STRANGE ROUTE TO PEACE

By JAMES COLLINS

IF, AFTER ALL THIS TIME, ANYONE STILL needed a reminder of why the war in Bosnia must end, last week's events provided one. A truce had been declared and peace talks were approaching--yet the combatants clashed repeatedly in the northwestern part of the country as each side fought to win territory before negotiations begin. In the same region, the Serbs conducted some of their most barbaric exercises in "ethnic cleansing." Given this conflict's warped, through-the-looking-glass logic, it was perhaps only to be expected that auguries of peace would provoke the worst excesses of war.

In the area around Banja Luka, the main city in Serb-held Bosnia, Serbs forced thousands of Muslims from their homes, separating men ages 16 to 60 from their families and sending them to their possible death. As in the past, Zeljko Raznatovic, a commander who is known as Arkan, undertook much of the brutality. According to Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Arkan and his men were brought to the region because they were not part of the communities. "The local Serbs often develop quite a friendly relationship with their neighbors," Janowski said. "Bringing in people like Arkan and his thugs essentially ensures a quick ethnic cleansing without any emotions involved."

Ismeta Ogresevic, 47, was one of the few Muslims remaining in Prijedor, a town the Serbs overran in 1992. Her fate last week was like that of thousands of others. At 3 Monday morning, her door was kicked down: Arkan's men had arrived. "I thought they had come to beat us again," she recalled. "But this time they said we had to leave immediately. Instead we ran out the back to the cornfield behind the house and hid. We thought they were going to kill us."

When daylight came, Ogresevic learned that all the Muslims were being taken to the stadium. She walked there with her daughter and 17-year-old son and found hundreds of Muslims waiting in silence. At 11 that evening, buses pulled up, and the Muslims were put on board. Four hours later, they arrived at a clearing where the men were told to get off. Ogresevic pushed her son under the seat and threw her bags over him. The Serbs began beating the men. "They took a group and stood them next to a wall as if they were going to be shot," a sobbing Ogresevic recalled. "They had the families buy their lives back. Eight were marched into a small building and never seen again."

The terror lasted for two hours. As the engine of the bus started, women began wailing, throwing themselves at the window, but there was nothing they could do. When the bus stopped again, Ogresevic and her son got out. A soldier immediately grabbed him and put a knife to his throat. "He wanted 1,000 deutsche marks [$700] not to kill my son or rape my daughter. I had no choice. I had to pay," Ogresevic said. The soldier told her to march along a small track. She saw the bodies of two Muslim women. One lay facedown in a mud hole, a gaping wound in the back of her neck. "We could hear women who were taken into the woods screaming. We knew what was happening to them, but we were afraid to turn our heads to look." When Ogresevic finally reached the front line, the Serb soldier whom she had paid pointed his gun at her head. Then he smiled and said, "I could, but I won't. See, I'm not such a bad guy."

Perhaps the Serbs were bad guys, but the Bosnian Muslims did their part in the bloody business of the week. The cease-fire took effect on Thursday, two days late. The Muslims insisted on the delay, arguing that one of their conditions--the restoration of gas and electric service to Sarajevo--had not been met. That, however, was largely an excuse. "It was the situation on the ground, not the levels of electricity reached in Sarajevo, that influenced the decision not to implement the cease-fire," explained a U.N. official in Sarajevo. The Bosnians used the two extra days to gain more land in the northwest. And there they doubtless treated the Serbs much as the Serbs treated the Muslims. As a senior White House official points out, "There are Muslims being thrown out of areas and Serbs being thrown out in other parts of the country."

Even after the truce formally began, fighting continued in the northwest. Muslims and Croats took Sanski Most and Mrkonjic Grad and threatened Prijedor and Banja Luka. But U.N. officials are maintaining a guarded optimism, saying battles never finish on a deadline. Planning for the upcoming peace conference continues, with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his staff struggling to find an isolated setting in the U.S.--probably a military base--where the Presidents of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia can meet with exactly equal accommodations. The talks are still scheduled to begin Oct. 31. On Oct. 26, Christopher and aides will have a dress rehearsal.

Plausible conditions for peace remain, and the land gains and ethnic cleansing last week probably strengthened them. Bosnia is divided pretty much in half between the Bosnian-Croat alliance and the Serbs, and virtually all Muslims and Serbs have left each other's territory. There would seem to be little left to fight about. But the Serbs' most horrible prison camps were located in the very region where the Muslims are now advancing. Revenge is a powerful intoxicant--who can say when the Muslims will be satisfied?

--Reported by Edward Barnes/Sarajevo, with other bureaus

With reporting by EDWARD BARNES/SARAJEVO, WITH OTHER BUREAUS