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"GOVERNMENT TROOPS ATTACK BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE

Stephen Kinzer

N.Y. Times News Service, 06/26/95

VISNJICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina In a raid before dawn that again illustrated the weakness of U.N. forces here, Bosnian government soldiers apparently slipped past U.N. posts on Monday and attacked this isolated Bosnian Serb village, burning several houses, stealing livestock, and leaving a dozen families homeless, a Bosnian Serb spokesman said.

Although the assault had no great military significance, it reflected both the growing frustration of government troops and the inadequacy of U.N. peacekeepers who have pledged to prevent them from leaving supposedly demilitarized enclaves in eastern Bosnia.

Visnjica is a miserable settlement perched on a mountainside a few miles from Srebrenica, one of the Muslim towns in eastern Bosnia which the United Nations has designated as demilitarized 'protected areas.' But Monday's raid was apparently launched by troops based inside Srebrenica, leading Bosnian Serb officers to denounce the United Nations for failing to comply with its promise to keep the town free of soldiers and weapons.

'There have been a number of incidents like this in the last 15 to 20 days,' said Lt. Col. Milovan Milutinovic, chief spokesman for the Bosnian Serb army. 'The Muslim soldiers who carried out this attack crossed lines patrolled by Dutch U.N. troops whose job it is to prevent just this kind of action. We therefore conclude that the U.N. forces are aligning themselves with the Muslim army.'

Milutinovic's assertion was the mirror image of accusations that the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government has been making for months. It has been denouncing the peacekeepers for their failure to prevent Bosnian Serbs from bombarding the enclaves, and asserting that this failure constitutes de facto support for the Serbs.

Attempts to reach the U.N. headquarters in Srebrenica for comment on today's raid were unsuccessful.

(U.N. officials in Sarajevo reported only that the Bosnian Serbs had shelled Srebrenica and Goradze, The Associated Press reported. It was unclear whether the Serbian shelling was in retaliation for the Bosnian government attack on Visnjica.)

Several of the impoverished farmers who live in Visnjica said they had assumed they were safe here because of U.N. pledges.

'We thought that no one could attack us from Srebrenica because the town was demilitarized and surrounded by U.N. soldiers,' said Ljubomir Vukovic, 67, as he stood in the smoldering ruins of the house he shared with two other families. 'But they came from right over that hill.'

Vukovic pointed toward a peak separating his village from Srebrenica. A U.N. post there is supposed to prevent soldiers from passing in either direction.

Villagers here said they were awakened at 4:30 on Monday morning by the sound of small-arms fire. They fled into the surrounding forest, watching helplessly as their homes were set afire and their cattle driven away, evidently to feed government units.

Asked why he and his neighbors had been targeted, one villager, Savo Madzarevic, paused to reflect for a moment and then replied: 'I suppose it is because we are Serbs.'

'We lived so well here,' Madzarevic lamented. 'We had two beds and a table. Now we will have to become refugees somewhere.'

Visnjica is one of hundreds of Serbian towns and villages in Bosnia that are among the principal prizes in this war. The Muslim- dominated government is determined to assert control over them, insisting that they are integral parts of its internationally recognized territory. But Serbs whose ancestors have lived in these places for generations pledge to hold them at all costs, and vow never to allow them to be governed by non-Serbs.

Monday's attackers may have chosen Visnjica as a target because it is isolated and undefended. When Serb soldiers arrived to repel them, they withdrew in the direction of Srebrenica, killing one Serb soldier and wounding three civilians but making no attempt to hold the village.

Government troops and their nominal Croat allies have been engaged in an offensive for more than a month, trying to break through Serb lines in various parts of the country. They have not made any substantial progress, and their principal goal, ending the Serb siege of Sarajevo, has eluded them. But as Monday's raid showed, they are still able to strike fear into the hearts of Serb villagers.

Their goal may be to terrorize these villagers into abandoning their homes, thus leaving formerly Serb areas uninhabited.

With both government forces and rebel Serbs losing confidence in the ability of U.N. peacekeepers to protect them, the fighting here seems likely to increase. The recent arrival of a U.N.-backed 'rapid-reaction force' has done little to calm either Muslim or Serb fears, and has in fact led to assertions that the force is plotting to help one side or the other.

'It doesn't do any good to obey the rules of the U.N.,' said a Serb soldier who was among those who drove off Monday's attackers in Visnjica. 'There's a war going on here, and each side has to do what it has to do. Right now there is no peace to keep. Maybe it's time for the peacekeepers to go home and let us fight this out among ourselves.'"

N.Y. Times News Service, "GOVERNMENT TROOPS ATTACK BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE", Juny 26, 1995

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