==========================================================================
Army Times
18 Sept 95

BOSNIA A TOUGH TARGET

Weather is greater hurdle than Serbs' resistance

By Jon R. Anderson

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT - High in the weather decks, 
watchstanders push themselves deep into any available cubbyhole, trying
to shelter themselves against 40-knot winds and driving rain.
    
Below on the flight deck of this 1,100-foot-long aircraft carrier, 
blankets of rain spray down on pilots as they give the attack jets a 
final once-over before climbing into their cockpits.
    
Hunched against the wind and rain, soaked redshirted "airedales" cart the 
1,000-pound bombs that will fill the empty bomb racks on the F/A-18 
Hornets and F-14 Tomeats now returning from strike runs earlier in the day.
    
Since NATO warplanes first began their punishing strikes against Boinian 
Serb positions, this same foul weather has proven to be a tougher opponent
than the Serbs themselves.

Anti-air defenses little threat
    
From the first day of what NATO officials called Operation Deliberate 
Force, heavy overcast skies throughout much of Bosnia have been the Serbs
only real line of defense against U.S. and other NATO pilots.
    
Except for the first day of strikes Aug. 31, when a French Mirage was shot 
down near the Serb stronghold of Pale, pilots aboard this nuclear-powered 
aircraft carner report they have flown relatively unchallenged.  While 
anti-aircraft artillery, known to the pilots simply as "triple-A," peppers 
the sky, and the occasional shoulder-fired missiles race up from the ground 
below, the Navy and Marine Corps pilots from this ship have been able to 
effectively dodge the attacks so far.
    
The trick, they say -- which is no secret to the Bosnian Serbs -- is to 
stay above the range of the artillery.  That also gives them enough time 
to react to the smoke trails of shoulder-fired missiles. 

But doing so often means staying above the cloud cover.  Pilots have been 
forced to search out breaks in the clouds, and many have had to return to 
the carrier with their bombs still under wing.
     
Relying on precision laser-guided bombs to minimize civilian casualties, 
fliers must be clear of clouds so they can train lasers on targets and 
guide the bombs to their destinations.  NATO and U.N. planners intended to 
hit more areas on the first days of the air campaign, but clouds frustrated 
that plan.
     
According to Navy Admr.  Bill Fallon, Roosevelt carrier group commander, 
the weather has cost allied pilots "lots and lots" of lost target 
opportunities.  In fact, one pilot estimated only half -- "and that's 
being generous" -- of the bombs flown out over Bosnia from the Roosevelt 
have been delivered.
     
But that is still a big chunk of the successful strikes officials estimate 
have been delivered into Bosnia.

'Flying in a milk bowl'
    
In the first three days of strikes, before a U.N.-NATO declared pause 
Sept. 1, nearly all of the pilots returning from the missions reported 
weather difficulties.  In fact, most of the pilots here saw the hiatus in 
operations more as chance to let the weather clear up than an opportunity 
for the Bosnian Serbs to think things over.
    
"It's like flying'in a milk bowl," said one pilot returnihg from an 
unsuccessful strike run on the last day of the first set of strikes.  In 
his stripped-down, "sanitized" uniform, left with only black fabric 
fasteners where name tags and unit patches would normally go, the pilot 
described the conditions as "mediocre at best."
    
While poor weather continued to hamper operations over Bosnia, many 
strikers have been able to find their marks.
    
Officials here are careful about revealing how much damage they think 
they are doing.  But Fallon said the Bosnian Serbs should now be "feeling 
the pressure" of the full weight of NATO's airpower.
    
Although particularly heavy skies Sept. 6 effectively shut down planned 
strikes for that day and night, by the next day clear skies over the 
Adriatic and ashore opened up a renewed rain of bombs and anti-radar 
missiles into Bosnia.

==========================================================================
Army Times
18 Sept 95

BOMBING PERSISTS AMID PEACE TALKS

By Rick Maze

WASHINGTON - American warplanes continued bombing Serbian positions in 
Bosnia despite a diplomatic breakthrough Sept. 8 that could lead to
peace in the Balkans.
    
Peace negotiators from the republics of the former Yugoslavia agreed 
during talks in Geneva that Bosnia-Herzegovina should continue to exist, 
but that two separate "entities" should be established within the country 
-- one for the Muslims and one for the Bosnian Serbs.
    
The agreement did not bring a halt to the four year-old war between Serbs 
and Muslims fighting for territory within Bosnia. And U.S. negotiator
Richard Holbrooke warned, "Don't underestimate the difficulties ahead."
     
But, he said, the agreement may begin to break "the vicious cycle of war."

