Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993 TAG: 9303070113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The Washington Post
DATELINE: TUZLA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA LENGTH: Medium
BOSNIAN WAR TALKS RECESS
U.N. refugee workers found thousands of wounded Muslims trapped in battle-torn pockets of eastern Bosnia on Saturday, as peace talks recessed.A doctor said dozens of the Bosnians were dying daily of sickness and hunger.
Mediators met with representatives of the warring sides in New York to forge an agreement. The meeting ended without agreement and the representatives returned home.
Also Saturday, the commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia, Gen. Philippe Morillon, returned to Sarajevo after a daring mission to besieged Cerska. But he appeared to have failed in his goal of negotiating the immediate evacuation of wounded Muslims.
In New York, the top U.N. peacekeeping official said Saturday that the United Nations is making plans for a force of up to 50,000 heavily armed peacekeeping troops coordinated through NATO to enforce any peace agreement that emerges from negotiations among Bosnia's warring factions.
The planning for the peace force is the first time the United Nations has worked on a blueprint for tough peace-keeping to assist negotiations before they are complete, said Kofi Annan, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations. Mediators Cyrus Vance and David Owen have used assurances of rigorous enforcement of any agreement to coax Bosnia's Serbs, Slavic Muslims and Croats toward peace.
It is also the first time that the United Nations has talked with a regional military alliance like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a view to using its resources to support a U.N. peacekeeping operation, Annan said, noting that the practice could become common.
Officials of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said 2,200 wounded and sick Muslims had been found in or near Cerska and more than 11,000 people had requested evacuation.
Izumi Nakamitsu, a U.N. refugee spokeswoman in Tuzla, said Simon Martell, a World Health Organization doctor in Srebrenica, reported that 20 to 30 of the wounded were dying daily.
As many as 35,000 could pour out of the region if U.N. officials managed to negotiate safe passage to Tuzla, said Anders Levinsen of the U.N. refugee agency. Bosnian Serb commanders have blocked evacuation for the past week.
Morillon, upon returning from touring Cerska, said: "I hope it will be days, not weeks," before a medical evacuation begins.
Early today, U.S. Air Force cargo planes completed a seventh day of airdrops over eastern Bosnia, delivering more than 37 tons of food and medical supplies, U.S. officials in Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany said.