Gorazde

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led government hunkered down for a long standoff yesterday when the rebels violated a second promise to withdraw all their armed forces from Gorazde and the government reaffirmed that it would boycott further peace talks in protest.The rebel army's chief of staff, Gen. Manojlo Milovanovic, had signed an agreement with the United Nations Protection Force here over the weekend pledging that all gun-toting Serbs, in army uniforms or otherwise, would be out of Gorazde by 6 p.m. Sunday.

LONDON -- Trying to set a new military course in the Balkans, the United States and most of its allies yesterday proclaimed their readiness to deliver a "substantial and decisive response" if the Bosnian Serbs expanded their attacks on United Nations "safe areas."U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, speaking at the end of the conference of 16 allied nations, pledged the Clinton administration's willingness to use air power if the Bosnian Serbs attacked the Muslim enclave of Gorazde.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serb tanks thundered into the rapidly collapsing city of Gorazde yesterday, just hours after United Nations officials had proclaimed victory in negotiating a cease-fire with the rebels.Triggering mass panic in the largest government-held enclave in eastern Bosnia, the Serbian invasion pressed on despite a call by the U.N. Protection Force for more air strikes against Serbian heavy weapons firing on the city, designated a U.N.-protected safe area."The Bosnian Serbs possess the capability to proceed at will into Gorazde," Chinmaya Gharekhan of India, the special adviser to the U.N. Secretary-General, said last night in New York.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- The otherwise phlegmatic United Nations commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, does not take criticism well."It is a matter of supreme indifference to me if some people fail to absorb the facts," he insists.He claims not to notice that demands for his resignation are multiplying by the day. "I get my reward from seeing improvement in the lives of millions of people," the 54-year-old British general snaps.But as he nears the end of his one-year assignment, the strains of an unenviable mission and an untenable U.N. mandate show.

It doesn't end with Gorazde.You cannot appease with that place the Serbian nationalism being whipped up by the Belgrade dictatorship. Victory there only whets the appetite.There is no catharsis for artillery gunners who destroy a hospital at 100 yards range in Gorazde. There are more hospitals.The United Nations Security Council -- that is, the great powers -- declared six areas in Bosnia to be safe for Muslims, to be protected by all appropriate means. Their credibility rests on it.The U.N., U.S. and NATO drew a line in the sand.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Despite assurances by NATO that the Bosnian Serbs have complied with its ultimatum to withdraw from Gorazde, their forces are refusing to leave a southern area of the town because, they say, it was populated by Serbs before the Bosnian war erupted.But, a senior Western official said, the Bosnian Serb civilians appear to have been brought in to the Zupcici section of Gorazde after the Serbian offensive began a month ago.The official said yesterday that at least 65 armed Bosnian Serbs were now guarding the civilians.

LONDON -- Trying to set a new military course in the Balkans, the United States and most of its allies yesterday proclaimed their readiness to deliver a "substantial and decisive response" if the Bosnian Serbs expanded their attacks on United Nations "safe areas."U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, speaking at the end of the conference of 16 allied nations, pledged the Clinton administration's willingness to use air power if the Bosnian Serbs attacked the Muslim enclave of Gorazde.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Serbian nationalist fighters poured through breaches in the Bosnian army defense lines around the United Nations-declared "safe area" of Gorazde Monday night and yesterday, setting fire to a dozen villages and forcing more than a thousand Muslims to flee, U.N. officials said."

Oh, well, who needed Gorazde, anyway?The giant "mn" sign is down from the NationsBank tower and will be replaced by a flickering "Password?"Vote for Howard Stern for governor of New York! Anything to get him off radio.

Serbs continued to hinder U.N. peacekeepers, turning bac reinforcements headed for GORAZDE and prohibiting military observers from taking pictures of weapons still within the exclusion zone around SARAJEVO.Bosnia was generally quiet with the exception of the BIHAC area, where an increase in fighting has been reported. Occasional grenade and sniper fire was reported around GORAZDE.Both Bosnian government and Serbian media reported fighting around BRCKO in the north, where both sides are said to be massing forces and a major battle was feared.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led government hunkered down for a long standoff yesterday when the rebels violated a second promise to withdraw all their armed forces from Gorazde and the government reaffirmed that it would boycott further peace talks in protest.The rebel army's chief of staff, Gen. Manojlo Milovanovic, had signed an agreement with the United Nations Protection Force here over the weekend pledging that all gun-toting Serbs, in army uniforms or otherwise, would be out of Gorazde by 6 p.m. Sunday.

Bosnian Serb soldiers attacked U.N. peacekeepers in Gorazde. U.N. officials said British soldiers fought a gunbattle with Serb troops Friday southeast of the town, a quarter-mile inside Gorazde's 1.9-mile exclusion zone. As many as three Serbs were killed. There were no British casualties.A report from U.N. aid workers in the area said military observers were continuing to find military equipment "in violation of the NATO ultimatum." It also said military observers reported "burning of houses continuing" outside the 1.9-mile zone.

London. -- One very unpalatable fact has been little mentioned in the great ballyhoo over NATO's long-awaited strikes against the Bosnian Serbs. It is quite simply that in this instance the Bosnian Serbs are right. I add quickly that being right is a wholly different matter to being in the right in any moral sense. One of the few certainties in this bloody mess is that the debate about "war guilt" in the Balkans will rage for generations and fire many future vendettas.But in their analysis of the Gorazde situation, the Serbs got it spot on: The idea that Gorazde could -- or indeed should -- ever become some autonomous, and anomalous, Muslim enclave surrounded by hostile Serbian territory is an utter nonsense.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Despite assurances by NATO that the Bosnian Serbs have complied with its ultimatum to withdraw from Gorazde, their forces are refusing to leave a southern area of the town because, they say, it was populated by Serbs before the Bosnian war erupted.But, a senior Western official said, the Bosnian Serb civilians appear to have been brought in to the Zupcici section of Gorazde after the Serbian offensive began a month ago.The official said yesterday that at least 65 armed Bosnian Serbs were now guarding the civilians.

SARAJEVO -- Not long after the guns of Sarajevo fell silent in February, people 35 miles away in the city of Gorazde noticed an ominous change. The sporadic Serbian shelling they'd grown used to became more frequent and forceful, and by the end of March they'd been driven to their cellars. It was the beginning of a four-week bombardment."They had used some heavy artillery before, but never in these amounts," said Nazif Dzenelovic, wounded in the chest and brought here in the evacuation of the wounded.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The Bosnian Serb army has complied with a NATO ultimatum for the withdrawal of its heavy weapons beyond 20 kilometers from Gorazde, a United Nations spokesman said early Wednesday.Cmdr. Eric Chaperon added that the "logical conclusion" was that there would be no NATO air strikes. These had been threatened by NATO in the event that Serbian heavy weapons remained within 20 kilometers, or 12.4 miles, of Gorazde's city center at 2:01 a.m. today (8:01 p.m. Tuesday, EDT)

Hillary Rodham Clinton is good. She can be on Kweisi Mfume's talk show any time.Anyone who thinks the Serbs are appeased with Gorazde, there's a bridge over the Drina for sale.The Serbs know what they want, which is more than anyone can say for the "world community."