U.N. Forces Reopen Road Into Sarajevo Bosnian Serbs Warned That They Risk Renewed Airstrikes If They Fire On Road

U.N. forces took the first step Sunday to lift the siege of Sarajevo, unilaterally reopening a road into the capital and warning the Bosnian Serbs that if they fire on the road they will suffer renewed NATO airstrikes and artillery bombardment.

NATO planes buzzed Pale, a Bosnian Serb stronghold, soon after U.N. troops opened the road, which passes over Sarajevo’s airport near Serb positions.

A convoy of trucks, carrying watermelons and other produce and goods, crossed the airport and entered the city with a U.N. escort late Sunday afternoon. Drivers honked their horns, and children gathered along the road cheered.

The U.N. move came a day after NATO issued an ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs, ordering them to withdraw all their heavy weapons 12-1/2 miles from Sarajevo, cease attacks on the three remaining U.N.-designated “safe areas” in Bosnia and guarantee “complete freedom of movement” for U.N. forces, including the unrestricted use of Sarajevo airport.

The Serbs were given until 11 p.m. today (5 p.m. EDT) to start meeting the demands. Adm. Leighton Smith, NATO’s southern commander, said that “it’s up to them (the Bosnian Serbs) whether bombing starts, if it should start again.” In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Smith also noted that the deadline is not necessarily “when the bombing starts.”

Assistant Secretary of State Richard C. Holbrooke, who has been trying to broker a peace agreement, told ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley” that “I assure you that the bombs will recommence to fall” if the Serb artillery is not pulled back.

After three days of NATO air and artillery strikes against Bosnian Serb targets, the bombing was halted Friday and the United States announced there would be peace talks in Geneva this Friday. Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey said Sunday that he will boycott the talks with the Croatian and Serbian foreign ministers unless NATO enforces its demand for the Serbs to withdraw.

“The commitments that have been made to us have not been met,” Sacirbey said in Brussels.

Despite the NATO ultimatum, Serb forces did not appear to be moving their guns from the verdant hills around Sarajevo Sunday. No military traffic was observed on two roads heading from the Bosnian capital, and no guns were seen moving through Pale, the Bosnian Serb stronghold 10 miles east of Sarajevo.

Two Bosnian Serb soldiers, members of an artillery company who were picked up hitchhiking near Pale, said they had not received orders to move their guns, which they described as 155mm howitzers, situated near the Serb-held suburb of Vogosca, which was targeted by NATO planes Wednesday.

Officers at NATO’s southern headquarters in Naples said Sunday night that reconnaissance flights have detected little if any effort by the Bosnian Serbs to move their heavy weapons out of the exclusion zone.

“We’re not really seeing much of anything,” one officer said. “What we want to see is a lot of dust on the roads there. We want them to move those heavy weapons, but at this point they’ve got a lot of work to do and very little time in which to do it.”

Sunday night, members of the self-styled parliament of the rebel Bosnian Serb state met in Pale to discuss NATO’s demands. After the meeting ended, officials refused to answer questions. The highest-ranking official attending was Momcilo Krajisnik, the president of the parliament. Radovan Karadzic and Nikola Koljevic, the top two civilian officials of the Serb government, were reported to be in neighboring Yugoslavia, as was the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Holbrooke arrived back in Belgrade Sunday from Geneva, where he briefed leaders of Islamic states. He went almost immediately to a dinner with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, to whom the Bosnian Serbs last week formally gave the right to negotiate on their behalf.

Earlier Sunday in Brussels, Holbrooke said he and his team had pored over a map of Sarajevo at a dining room table with the Bosnian foreign minister. “And their map doesn’t look like the similar discussion we had in Belgrade with Mr. Milosevic,” Holbrooke added.

Under the U.S.-proposed formula, the Bosnian Serbs would have to settle for 49 percent of Bosnian territory, down from the 70 percent they now hold. The Bosnian Muslims and allied Croats would get 51 percent.

“But each side’s 51-49 looks more like 60-40 in their favor,” Holbrooke said on “This Week with David Brinkley.”

“The principle of 51-49 must be and will be maintained,” he added. “The U.S. isn’t going to move on that unless both sides agree to (a different percentage), and so far they don’t want to.”

The opening of a road into Sarajevo is one of the key elements of the joint NATO-U.N. plan to relieve the siege of the city. A road was opened into Sarajevo in March 1994 following NATO’s first ultimatum to the Serbs. That ultimatum was triggered by the killing of 68 people by a mortar shell that fell on Sarajevo’s open-air market. The airstrikes last week were prompted by a similar incident, in which 37 people were killed and 85 wounded.

On July 25, 1994, the Bosnian Serbs reneged on their agreement to keep the road open, and a day later they killed two British soldiers driving on it. The U.N. reaction then was limited to sending letters to the Bosnian Serbs.