At the Pentagon, officials said U.S. and NATO warplanes wwould continue                  
bombing Serb targets around Sarajevo  and elsewhere in Bosnia until the
Serbs comply with U.N. demands that they stop attacks on designated safe 
areas, withdraw heavy weapons from around Sarajevo and permit free 
passage of food and emergency supplies into Sarajwo.

Despite the announced agreement, Serb fighters continued to defy the 
United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sept. 8.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Republican congressional leaders held 
overriding President Clinton's veto of their bill to lift the Bosnian 
arms embargo.

Veto override on hold
    
Clinton vetoed the Bosnia-Herzegovina Self-Defense Act Aug. 11, saying it 
would intensify fighting, jeopardizediplomacy and "make the outcome of the
war in Bosnia an American responsibility."
    
The arms embargo legislation passed the House and Senate by more than the 
two-thirds margin needed to override the veto, but a vote on the override 
was delayed by the congressional recess.  Now that Congress is back, 
Republican leaders are reluctant to schedule the vote because NATO allies 
are involved in bombing Serbian positions in an effort that has led to some 
diplomatic successes.

Senate aides said that some senators who had voted to lift the arms embargo 
would not vote for an override at a time when the administration's Bosnia
policy seems to be working. "That doesn't mean we wouldn't schedule an
override vote if the situation changes," said a leadership aide.
     
The vetoed legislation orders Clinton to lift the arms embargo within 12 
weeks, whether or not allies and the United Nations agree.  Those 12 weeks
would allow one last attempt at a diplomatic solution and a chance for 
allies'to withdraw peacekeeping forces from Bosnia if diplomacy were to 
fail.

===========================================================================
The Economist
9 Sept 95

BOSNIA'S REAL LESSON

Europe and America still need each other. To those who doubted the 
new-found resolve of United Nations and NATO to set the ground-rules in 
Bosnia, this week's resumption of NATO air strikes against the Bosnian 
Serbs delivers a blunt riposte.  Though these get-tougher tactics have yet 
to persuade Bosnian Serb leaders to obey the UN, pull back their guns and 
lift the siege of Sarajevo and its airport, the raids have got their full 
attention.  Heartened by the UN'S meaner manner, the Bosnian government has 
lifted its threat to boycott the new peace talks with Serbia and Croatia
that are due to start this week.  A peace settlement in Bosnia is still a 
long way off. Yet, for all the military activity, the prospects for 
achieving one seem brighter now than for many months. 

Already two presumed lessons are being drawn from this. The first is that, 
had the West got tougher earlier, much of the suffering of the past two 
years might have been avoided.  The second is that nothing much gets 
done-above all in NATO-unless America does it.  Certainly, America has 
long advocated using massive air power against the Bosnian Serbs to help 
the Muslims win better terms; it is America's diplomats, not their UN or 
European colleagues, who now shuttle tirelessly between the warring 
parties; and it is America's plan, however vague, on which new hopes for 
peace are being built.  Yet the real lessons of the West's fumbling in 
Bosnia are more complicated.
       
After last week's bombardment, there was no denying the feel-better factor.  
Not just the trigger-happier Americans, but the French and British, whose 
blue-helmeted peacekeepers had long endured Serb provocations, were pleased 
to see their tormentors getting their comeuppance.  Support among the 
British and French for the use of sustained force, rather than the pinprick 
pot-shots of the past, had grown as the risk to their soldiers had 
diminished. In truth, the fall of the eastern Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica 
and Zepa in July, awful as those events were, both simplified the UN's 
humanitarian task and enabled its forces to be made less vulnerable to Serb 
assault.
       
Yet last week's euphoria is already wearing off.  The air strikes, though 
by far the most destructive that NATO has ever launched, have their 
limitations.  On their own, they cannot even make Sarajevo safe.  The shell 
that killed nearly 40 people in a Sarajevo marketplace two weeks ago and 
brought on the NATO barrage was fired from a lowly mortar-easy to hide
from even the most sophisticated Of NATO's eyes-in-the-sky.
      
What the scale of NATO's bombing does demonstrate, however, is just how 
low UN credibility had sunk since a similar massacre in Sarajevo in 
February 1994.  Then some 70 people were killed; then, as now, the UN was 
authorised to use "all necessary means", including NATO air power, to 
protect the city; but back then it took only the threat of force to get 
the Serbs to pull back their weapons, albeit temporarily.  Starved of 
troops to make ceasefires stick, the UN later saw its authority whittled 
away.  Hence one lesson for NATO this week: for deterrence to work this 
time, be prepared for a long campaign.
      
The other problem is that air strikes, though they demonstrate the UN's 
resolve, cannot deliver a peace settlement.  How, then, might one come 
about?  One grim fact is that the resurgence of fighting over the 
summer -- Croatia's rout of the Croatian Serbs, and the wiping out of 
some of the Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia -- tidied up the map 
somewhat. Just as important, having pooh-poohed previous peace proposals 
put up chiefly by the Europeans as being too indulgent to the Bosnian
Serbs, America now appears to be ready to concede two things that the 
Bosnian Serbs have long demanded: a wider corridor linking Serb-held 
territories in northern Bosnia, and a right to confederate in some form 
with Serbia proper.

When the going gets tough, the tough stick together

In other words, just as Britain and France have moved closer to America 
in supporting greater use of force to back up UN authority in Bosnia, so 
America has moved closer to its European allies on the sort of deal that 
will need to be struck to end this war.  After bitter months of 
transatlantic sniping, another lesson for the alliance, in Bosnia and 
beyond, is that Europe and America can achieve a lot more when they pull 
together.  Much can yet go wrong in Bosnia to dish the peace hopes (see 
page 49). The trick for Americans and Europeans will be to sustain their
new togetherness if the going once more gets tougher.

===========================================================================
The Economist
9 Sept 95

THE WEST'S TWO-TRACK MIND

SARAJEVO - With a laser-guided bomb in one hand, and a peace plan in the 
other, the West is pursuing two, apparently inconsistent paths towards 
pacifying Bosnia. Squadrons Of NATO jets have continued to blast Bosnian 
Serb military targets.  Yet Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat behind 
the current peace plan, denies that the United States is trying to bomb the
Serbs to the negotiating table.  The bombing, he says, has "nothing to do 
with the peace negotiations". it is simply about protecting UN "safe areas".
      
Strange though this sounds, Mr Holbrooke's judgment appears to be, for the
time being, correct.  America's diplomatic offensive continues apace.  The 
foreign ministers of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia were due to meet in Geneva 
on September 8th. The Bosnian Serbs have agreed to form a joint negotiating 
team with Serbia, led by Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia's president. And they 
have now accepted the principle of a 49:51 split of Bosnia's territory, 
with the Muslims and Croats getting the larger slice.
      
The longer the bombing continues, however, the greater the risks of the 
diplomacy being hit.  So far neither Mr Milosevic nor the Russians have 
withdrawn their support for America's diplomatic efforts.  But many 
Russians are angry about the attacks on the Serbs, who, like them, are 
Orthodox Slavs. Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's prime minister, snubbed 
Malcolm Rifkind, Britain's foreign secretary, by refusing to see him in 
Moscow on September 5th.  The lower house of the Russian parliament 
announced an emergency debate to demand that President Yeltsin oppose 
NATO air strikes more vigorously.  The parliamentary leaders drafted a 
resolution that would make Russia lift UN sanctions on Serbia, rather as 
America's Congress has been trying to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia.
      
NATO has ignored Russia's griping. Having begun its bombing on August 30th
(after a Bosnian Serb mortar attack on a Sarajevo market), NATO suspended 
it on the third day so that General Bernard Janvier, the UN commander in 
the region, could negotiate with Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military 
chief NATO and the UN had demanded that he pull back his heavy weapons 
from Sarajevo and other UN "safe areas", cease to attack them, and open
Sarajevo airport and roads into the city.
     
After 13 hours of stormy negotiations, General Janvier -- with support 
from Admiral Leighton Smith, NATO'S commander in the region -- thought 
that General Mladic had offered enough to warrant ending the bombing. But 
NATO's ambassadors, meeting in Brussels on September 2nd, demurred.  General 
Janvier, they reckoned, had been out-negotiated by the crafty Bosnian Serb 
general.  They declared that their demands would have to be met in full.
Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb president, later promised that the 
heavy weapons would be withdrawn.  But General Mladic never carried out 
the order. 

So NATO started bombing again on September 5th.  Aircraft from 12 
countries had soon flown 1,500 sorties, during two waves of bombing. They 
have attacked air-defence, communication, ammunition and command sites and, 
at Lukavica near Sarajevo, a barracks.  Undoubtedly, the Bosnian Serbs' 
ability to fight has suffered, even though the first raids were thought to 
have hit only about 30 of the 300 artillery pieces round Sarajevo.
      
So far, America, France, and Britain -- the driving forces behind the 
military effort -- have displayed an impressive degree of unity.  NATO and 
the UN have seen eye to eye.  Since July Admiral Smith and General Janvier 
have had instructions to use disproportionate force to defend the safe 
areas. Those two commanders decide, together, when to start or stop the 
attacks.  When they feel the need for political guidance -- as after 
General Janvier's session with General Mladic -- they consult NATO, the UN 
and, informally, their own governments.
      
For much ofthe past two years, the reluctance ofthe UN -- and, at times, of 
Britain -- to wield force has undermined the unity and resolve ofthe 
western powers.  But since July, when the Bosnian Serbs captured the
safe areas of Srebrenica and Zepa, the UN and Britain have got tougher.  
Their arguments against using force had been that it would imperil the UN's 
humanitarian mission, leave the blue helmets vulnerable to hostage-takers, 
and provoke the Bosnian Serbs into behaving outrageously.  All these 
arguments became less convincing.
      
The humanitarian mission had revolved around feeding the "safe areas", yet
two of them had fallen and another, Bihac, had been saved by Croat forces.  
When, last month, British and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the remaining 
enclave, Gorazde, there were almost no UN men left to capture.  The UN 
became more confident of being able to defend itself when its 
rapid-reaction force arrived in the Sarajevo area.  And in taking the 
two safe areas, the Bosnian Serbs had, in the eyes of most outsiders, 
behaved outrageously anyway.
      
The allies' newfound unity will come under pressure if the Bosnian Serbs 
continue to defy NATO's bombs.  General Mladic appears in no mood to yield.  
He knows that, once the Bosnian Serbs relax their grip on Sarajevo, the 
balance of the war will shift against them.  They will seem less fearsome 
if they cannot kill civilians at the pull of a trigger.  The general may 
calculate that, since NATO does not want to hit civilians, its warplanes 
will soon run out of bombable targets.  He may also try to split the allies 
by withdrawing only some of his heavy weapons from Sarajevo.
       
If the West's twin policies -- NATO's air strikes, America's peace plan --
get nowhere, the western allies may fall out.  America would lift the UN 
arms embargo on Bosnia. Mr Holbrooke envisages that it would train the 
Bosnian army and ensure that, while it was getting up to scratch, it had 
military aid. America would not provide its own soldiers, of course, but 
perhaps Bosnia could draw on NATO air power or troops from Muslim countries.  
Britain and France would probably oppose overt armed assistance to the 
Bosnians.  They see the air strikes as a means of protecting UN safe areas 
rather than an effort to help one side win the war.  But the more that NATO 
bombs, the finer that distinction becomes.


==========================================================

                      ADMIRAL LEIGHTON SMITH

         COMMANDER IN CHIEF ALLIED FORCES SOUTHERN EUROPE



                         PRESS CONFERENCE

                   1500(Naples time) 15 Sept 95



Good afternoon.  You will know that, following the

signing of agreement yesterday in Belgrade, that General

Janvier and I agreed that as of last night at 2000 GMT

we would suspend, for a period of time, the air strike

operations for a period of 72 hours.  During that period

of time we will continue to fly close air support

missions and we will respond to the United Nations

should they request close air support missions to

protect the United Nations.  We are flying

reconnaissance, suppression of enemy air defense, and if

necessary, search and rescue.

You will know that NATO, in full agreement with the

United Nations, suspended this act because of a response

by the Bosnian Serb leadership stating their willingness

to comply with the demands of the United Nations.  The

temporary suspension will provide the Bosnian Serbs an

opportunity to comply with the terms of the agreement.

Obviously, our hope is that the end result of all of

this will be a cessation of hostilities throughout

Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Both UNPROFOR forces and NATO will closely monitor the

Bosnian Serb movements.  We'll be searching for signs of

their intent to comply with the agreement that they have

signed.  At the 72 hour point on Sunday evening, General

Janvier and I will work together in very close

coordination to assess the degree of compliance.  If the

heavy weapons relocation is, at that stage, judged to be

demonstrating compliance with the agreement, then the

suspension of NATO air strikes will be extended for a

further 72 hour period until a relocation has been

complete.

You will know, because I have said earlier, that we're

extraordinarily proud of the performance of our NATO

aircrews and the men and women, both civilian and

service personnel, whose support to that operation is so

critical to its success.

Again, our hope is that this pause, a temporary

suspension of the bombing, will result in very positive

actions on the part of the Bosnian Serbs.  And that the

net result will be a cessation of hostilities.

I'll be happy to take your questions.

It might be perhaps helpful if I mention to you earlier,

I told you that we had a way of defining targets and aim

points, and I didn't want to get into that.  Things seem

to have stabilized a bit.  But I will tell you that

we've had about 750 strike sorties against 56 total

targets.  Of those targets, there were 359 different aim

points.  But what I was trying to point out to you is

the difference between a target and an aim point.  These

are things that we put aircraft into a bombing run

against in attempting to strike with weapons.  There

were a total of some 3500 sorties flown to support these

750 that went in.

