No real cease-fire in Bosnia, UN officer says

No real cease-fire in Bosnia, UN officer says

SARAJEVO (Reuter): Bosnian and Serb foes kept shooting yesterday during a 24-hour truce called to help them agree a permanent cease-fire over all of Bosnia, but a U.N. officer said the level of gunfire had diminished considerably.

"There has not been a real cease-fire. They have kept on shelling and firing but at a much lower level," Maj. Rob Annink said, quoting UN observers including those reporting from the besieged Moslem enclave of Gorazde.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, meeting U.S. special envoy Charles Redman yesterday, was quoted by government- controlled radio as declaring a 24-hour truce from 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Thursday "to create conditions for military and political talks with the Bosnian Serb army".

Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic told UN commander in Bosnia Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose he would also order his troops to hold fire shortly after the Moslems proclaimed their truce.

Chances of a cease-fire had looked in doubt when the Moslems refused to join talks between army commanders on a permanent truce throughout Bosnia unless the Serbs stopped attacking Gorazde and pulled back their troops from the area.

Serb forces have seized about five percent of the Gorazde enclave in a 10-day assault, less than previously thought, UN military spokesman Maj. Rob Annink told reporters in Sarajevo yesterday.

Annink told reporters that the Serbs had pushed to within five or six kilometers of the town but stopped shelling it on Thursday morning. "The firing is assessed now as stationary and harassing," he said.

The new assessment was based on an initial dispatch from eight armed UN liaison officers who arrived on Thursday to help four UN observers, too few in number to gather much first-hand evidence in areas reported affected by fighting.

"The Serbs have gained less territory than previously thought. They did not reach the Drina, did not take any key (high) points around the town," Annink said.

But he said there were no signs of a Serb withdrawal to previous front lines demanded by the Bosnian government as a condition for a Bosnia-wide cease-fire sought by the Serbs.

The Serbs have been assaulting Gorazde for 10 days, killing 67 people and wounding 325, according to UN figures, and making a permanent cease-fire difficult for the government side to swallow.

Bosnia's UN envoy charged on Thursday that information from UN military observers about Gorazde had been withheld from the Security Council and called for an inquiry.

Ethnic borders

A senior UN military source said that apart from worries over Gorazde, the Bosnians' main concern about agreeing to a cease- fire was that any final agreement might freeze current confrontation lines and turn them into final ethnic borders within Bosnia.

"The Bosnian government is concerned that freezing the lines will prejudice the eventual political decision at peace negotiations on where the borders will run," the source said.

"But that cannot be our concern," he added. "A cease-fire is a political risk but to not enter into one condemns your people to a perpetuation of war. The people have had enough of it. You have to make that political gamble."

Serb forces overran 70 percent of Bosnia after rebelling against a Bosnian-Croat majority vote to secede from Yugoslavia. They expelled huge numbers of non-Serbs in the process, creating deep-seated territorial grievances.

There had been speculation that Bosnian leaders were avoiding the talks partly to express resentment -- which has surfaced in government radio reports this week -- at UNPROFOR's alleged under-reporting of the Gorazde fighting.

But Rose said he trusted the reports sent by his liaison officers, believed to be members of crack special forces and handpicked by Rose himself.

"The reports they gave last night are the first reports I regard as accurate," Rose told reporters while waiting for Redman at the Sarajevo airport yesterday.