Words Are Not Enough

By Bruce W. Nelan

The siege of Sarajevo began to ease last week in the snows of Pale, a former ski resort overlooking the city. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic walked down the front steps of his headquarters in his putative capital, his shaggy hair glistening with snowflakes, to announce: "We do think the war in Sarajevo is finally over." Beside him, Russian special envoy Vitali Churkin, the catalyst for Karadzic's conversion, nodded his agreement. The Serbs, Churkin said, would withdraw their heavy weapons from the heights around Sarajevo. In return, Russia would contribute several hundred soldiers to peacekeeping forces in the area. There would be no need for NATO bombs, he argued, because there would be no targets.

Karadzic's proclamation of an end to the war was premature. The obvious purpose of the conciliatory words was to forestall the air strikes promised by NATO after Feb. 20 if the Serbs did not move their guns away from Bosnia's capital or hand them over to the U.N. It will, of course, be a good thing if the maneuver succeeds in stopping shells from smashing into the city. But peace is hardly at hand: the siege is not over so long as Serbian troops ring Sarajevo; the war is not over so long as Bosnia's ethnic factions do battle across the countryside. And many observers wonder if the Bosnian Serbs have not got the better part of the deal.

Though the Serbs began pulling their artillery, tanks and mortars down the icy roads around Sarajevo last week, it was not certain how many weapons were leaving or where they were going. Rather than stockpile them under U.N. guard, the Serbs might move them to Bihac in the northwest, for example, where Muslim-Serb battles have intensified in recent weeks, or to Bosnian-held Olovo, just north of Sarajevo. U.N. officials and diplomats spoke of "very significant withdrawals" from the capital region -- while Serb vehicles were seen heading north and south, perhaps toward other battle zones.

But as they pulled out, some of the ordinary Serb soldiers seemed to think peace was coming. On the main road above Sarajevo, crew members were repairing an old Russian-made T-55 tank, its dirty green hull covered with slush. "Hello, my name is Borislav," one of the crew called out. "I'm 28 and a Leo." The war had gone on too long, he said. "It is time to go home. We will be gone before NATO comes."

No one could say for sure if the Serbs had done enough to meet the Sunday NATO deadline. All heavy weapons that are not at least 12.5 miles from the city center or under U.N. control by then will still face air strikes by Western planes. Karadzic said boldly he would beat that time by 24 hours and invited patrols by U.N. blue helmets to begin on Saturday. The NATO allies said they would decide only after the deadline expires whether the Serbs had fulfilled the conditions. "NATO stands ready to carry out its mission," Bill Clinton said Saturday.

When a mortar shell killed 68 people in the Sarajevo marketplace three weeks ago, it shook the rest of the world as well. After 22 months of hand wringing and empty threats, NATO finally responded with an ultimatum. While the Serbs were finding it politic to negotiate a deal with the new U.N. ground commander, British Lieut. General Sir Michael Rose, the prospect of NATO action moved an anxious Russia -- caught between loyalty to fellow Orthodox Slavs and its interests in cooperating with the West -- to intervene. Air strikes would have forced Boris Yeltsin to risk the wrath of Russian nationalists or to condemn the attacks and alienate international friends. So Churkin paid his visit to Pale, carrying a face-saving plan from Yeltsin.

The new effort may bring an immediate payoff for the 380,000 residents of Sarajevo, where about 10,000 people -- including 1,500 children -- have been killed since Bosnian Serbs launched the war in April 1992. If the guns pull back and the U.N.-brokered cease-fire holds, Sarajevans can draw a confident breath and move around their city in the knowledge that they will not be shot by snipers or blown to pieces. That achievement alone is worth considerable effort, and it could lend impetus to similar settlements for other ostensibly "safe areas" where Muslims are surrounded by both Serbs and Croats.

Outsiders reap important benefits too. Clinton will breathe a sigh of relief if NATO planes do not have to fly bombing runs over the fog-wrapped mountains of Bosnia. A peaceful withdrawal will let him and the rest of the West claim it is the result of their toughness in facing down the Serbs. Yeltsin will score political points at home for standing by his Slav friends and abroad for his seriousness as an international peacemaker.

To balance that upbeat list there is another, less encouraging, set of considerations. Freeing Sarajevo of terror bombardments does not end its siege. "If the Serbs don't kill us with shells," says Mirsad Mojezinovic, a Bosnian army platoon leader, "then they'll do it with starvation." The Serbs still control ground movement into the city, along with the supply of food, electricity and gas.

Many Sarajevans expect a continued erosion of the multiethnic nature of their city as the U.N.-patrolled divisions take hold. The front lines of the Serbs and the Muslim-led Bosnian forces are not changing, and now U.N. peacekeepers are moving between, freezing them in place. In fact, the trenches manned by the two sides may one day become boundaries for the partition of the city that the Serb militia is determined to achieve.

All these feints, advances and retreats on the ground are supposed to lead to a diplomatic settlement. The only peace plan under discussion -- the U.N.-backed Owen-Stoltenberg proposal -- is one that will let the Serbs keep what they have captured and cut Bosnia into three ethnic pieces. The Muslim- led government rejects the plan because it rewards the Serb aggressor. The European allies believe the U.S. has agreed to push the Bosnians into accepting the Owen-Stoltenberg map. Says a Serb captain: "It depends on the will of the international community to be as hard on the Muslims as it has been on the Serbs."

A few hundred more blue helmets, even Russian ones, will not accomplish that. Moscow is now trying to round up support for an early, high-level conference to try negotiations once again. The U.S. is reluctant, in part because a showy meeting in Europe might take the spotlight off the issue of Serb withdrawal. It would be even more difficult to drop bombs while a peace conference is under way, officials say. But Clinton has told Yeltsin he wants to work directly with him on the diplomacy of a Bosnia settlement. At best, the end of the Sarajevo bombardment, if it sticks, will make civilian life a bit more tolerable while the talk goes on.

With reporting by Edward Barnes/Pale, James L. Graff/Sarajevo and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington