World News World News
Christus Rex Information ServiceILIJAS, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Feb 29, 1996 09:39 a.m. EST) -- The government declared the siege of Bosnia's anguished capital over today, assuming control of this Serb suburb and -- for the first time after 3 1/2 years of war -- total control of a road leading in and out of Sarajevo.
The moment came without fanfare at 10:03 a.m. Bosnian Interior Minister Avdo Hebib pulled up in front of a police station in government-held Visoko, about 12 miles northwest of Sarajevo, glanced at his watch and said: "The siege of Sarajevo is now officially over."
Exactly four years earlier, on another Feb. 29, Bosnian Muslims and Croats began voting in a two-day referendum for independence from Yugoslavia, the starting point of their descent into war.
The Muslim-led government has been traveling in and out of Serb territory for weeks, since the NATO-led forces arrived after the peace agreement was signed in December.
Ilijas is the second Serb suburb to be handed over to the Muslim-led government and its Croat allies. Vogosca was transferred last Friday, and by March 19, three more suburbs will change hands, according to the peace accord.
But with Ilijas, the government got more than the suburb: it also gained a strategic stretch of the main road north, territory Bosnian Serbs had defended fiercely throughout the war. Now, the entire road is under government control, leading Hebib to declare the siege over.
Bosnian authorities arrived in Ilijas today and found a now-familiar scene -- most Serbs had fled rather than live under authority of their wartime enemies. International officials said only 2,000 of its 17,000 residents remained in Ilijas.
About two dozen residents -- Muslims, Croats, and Serbs -- gathered in front of the police station to watch the arrival. Bosnian officials came in bulletproof Mercedes. Police vehicles and fire trucks pulled in. Engineers came from the electric utility to repair damaged lines.
One bystander, 65-year-old Croat Viktor Rupcic, said Serb youths had forced him out of his home at 1 a.m. and burned it. In the distance, smoke rose from a few fires.
Mirko Marceta bemoaned the departure of most of his fellow Serbs. "They were mistaken to run," he said. They could have been an organized minority had they stayed, he said, but "now we are so very few."
About three miles away, returning Muslims were already slipping back into Vogosca, the first suburb emptied of Serbs as the government took charge. Some arrived in private taxis.
One man, who identified himself only as Suljo, walked up and down blocks of apartments. He said he was a refugee seeking a new home.
The Bosnian government plans to move 3,000 refugees -- former residents of Vogosca -- back to the town in the next few days.
NATO officials have accused Bosnian Serb leaders of manipulating their people into leaving. But they also said some of the returning refugees were harassing Serbs.
The commander of NATO-led peace forces, U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, told Bosnian TV late Wednesday that both the government and Bosnian Serb leaders failed in their efforts to persuade Serbs to stay.
"I think both of the governments ... could have done considerably more much sooner in trying to allay the fears of the Serb citizens of Sarajevo," he said. "Too little was done too late."
Smith singled out Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for criticism.
While some other politicians were appealing to Serbs to stay put, Smith said, "Karadzic continued to preach his poisonous rhetoric of ethnically pure societies."
One reason so many Serbs were leaving was Serb authorities' decision to destroy or remove utilities and infrastructure, said Alexander Ivanko, a spokesman for U.N. police.
He called the Serb leadership "masters of manipulation" who had made it impossible for their people to stay, even as they publicly urged them to do so.
"What can we do? Wait to be butchered?" asked Milijana Dragutinovic, a Serb woman carrying a crying baby in her arms as she packed up to leave Ilijas.
Return to World News