Now, there's a photo right here that I'd like to show

you.  When I'm talking about a target, this right here,

this entire complex is a target and you will see that

right over here is the before picture.  So there are an

awful lot of buildings in there.  You will see that not

all of these were aim points because of the issue of

collateral damage.  You can look afterwards, when you

can get a little closer John, and see this thing up

close, that there are some buildings down here that were

destroyed.  These were aim points, these were obviously

not.  And when you see the photograph, you will know why

they were not aim points.  But I think this is a

demonstration of the care that General Ryan and his

people took in coordination with General Smith in

Sarajevo, to avoid collateral damage to the degree that

we could.  And I think from the reports that I have, we

have been successful in that regard.

Now, for your questions.  John, yes sir.



ABC:  How are you going to verify the movement?  Have

you seen any movement as yet?  Are you relying entirely

on overhead-types of verification or do you get to walk

the ground and look underneath roofs and things like

that?



A:  I think it's going to be a combination of all of

that.  We certainly are going to have reconnaissance

aircraft up there just as much as the weather will

allow.  Right now we have information that there are

some weapons being gathered together and that we expect

to see them moving out, perhaps this evening.  There are

some reports, both from news media as well as from on

the ground UN sources.  So, we're happy that that, at

least, has begun.  I would like to see it progress a bit

faster.  But at least we think it's underway.



ANSA: (Italian translation) Sir, is it true that NATO

troops will be asked to go there and oversee the

implementation of a cessation of hostilities?  What is

the plan for the troops, like the French troops, which

are there now?



A:  You know that there are a number of initiatives

right now, ongoing.  I am not aware of any of the

outcomes of those particular negotiations.  We do have

some expectations that if there is a peace agreement or

a peace implementation to be put forward that NATO could

very well be asked.  I really don't know more than that

because nobody has asked us yet.  We are certainly

prepared to respond to whatever the North Atlantic

Council tells us to do.



ABC:  In the past, when the Bosnian Serbs have agreed to

terms, they have generally complied with somewhere

between 70 or 80 percent for a while.  Does this have to

be 100 percent compliance as far as you're concerned?

And after six days, if they aren't at 100 percent what

do you do?



A:  Well, first of all there are at least three phases

of this John.  One is that there are no more attacks on

safe areas.  We will certainly know when and if that

occurs.  And if that happens, then we will start

generating air strike operations.  Unimpeded freedom of

movement on the roads and that includes UNPROFOR and

UNHCR.  You might be interested to know that a convoy

left this morning from Sarajevo, went to Kiseljak, they

are teaming up with a UNHCR convoy now.  And we expect

them back in Sarajevo tonight.  So we have already

tested that one way.  We are going to test it again.  My

expectations are that they will not be impeded in any

way, shape or form.  We also know that an aircraft has

landed at Sarajevo airport and departed, safely.  And,

so we have tested the airport and its unimpeded access.

So far that has worked out.  So we would expect that

would continue.  Those things are fairly easy.  The

movement of heavy weapons will not be quite so easy,

frankly.  And we'll just have to watch as that develops.

General Janvier and I will have to assess together.  And

that assessment process, by the way, will not wait until

the 11th hour, if you will.  We will be doing an

assessment all the way through the next couple of days.

We will obviously talk, as we had before.  On Sunday, as

we get closer to the end of the first 72 hour period,

then the two of us will make the decision about where to

go from there.  And the end of six days, General

Janvier, in his statement today, expects that all heavy

weapons will be removed from the 20 kilometer exclusion

zone as defined in the agreement.  I certainly don't

have a quarrel with that.  Our expectations are that the

Bosnian Serbs have said that they will remove them, our

expectations are that they will be removed.  Period.



ABC:  And if they don't?



A:  Well, you're asking me to speculate.  I can tell you

right now that if we are not satisfied with the progress

there, then first of all, we don't have to go to the

second 72 hours.  And if we get to the end of it and we

see heavy weapons that are still there, one of the

things we would expect, obviously, is that they would

register those heavy weapons.  More than likely, the

rational could be something along the effect that it's

broken and can't be moved.  There may be some of that.

I think General Smith is probably going to address those

individually with the Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo.  I'm

not prepared to say what we will or will not do at the

end of six days.  But just rest assured that we are

going to be looking at it very closely.  And we do have

a number of options, one of which is to recommence air

strikes.  The other one is to perhaps give them another

push, but I'm certainly not going to stand here and tell

you that that's something that a lot of people favor

right now.  We would like to see compliance.  They were

the ones who came forward with this type of thing.  And

we expect to see them comply.



