Dayton Split of Bosnia Runs Through
Apartment in Former Olympic Village
(SARAJEVO, March 22—Reuters) Bosnian negotiators worked late into the night trying to thrash out an agreement on where to draw the boundary to separate Serb and Muslim-Croat territory in a tense Sarajevo suburb. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, was due to visit Bosnia on Friday after being jeered by angry Serbs during a visit to a Serb-held enclave of Croatia due to revert to Zagreb's rule.U.N. Police Increase Patrols in Dobrinja
In Sarajevo, Bosnian negotiators' apparent failure after many hours of NATO-sponsored talks to agree a boundary through parts of the former Olympic village of Dobrinja highlighted the lack of trust and common ground between the two rival camps. As they haggled, both unarmed U.N. police and NATO stepped up their presence in the disputed portions of Dobrinja in a bid to ensure that residents remained calm and peaceful.
Sounding an optimistic note, however, one diplomat said it was not surprising the two sides could not clinch a swift deal. "The good news is that NATO and IPTF (the U.N. police) are managing to control the tension. The peace process is working, clumsily at times, but still it's working," he said.
Albright Unfazed by Stoning Incident in Croatia
Shouting "bitch" and "fascist," the hecklers hurled stones at Albright's motorcade on Thursday as she toured the battered town of Vukovar in Eastern Slavonia. Serb police stood by smiling as Albright, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, cut short their informal stroll in the town's market-place and drove off under a hail of stones while the protesters yelled, "This is Serbia." Albright's car was apparently not hit but stones broke two windows of a U.N.-chartered press bus following Albright.
Albright's entourage, which included a large number of journalists, had taken their walk against the advice of Serb officials who said they had feared a hostile reaction. "Mrs. Albright had been warned against taking the unofficial walk through the town since people are understandably upset but they decided to go anyway," Ljubinko Stojanovic of the Vukovar press center told Reuterss. "We who live and work here know the mood of the people better. Naturally our people are afraid (of the future)." Later on Thursday Albright met Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who reiterated his support for Bosnia's shaky Muslim-Croat federation—a pillar of the Dayton peace accord.
Albright's visit to Vukovar on Croatia's River Danube border with Serbia included talks with local separatist Serb officials on Eastern Slavonia's pending reversion to Croatian rule under a U.N. transitional authority (UNTAES). Minority nationalist Serbs seized the area in 1991 in protest against Croatia's move to independence from Yugoslavia.
Albright said she was unperturbed by the heckling incident. "As I toured Vukovar for the second time and saw the destruction there it did not surprise me that those people who in fact supported its destruction might not like me." Albright said her talks with the local Serb leaders had convinced her that they were committed to the peaceful reintegration of east Slavonia into Croatia. Earlier on Thursday Albright said in Erdut near Vukovar that the return of eastern Slavonia should not lead to an exodus of Serbs fearing ethnic reprisals.
"I have made quite clear (to Serbs and Croats) that the United States wants to see this as a multi-ethnic area again," she said, referring Eastern Slavonia pre-1991 heritage. Her plea for co-existence reflected U.N. concern that most of the region's 100,000-odd Serbs could flee the handover for fear of reprisal from vengeful returning Croats.
The fears appeared well-grounded in Vukovar on Thursday. "Stay? Only if I die. If I wanted to live in Croatia I would never have taken up arms," said one Serb. In Prague, an envoy in charge of setting up elections in Bosnia said on Thursday that voting rights and access to the media were key obstacles to conducting fair polls this year.
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
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