THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505270415
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
After NATO warplanes bombed Bosnian Serb positions Friday for a second day, angry rebel Serbs captured U.N. peacekeepers, used them as human shields and said they would die if more airstrikes were launched.
The Bosnian Serbs, who had retaliated for Thursday's NATO bombing with a shelling barrage that claimed more than 70 lives in Bosnian Muslim enclaves, chained their U.N. hostages to potential targets and broadcast to the world television pictures of the humiliation.
Generals and diplomats pondered whether Friday's developments signaled a turning point for the conflict: either a test of arms between recalcitrant Serbs and the rest of the world or a U.N. pullout that allows civil war to run its bloody course.
``The whole level of fighting and the frustration is reaching a point where people are saying enough is enough,'' said Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Meanwhile, to prepare for the possibility of further airstrikes, the United States positioned the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and three other warships in the central Adriatic, within 50 to 100 miles of the Bosnian coast. Accompanying the Roosevelt are three squadrons of FA-18 attack fighters and a squadron of F-14 fighters.
No further airstrikes were called Friday afternoon, after a morning raid in which NATO jets dumped 1,000-pound bombs on ammunition bunkers at Serb headquarters in Pale. Six bunkers were damaged or destroyed, said U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, commander of NATO forces in Southern Europe.
The Serbs responded immediately by stealing heavy weapons from a U.N. warehouse, shelling the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, then, in brash defiance of the international community, seizing the hostages.
``The U.N. mission is on the side of our enemy, and we have to treat our enemy equally, whoever they are,'' Momcilo Krjisnik, head of the Bosnian Serbs' self-styled Parliament, told a news conference in Pale.
Although officials differed on their figures, U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko said from Sarajevo that 145 U.N. peacekeepers and military observers were detained or surrounded by Serbs by Friday night.
Twenty French soldiers were disarmed, loaded in a truck and driven off, U.N. officials said. Three - a Czech, a Canadian and a Ukrainian - were shown on Bosnian Serb television chained and handcuffed to electricity posts and a munitions depot door.
Before being shackled, one of the men was able to communicate by radio with his home base in a chillingly dramatic exchange. ``One person loaded his pistol and he was trying to kill us,'' the U.N. observer said in an even but strained voice. ``I've been beaten up already. . . . Be advised, we are now handcuffed inside the car. We are immobilized inside the car. . . .
``Can you confirm that no further bombing will be carried out today? . . . We've been advised the next bomb that falls, we'll be killed.''
A Bosnian Serb soldier then said into the radio, speaking in English: ``Three U.N. observers are now at the site of the warehouse. Any more bombing, they'll be the first to go. Understood?''
U.N. and American officials said Friday that the possibility the Bosnian Serbs would take human shields had figured into their calculations of the enormous risks before the first attacks Thursday. Weary of its peacekeepers being ignored, ridiculed, targeted and even killed, U.N. officials said they opted for a tougher stance against growing Bosnian Serb defiance.
Now the United Nations will be faced with a new question: Is it willing to accept casualties among its forces in the name of getting tough?
Late Friday, France - which has the largest number of troops in Bosnia - gave a partial answer. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali emerged from a Security Council meeting and said that he had taken a telephone call from the new government of French President Jacques Chirac.
Chirac insisted that the United Nations protect its peacekeepers - including the French troops - or France would withdraw its forces from Bosnia.
The second bombing wave was ordered after the Bosnian Serb shelling of Tuzla, a designated ``safe area'' controlled by the Muslim-led government that is of strategic value because of a military airport there. At least 71 people - including small children and teenagers - were killed and 150 injured when a single 130mm artillery shell landed on a crowded promenade, the United Nations reported.
It was the single deadliest shelling attack in three years of war.
Although saying airstrikes are still an option, the world's leaders seemed to be at a loss for deciding the next step.
In Washington, President Clinton denounced the hostage-taking as ``totally wrong'' and called on Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to pressure the Serbs to release the U.N. troops. Britain and Germany echoed the plea. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
After NATO warplanes bombed Bosnian Serb positions for a second day,
Serbs captured U.N. peacekeepers and used them as human shields.
This photo from Bosnian Serb television, which was taken from CNN,
reportedly shows Canadian peacekeeper Capt. Patrick Rechner
handcuffed to a pole near an ammunition depot in Pale that has been
hit twice by NATO warplanes.
Map
by CNB