THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 1, 1995 TAG: 9509010718
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: ZAGREB, CROATIA LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
An American-led push for peace in the Balkans gathered pace Thursday as the Serbs focused squarely on peace in the face of another day of NATO air raids.
While acknowledging that tough negotiations lie ahead, Richard Holbrooke, the chief American envoy to the area, announced that a decision by the Bosnian Serbs to defer to the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, in peace talks amounted to ``a breakthrough'' and a ``dramatic advance.''
``Up until now,'' Holbrooke said during a brief stop in Zagreb before returning Thursday to Belgrade, ``we could not sit down and talk about the map and the future. Now we can.''
Holbrooke added that a proposed division of Bosnia, offering 51 percent to a Muslim-Croat federation and 49 percent to the Serbs, had been accepted by Milosevic ``as a starting point.'' The Serbs now hold close to 70 percent of Bosnian territory.
With the Croatian government saying serious peace talks could begin, and the Muslim-led Bosnian government speaking of a possible new attitude from the Serbs, it appeared that the tragedy of Yugoslavia's destruction could be nearing its final chapter. But it could be a long one: Fierce disputes over territory remain to be settled, though the outlines of a grim and perhaps tenuous peace appear to be emerging.
Despite the apparent advances made on the diplomatic front, NATO airplanes continued to strike at Bosnian Serb positions Thursday and early today.
``The operation is still going on, mostly reconnaissance flights, but we are dropping some bombs,'' Capt. Jim Mitchell, a NATO spokesman in Naples, Italy, said shortly after midnight.
There was no immediate word on today's targets. Planes were flying over Sarajevo before dawn, but no explosions were heard.
The official disputed media reports of a ``pause'' in the strikes Thursday, saying any lull in the bombing was due to poor weather in Sarajevo. He declined to speculate on how long the attacks will continue.
At the Pentagon, a senior military official said that since the NATO attack began, the shelling of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs ``has basically stopped."
Serb resistance to the offensive has been limited to heat-seeking, shoulder-borne missiles, said the official. One of those missiles is credited with the downing of French Mirage jet Wednesday.
Intelligence sources reported Thursday that signals had been received from the two downed French airmen. The two pilots had so far evaded capture, officials said.
The Pentagon official said the pilots are the subject of the same kind of massive search that helped Americans rescue Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady after his F-16 was downed by the Serbs in June.
The U.S. Marine amphibious group that retrieved O'Grady is not in the Adriatic, however. The group's three ships, the Kearsarge, Pensacola and Nashville, and their 3,600 Marines were operating in the western Mediterranean Sea, the Navy said.
In other news: Bosnian Serb TV released a videotape Thursday showing the five European Union monitors who were feared dead. Bosnian Serb Information Minister Miroslav Toholj said the men had left Serb territory for home.
On Wednesday, Serbs had said the five - three Spaniards, one Irish and one Dutch - were killed during the airstrikes. Toholj said the men had to be protected from angry Serbs after the first NATO attack.
NATO aircraft on Thursday pursued their bombing of Bosnian Serb positions. A senior NATO commander in Europe said NATO has hit only military targets so far - command posts, ammunition dumps and radar sites. But the alliance has on its extended target list more strategic targets, like bridges, military factories and manned bunkers that NATO could hit if the Bosnian Serbs refuse to pull back their artillery from around Sarajevo. This, however, would increase the risks of civilian casualties, something planners have taken pains to minimize.
About 10 additional U.S.-based warplanes have been dispatched to the Adriatic. Two other planes on station elsewhere in Europe also have been moved to the area, officials said.
A senior Pentagon official called the additional deployments ``a precautionary maneuver.'' He declined to specify what types of planes are involved but said they are not the Air Force, Navy and Marine fighters and fighter/bombers that have been used up until now.
Video footage released Thursday at NATO headquarters in Naples showed that the Bosnian Serb targets damaged or destroyed Wednesday included a military radio station at Han Pijesak, a communication and military command control station at Mount Jahorina near Pale, an ammunition storage plant at Hadzici, an ammunition loading plant at Vogosca, a radar site near Tuzla, and several artillery pieces.
The raids were characterized as ``very successful'' by the NATO commander in Naples, Adm. Leighton Smith, who said the Serbs' integrated air defense system was seriously damaged. Smith said 300 sorties had been flown against 23 targets.
NATO officials suggested that, with the momentum clearly on the side of a suddenly coherent U.N. and NATO operation, military pressure would probably be maintained until certain minimum concessions were obtained from the Serbs. Among them, they said, might be the opening of the Sarajevo airport, closed since April by threats from Serbian guns, and the restoration of electricity to the city. MEMO: Staff writer Dale Eisman contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bosnian Serb TV showed the smoldering wreckage of a French Mirage
2000 warplane that was shot down Wednesday east of Sarajevo during
NATO airstrikes. The two aviators are said to have signaled that
they are in Bosnian territory.
Air crews flying from the Norfolk-based carrier Roosevelt settled in
Thursday to a routine of launching 70 to 80 sorties a day over
Bosnia. Story on Page A14.
Graphic
IN THE MED
U.S. Navy ships in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean
(* denotes a Norfolk-based ship)
In the Adriatic
* Aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt
* Cruiser Mississippi
* Destroyer Arleigh Burke
* Frigate Kauffman
Cruiser Hue City
Eastern Mediterranean
Frigate Nicholas
Western Mediterranean
* Cruiser Ticonderoga
* Amphibious assault ship Kearsarge
* Dock landing ship Pensacola
* Amphibious transport dock ship Nashville
Frigate Hawes
Command ship La Salle
KEYWORDS: YUGOSLAVIA CIVIL WAR NATO by CNB