Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412060034
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: NATL/INTL EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA LENGTH: Medium
Bosnian Serbs released 20 British and 33 Dutch peacekeepers, out of the 402 they were holding as insurance against further NATO airstrikes.
Diplomats scrambled to find a way to overcome a paralyzed peace process. French and British foreign ministers traveled to Belgrade to talk to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and a senior U.S. diplomat met with the Muslim-led Bosnian government in Sarajevo on the eve of a 52-nation European conference in Budapest, Hungary, where Bosnia was expected to be a major topic.
In Washington, the Clinton administration clashed sharply with top GOP lawmakers Sunday over U.S. policy in Bosnia, as the Republicans called for the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers and the bombing of the Serbian nationalists and key Cabinet members countered that such moves would mean a wider war.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Defense Secretary William Perry said that pulling peacekeeping troops out and lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., proposed on Sunday TV talk shows, would only lead to increased killing in the Balkans.
``Essentially, it's a war strategy,'' Christopher said on ``This Week With David Brinkley'' in an interview from Hungary, where he is attending a conference on European security.
Perry noted that evacuating the 24,000 U.N. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia would require at least 10,000 allied ground troops and would be a risky and ``very difficult'' operation. He warned that if the U.N. forces leave, it would ``give up the advantage'' that the peacekeeping troops have provided - that is, reducing the intensity of the conflict and in the process saving the lives of thousands of civilians who otherwise might have been killed.
The release of the 53 peacekeepers, who had been held in eastern Bosnia for more than a week, was a slight bow toward the international community by the Bosnian Serbs.
The 20 British soldiers, held in the hamlet of Brdine in Serb-held eastern Bosnia, were released around noon Sunday and headed to their original destination, the government-held town of Gorazde.
Later, officials said 33 Dutch soldiers held at Zvornik, on the Bosnian side of the border with Yugoslavia, were freed and allowed to proceed to another government enclave farther north, Srebrenica.
While easing up slightly on the United Nations, the Serbs pressed hard on Muslim-led government soldiers in the towns of Bihac and Velika Kladusa in far northwestern Bosnia.
Bosnian radio claimed that 25 people, 20 women and five children, had been killed by shelling Sunday. There was no confirmation of the report. The radio said that despite heavy shelling, there was no movement in frontlines.
U.S. envoy Charles Redman met with Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic in Sarajevo. After the meeting, Silajdzic reiterated his government's refusal to accept any changes in an international peace plan.
Bosnian Serbs repeatedly have rejected the plan, which would require them to reduce their holdings to 49 percent of Bosnia, instead of the 70 percent they now control.
Ministers from the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany came up with the plan last summer as ``the last and definitive plan,'' Silajdzic said. ``It was take it or leave it. So we took it.''
The ministers are now considering allowing formal links between the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia proper, a step toward the Serb nationalist goal of a Greater Serbia.
by CNB