AP:  Now the term, the definition of heavy weapons, has

slightly modified, how many of the estimated 300 weapons

still in that area are supposed to be moved in order for

those Bosnian Serbs to comply?



A:  I don't have a number for you on that.  I just don't

know.  I don't know right now.  I can't even guess at

this point.  What I need to be able to do is to work

very closely with General Smith.  As you might expect,

he's been kind of busy lately.  We're obviously going to

see some tanks, we're going to see some mortars, we're

going to see some heavy weapons.  You know what those

definitions are.  And we certainly think that there is a

fairly substantial number of those and we're going to

want to see them start to move.  What I need to do is

work with General Smith and he will be giving us his

thoughts about that particular number and what we expect

to see.



AP:  Are we talking about heavy weapons over 63

millimeter?  Is that what we're talking about over the

next three days?



A:  The definition was above 100 millimeter, above 82

millimeter mortars, and tanks.  That's precisely what's

in the agreement that was signed by the Bosnian Serbs

and by the Serbian leadership.  Am I correct in that?

Good.  I'm correct in that.



ABC:  It sound to me as though, now that the bombing has

stopped, that NATO has moved into a phase where it's

more willing than it has been in a while to sit down and

talk and that there is flexibility as you begin to

negotiate about time-frames and specifics.  You're not

on a hair trigger, obviously.  If there is a single

violation, you don't go.  Are we into a period of

protractive negotiation now on this compliance?



A:  John, I wouldn't characterize it that way at all.

Clearly, what I expect to see during the first 72 hours

is a fairly substantial number of weapons moved.  Then

the second 72 hours I expect to see that movement be

completed.  That which is not completed, we expect to

see listed and why it's there.  I leave it up to General

Smith as to how he might deal with that.  I don't

foresee any protracted period of negotiations.  I

certainly don't see that we're going to sit around and

wait for a period of time, give them additional time.  I

mean, the fact of the matter is, the weather is not that

bad over there in the terms of moving things.  They said

that they were going to move them.  Let's see them move.

That's what I'm looking for.



AP:  Is NATO considering offering the Bosnian Serbs some

kind of protection against the advancing Bosnian

government and Croatian forces?  And if so, what form

will that take?



A:  My understanding is that part of the agreement was

that the Bosnian government has agreed to no combat

operations, no offensive operations, either within or

from the 20 kilometer exclusion zone.  So, that

guarantee has been given by the Bosnian government.  We

have not, NATO has not been asked to provide any

guarantees in that respect.



AP:  But does it worry you that they are indirectly

taking advantage of the air strikes and moving into Serb

held territory?



A:  We're talking about Sarajevo here, not some place

else.  And I would just as soon disassociate myself with

what's happening in the rest of the country.  I have no

control over there, over that.  And I certainly can tell

you from a personal perspective and as we've developed

the air plan and the air operation, there was certainly

no intent, nor was there any connection whatsoever with

what went on on the ground otherwise.  So that one of

the pieces of the agreement is after this 144 hours,

then there would be a sit down attempt to try to gain a

cessation of hostilities throughout all of Bosnia-

Herzegovina.  And that's certainly what we're hoping

for.



ABC:  Those are very impressive numbers of the sorties

and the targets attacked.  What is missing from that

chart is how many time those attacks were actually on

target.  Do you have any general estimate of how

accurate all this tonnage was?



A:  John, what I've seen, we have been very, very

successful in the delivery of ordnance.  You will of

course know because of your experience that weather has

an impact on that.  Some of the sorties may or may not

have dropped ordnance.  Some of the sorties would have

dropped, cloud cover interferes, you break lock and you

loose it.  My expectations are that when the tally is

done we will find ourselves very, very happy with the

figures.  I don't know what they are.  I have not one

clue to what the figures are now because I haven't asked

Mike Ryan.  That's a piece of the bookkeeping that we'll

probably get to much later.  But he's got a lot of other

things on his mind right now.



ABC:  Has there been any direct contact with Mladic in

the last 24 hours?  Or is all of this negotiation being

done through Milosevic and Belgrade?  Can you describe

that process?



A:  I don't know what happened between Dick Holbrooke

and when he was in Belgrade.  So I can't answer that

part of the question.  It is not my understanding that

personal contact has been made subsequent to what was

negotiated in Belgrade.  So, I think I can say no to

your question, based on my personal knowledge, but it

could have occurred.



