On Time, Federation Forces Honor Dayton Accord
Tensions eased in Sarajevo when Bosnian government troops complied with the Dayton peace agreement and began pulling out of a demilitarized zone in the city just hours before the Tuesday midnight deadline. "They are in the process of withdrawing. We believe they have already withdrawn over 60 percent of their troops from Tito barracks and it is continuing," said Major Simon Haselock, a NATO spokesman. "There are substantial movements of heavy weapons as well. We don't know where they are going and we don't care so long as they are leaving the zone of separation. We are looking for genuine, practical signs of compliance." The Dayton agreement, which ended Bosnia's 43-month war in December, required all armies to leave a zone of separation 2½-miles wide and 600 miles long. The Bosnian capital was one of the few areas in the country where compliance was in question.
NATO Refuses Exemption
While Serb and Croat military units withdrew from the zone in Sarajevo, the Bosnian army asked for an exemption. NATO refused the request and told Bosnian army commander General Rasim Delic that it expected to see substantial compliance by the end of Tuesday. As Tuesday began, about 4,500 government troops were believed to be in the zone with some heavy weapons and offices. But residents near the Tito barracks in the centre of Sarajevo reported that trucks were ferrying men and equipment out of the area.Sarajevo, divided into warring communal ghettoes almost exactly four years ago, became a united city again on Tuesday when Muslim-Croat authorities took control of the last district held by Serbs. A column of police from the Muslim-Croat federation drove into the Grbavica area which Serbs vacated on Monday in reluctant obedience to the peace agreement. They found widespread destruction caused by fleeing Serb fireraisers and a population shrunk to about 1,000 to 2,000 elderly residents who chose to stay.
All Five Suburbs Reclaimed
The Bosnian government has now recovered all five Serb sectors of the capital but at the cost of heavy damage to Grbavica and Ilidza by vengeful Serb nationalists and the loss of all but 10,000 of the Serbs who used to live there. The flight of the Serbs, spurred by hardline political leaders behind the 3½-year war in Bosnia, was a deliberate blow to the prospects for restoring a multi-confessional community of the country's Muslims, Croats and Serbs. The commander of the NATO-led forces in Bosnia on Tuesday blamed Serb leaders for the destruction in Sarajevo suburbs. U.S. Admiral Leighton Smith said after a meeting with Hungarian Defence Minister Gyorgy Keleti that the IFOR peace implementation force had done everything within its power to protect areas of the Bosnian capital vacated by Serbs but were thwarted by Serb leaders.
NATO's Admiral Smith Blames Sertbs for Suburban Damage
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