Mission to Former Serb-Held Areas
ZAGREB, March 3 (Reuters)—Two hundred U.S. policemen reinforcing the United Nations' mandate to demilitarise the last rebel Serb-held region of Croatia should deploy there in a week, the Vjesnik daily reported on Sunday."(They should arrive) very soon, in a week's time," U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith told the newspaper in an interview.
Galbraith said the 200 policemen, whose task would be to monitor and act as a temporary police force in Eastern Slavonia, were a "sign of our committment to the success of the (Dayton peace) agreement."
According to a Balkan peace deal struck under U.S. auspices in Dayton, Ohio, last November, some 5,000 U.N. troops were to be sent to the area to oversee its return to Zagreb's control over a period of up to two years.
The agreement, placing Eastern Slavonia under a U.N. protectorate, allayed fears that Croatia might try to take by force the fertile, oil-rich area that borders Serbia.
Last August Croatia recaptured the largest part of the rebel-Serb held territory in a swift offensive which sent some 200,000 Serbs across the border to Bosnia and Serbia.
Under the agreement the area should be fully demilitarised within 30 days of all U.N. troops taking their place. Their deployment is due to be completed by the end of April.
Croatia has threatened to send its troops into action again if the international force, headed by U.S. career diplomat Jacques Klein, fails to return the area to Zagreb.
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