ABC:  So at this point, there has been no face-to-face

words spoken by representatives of the Bosnian Serb

government to say that they agree to this whole package?

It has all been done by proximity?  By a surrogate?



A:  I don't think I said that.  Your question was

whether or not they had talked directly to Mladic.  It

is my understanding that has probably not occurred.

However, there have been contacts with the local

leadership in Sarajevo and they are the ones who are

starting the process.  It is my understanding they are

empowered to make that happen.  We're obviously going to

see pretty quickly.



AP:  After two weeks of strikes, I'd like to know what

kind of damage have you inflicted on the Bosnian Serb

air defense and whether it still poses a threat to NATO

pilots?



A:  We think we've been fairly successful in that.  It

would be very, very difficult for me to tell you that

everything has been, quote unquote, destroyed.  But, I

can tell you that we have seen no evidence on the part

of the Bosnian Serbs to be able to turn on their radars

to track our aircraft with either their radars or their

missile systems.  We've not seen any evidence of that

whatsoever.  So, we have been very successful in

suppressing the enemy air defense.  Remember,

suppression of enemy air defense is the mission and the

objective, not necessarily total destruction.  You will

know because you have obviously been here and seen some

of the videos that we have shown you, that there has

been some destruction on some of the fixed sites.  But

we suspect that there are still mobile SAM sites that

are there, that have not been destroyed by our aircraft.

And those represent a threat.  I might tell you that we

will be watching for those very carefully through this

period as well and I have made it known to the United

Nations that we intend to fly in the air over Bosnia-

Herzegovina.  And we will respond to any threat to our

aircraft using the rules of engagement that currently

address that particular situation.  We hope that we

won't have to, obviously.



ABC:  If the Bosnian government does not comply with

this agreement, and they in fact start to take territory

around Sarajevo where heavy weapons are being removed,

what is the procedure there?  Is NATO prepared to launch

air strikes against the Bosnian government for violating

or will it be a stern warning?  I know it's hard to

predict but it is a very definite possibility.



A:  John, you asked me a question that I am absolutely

unqualified to address.  It has not been addressed or

discussed with me.  And, so I just have no idea how to

answer your question other that to say that I am

unqualified to address it.



ABC:  So just to recap on the readiness of your forces.

You have stood down the bombing mission.  But at this

point, you are ready to stand it up again at a moments

notice all across the theater here, you are ready to go.

Just because you've stopped now, doesn't mean you can't

get it up within a hour?



A:  Precisely.  We have aircraft, as I mentioned, we

will be flying close air support.  Obviously, if a

problem arises, those aircraft would be able to respond

immediately, using the tactical air control parties on

the ground, forward air controllers.  We have the

suppression of enemy air defense aircraft.  That is

another offensive capability.  We obviously have on-deck

alert.  These are strike packages that are already pre-

briefed that, if necessary, could launch and go take on

a mission if they had to.  We have the carrier out there

which maintains itself on station.  We have all of the

bases in Italy.  So we're ready, yes.



ABC:  If you are painted by a target opposition radar,

you'll take it out, right?



A:  If we are flying in Bosnia and we observe hostile

intent, then we will respond in accordance with the rule

of engagement that our pilots know very well and which I

am not going to discuss in detail in this forum.



AP:  What does hostile intent mean to you?



A:  Hostile intent?  Well, let me give you an example of

hostile intent.  You know what a hostile action is,

somebody shoots at you.  Hostile intent, somebody points

a gun at you and looks like he's starting to squeeze the

trigger.  Let me put it in a different way.  A surface-

to-air missile, if you see one coming up, that's a

hostile act.  If he turns on the radars and paints your

aircraft with a certain signal, and you know that you

are being painted, that is obviously a demonstration of

hostile intent.  Now, there are varying levels of that

and the reason I don't want to get into the details of

it.  But clearly we know when that occurs and our pilots

know how to respond to that.  And they have been given

orders to respond according to the rules of engagement

that are in effect.  And we will respond.



Thank you very much.





============================================================



The following charts were displayed during the press conference:









TARGET CATEGORIES:



Direct and essential military support facilities

- ammunitions, storage and repair depots

- command, control and communication sites

- lines of communications



Integrated air defence system

- Control nodes

- radars

- SAM sites











SUMMARY:



Total sorties              3500

Strike sorties              750

Number of targets attacked   56

Number of aim points        359



-----------------------------------------------------------------
----

Boris Padovan                padovan@iig.uni-freiburg.de

                            
http://www.iig.uni-freiburg.de/~padovan/

Institut fuer Informatik und Gesellschaft - Telematik - Uni
Freiburg 

Friedrichstrasse 50          Tel. +49/761/203-4932

D-79098 Freiburg             Fax  +49/761/203-4929







=======================================================

NYTimes

Sept. 17, 1995



In Dream of 'Greater Serbia,' the Serbs Find Suffering and Decay



By ROGER COHEN 





   BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Ljubica Solic, like her people, is at
the end of

the road. In a schoolyard filled with mud-spattered tractors and
trailers,

she has discovered the misery bequeathed by the great Serbian
illusion. 



