ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996             TAG: 9611120096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-2  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA
SOURCE: Associated Press

MLADIC REFUSES TO STEP DOWN BOSNIAN SERB IS ILL, BUT DEFIANT

Gen. Ratko Mladic, a war crimes suspect who led the failed Bosnian Serb fight for independence, defied his superiors Monday by announcing that he would not follow orders to step down.

Mladic's challenge to Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic exposes a power struggle between the newly elected political leadership and the old-guard military venerated by a sizable segment of the population.

Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic are the highest-ranking suspects indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for alleged atrocities during the 3 1/2-year war that ended last November with the signing of the Dayton peace accord.

This is the second time that Mladic, lionized by most Bosnian Serbs for his wartime activities, has been fired. He refused to step down the first time, too, and the support he drew from officers and troops forced Karadzic to rescind his firing.

This time, Mladic's health is reported to be in decline, and he has been seen only rarely outside his eastern Bosnian hideout in recent months. He voiced his defiance through Gen. Milan Gvero, his top deputy, who was fired over the weekend with Mladic and his entire general staff.

``Not a single army unit, not a single officer supports this move,'' Gvero said in a telephone interview from Mladic's headquarters in Han Pijesak.

Plavsic explained the firing by saying that international opposition to Mladic made it impossible to keep him in charge. With his resistance, Plavsic and her new general staff held an emergency meeting in Pale, the Bosnian Serb headquarters. No statement was issued after the meeting ended early Monday.

Independent Belgrade media said up to 100 Bosnian Serb military officers were included on Plavsic's unpublished dismissal list as she tries to purge the army of Mladic loyalists.

There long has been a split between Bosnian Serb civilian and military authorities; politicians grudgingly supported peace deals with rival Muslims and Croats which the military opposed. But the struggle is also more basic, with both sides vying for ultimate authority.

The attempt to sack Mladic deepens divisions among Bosnian Serbs, forcing them to choose between their war-time hero and the newly elected civilian leadership. It also could trigger a rift within the Bosnian Serb military.

A group of about 100 military officers based in the northern city of Banja Luka publicized their support for Mladic and his staff in a statement faxed to Belgrade's independent BETA news agency.

NATO sent troops and attack helicopters Monday to prevent armed Serbs from expelling hundreds of Muslim refugees from their old Bosnian village, Gajevi.

A Dutch member of the U.N. police force was shot by a Serb policeman during the standoff in what the United Nations called an accident.

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