Running The Balkans' Deadly Gauntlet

ONLY FIGURATIVELY WAS THERE A GUN TO HIS HEAD, but that was sufficient. In Geneva the diplomatic efforts of Bosnia-Herzegovina's President Alija Izetbegovic fell into step with the daunting military reality at home. With his mostly Muslim government forces in control of less than a 10th of the republic's territory, Izetbegovic acquiesced to a proposal by U.N. mediators to allow his country to be divided into 10 autonomous regions. Negotiators stressed that boundaries would be drawn strictly on geographical and economic rather than ethnic criteria, with some functions preserved for the Sarajevo government. But because Izetbegovic has announced that he will resign by January, working out those crucial details will probably fall to someone else.

The grim prospect of such a partition between Croatian and Serbian regions grew with the outbreak of fierce fighting in several towns of central Bosnia. This time, instead of fighting Serbs, the government forces struggled with their erstwhile allies, the Croats. Aside from signaling the probable end to an uneasy but crucial alliance for the besieged Muslims, this latest fighting further threatened efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Bosnia. Vitez, 31 miles northwest of Sarajevo, was supposed to be the forward base for a British regiment scheduled for deployment next month to protect aid convoys; a reconnaissance group was pinned down by cross fire there on Tuesday. Shelling in Kiseljak, directly under the flight approach to Sarajevo, was so fierce by Wednesday that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees halted its vital airlift to the capital, then gingerly started up again the next day.

UNHCR drivers were unable to get any aid into Sarajevo on the ground last week. Croats halted aid trucks bound for Muslim areas at roadblocks near Mostar and Tomislavgrad. Attempts to negotiate back roads, turned to mud by rain, were abandoned after one truck bearing five tons of badly needed aid slipped into a ravine.