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| Foreign |
Tense stand-off between
UN troops and Muslims
Grenade threat to peace-keepers
SARAJEVO: Fighting raged
around key towns in north Bosnia
and a tense stand-ofTbetween Mus
lims and UN troops in Sarajevo
showed little sign of easing.
Government-run Sarajevo radio said
yesterday that Serb artillery pounded
Gradacac, the last town still held by
Muslims in northern Bosnia, as well as
villages around Brcko and Maglaj.
Croatian radio said the front line near
Brcko was being shelled in what it de
scribed as a fierce tank and artillery at
tack against military and civilian targets.
The Belgrade-based Tanjug news
agency reported that Serb forces had
managed to push back Muslim troops
and move the front line closer to Grada
cac.
In Sarajevo, UN peace-keepers nego
tiated with members of the mainly Mus
lim Bosnian forces who had barricaded
the vital road between the besieged city
and its airport, preventing relief supplies
from being brought in.
Bosnian commanders said they acted
because Serbian forces had placed 24
tanks near the airport, threatening the
city.
A white UN armoured personnel car
rier attached cables to the barrier yester
day morning and was about to pull it
away, but stopped when armed confron
tation seemed imminent.
"At one stage our men discovered
someone pointing an RPG [rocket-pro
pellcd grenade] at them," said Mik Mag
nusson, the UN's senior political affairs
officer in Sarajevo. "It was felt discretion
was the better part of valour."
Talks between the UN force and the
Bosnian military and political leaders
went on throughout the day without ap
parent progress.
. French General Philippe Morillon,
commander of UN forces in Bosnia
Herzegovina, said talks were in progress
with the Bosnian presidency so the con
tainer could be removed.
"They [the Bosnian presidency] have
to implement this commitment that
they will offer all freedom of movement
for UNPROFOR," he said.
He said the United Nations Protec
tion Force would not use force to lift the
container and observers were trying to
establish whether the Bosnians had rea
son to fear a Serb attack along the airport
road.
But Ejup Ganic, a member of the
Bosnian presidency, said he felt the UN
force was not taking the Muslim concern
for Sarajevo's security seriously.
"The UN doesn't know what they are
going to to do," Mr Ganic said. "They're
playing a big part in this catastrophe...
in fact, they're supervising it."
Adding more uncertainty to the situa
tion was resistance among local Serb
commanders to a promise by the politic
al leader of Bosnia's Serbs, Radovan
Karadzic, to neutralise his air force by
moving planes out of Bosnia.
But the air force commander, Major
General Zivomir Ninkovic, said he had
no intention of removing any planes
from the base at Banja Luka.
— Router
$