blocks. There was little that the NATO-led peacekeeping forces appeared able to do.
Italian troops, their helmets adorned with black plumes, arrested 12 Bosnian Serb men suspected of arson in four separate incidents, frisking the men as they stood against a wall. A few Serbs peered from windows as the troops marched one group of nine men through the drizzle to the local Serbian police station. One young Serb among the suspects appeared to be in tears.
Serbian police, angered by the NATO intervention, jeered at foreign reporters who watched.
Grbavica, or what is left of it, is scheduled to come under the control of the Muslim-Croat federation Tuesday. It is the last of five Serbian-held suburban areas being transferred to the federation as part of the peace agreement reached last fall in Dayton, Ohio. Most of the 60,000 Serbs in these areas have fled.
The detentions, the most aggressive response of the exasperated NATO troops who patrol the streets here, were unable to deter widespread destruction. This morning, the warehouse used by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees sent billows of black smoke into the sky. Thirty minutes later a huge conflagration engulfed the covered market and a local restaurant.
"We need more security until Tuesday," said Morgan Morris, the head of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office in the suburb. "Our warehouse appears to have been fired quite effectively and we have heard rumors that our safe house may be attacked next."
The High Commissioner for Refugees has set up a safe house, protected by Italian troops, for Serbs who want to remain, and the International Committee for the Red Cross has two mobile soup kitchens. Only a few Serbs use the safe house, with most preferring to try to protect their homes from looters..
"Italian soldiers received an order to detain people in the event there are witnesses who report arson," said a NATO spokesman, Col. Richard Pernod. "This is the only condition for detention. After that, the suspects are handed over to Serb police because this is the rule and we have to respect the law."
NATO troops rescued a few Serbs in an apartment after flames engulfed it. Firefighters from the Muslim-Croat federation have refused to enter Grbavica, even under NATO escort, since two grenades were tossed at them Friday as they tried to put out a fire. Serbian firefighters, most of whom have now left, have refused to help.
Those Serbs who remained, estimated at about 2,500, have barricaded themselves inside their apartments. Few dare to venture out and all said they stayed behind locked doors at night.
One local tough told aid workers and residents that he and his gang would make the suburb "burn like Atlanta in the American Civil War."
"Once darkness falls, it is terrifying," an elderly woman said. "We can hear the noises made by people in the halls. We all wait for the smell of smoke."
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