   Mrs. Solic, dressed in black, slumped on the ground, is a
Serbian refugee.

She fled the Krajina area of Croatia, 450 miles away, when it
fell to the

Croatian army last month. Her husband was killed by the Croats
during the

retreat. 



   The Serbian government of President Slobodan Milosevic
directed her to the

town of Djakovica in Kosovo, a region in southern Serbia that is
85 percent

ethnic Albanian. Now she sleeps in a crowded classroom.
Discarded watermelon,

attacked by bloated flies, litters the floor. 



   "I'd hardly even heard of Kosovo and never been in Serbia,"
Mrs. Solic

said. "But the authorities promised us a house, land, vineyards
if we'd come

here. We came, but we've got nothing, and we're a minority once
again." 



   Serbia is now a land of broken promises. There is a
widespread desolation,

dark and deadening, a harvest of misery from a moment of folly.
The Serbs of

Croatia are refugees; the Serbs of Bosnia flee, weakened by NATO
bombing and

attacked by the Croatian and Bosnian armies; the Serbs of Serbia
eke out an

existence. Over 260,000 Serbs have lost their homes since the
beginning of

August. 



   The biggest promise of all was made six years ago by
Milosevic at the

battlefield of Kosovo Polje, not far from where Mrs. Solic lay
prostrate in

grief: a glorious future based on the unity of all Serbs. 



   It had a ring to it, but events have proved otherwise. The
battlefield,

where the Serbs were defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1389 and
where all the

pageantry of resurgent Serbian nationalism unfurled in 1989
before rolling

across the Balkans in a bloody tide, is now as empty as the
promise proved. 



   Decay appears to be the dominant legacy of Milosevic's
Serbian storm.

Because the storm has subsided - tamed by impoverishment,
disunity, and war

fatigue - an American-mediated truce may be at hand in the
Balkans. 



   But because the cost in human suffering has been so high for
the likes of

Mrs. Solic and for millions of others, and because no Serbian
political or

military leader has paid for it yet, any peace may prove
unstable. 



   "Milosevic has shown amazing brutality," a Western diplomat
said. "He

cold-bloodedly sacrificed the 170,000 Serbs of the Krajina
because he wants a

wealthy little country he can rule for 20 years. He never even
made a public

statement about them. Of course, there's no accountability in
the Balkans,

but one suspects a day of reckoning must come." 



   Zeljko Miljevic, another refugee from the Krajina, awaits
that day. "I

hate Milosevic," he said. "I hate him deeply." Over the last six
weeks he has

lost his home and fled to Serbia, only to be dragged away from
his family by

the Serbian police and dragooned into the forces defending
Eastern Slavonia,

the last remaining Serbian-occupied area of Croatia. 



   But Milosevic retains a solid bedrock of support, rooted in
central

Serbia, where people admire his authority, his skill in keeping
Serbia out of

the war, and his maintenance of a semblance of economic order
despite three

years of sanctions. 



   Leskovac, in eastern Serbia, has paid heavily for those
sanctions. Many of

the 10,000 people in its textile industry have been laid off.
This disaster

has only made Srboljub Cvetkovic, the director of a company
called Leteks,

more unswerving in his loyalty to the Serbian president. 



   "He has not been guilty of anything," he said of Milosevic.
"Who can

compare with him?" 



   In the most recent Balkan wars, he contends, Serbs have had
to fight the

designs of Germany and the Vatican in backing an independent,
Catholic

Croatia and then the designs of the United States - driven by
the politics of

oil - in backing a Muslim state in Bosnia. "Serbs have never been

aggressors," he said. 



   This view is widespread. It echoes the words of Milosevic,
who has said

Serbs "never conquer and exploit others" because their
historical role is "a

liberating one." 



   But amid the political passivity that is a hallmark of the
Balkans - the

legacy of centuries of rule by distant empires and then
communist regimes -

there is a particular raggedness and torpor about Serbia today
that suggests

a day of awakening, quite possibly a violent one, may come. This
is a land,

Serbs like to recall, where few leaders have died in their beds. 





THE HISTORY 



ANCIENT QUESTION: 

WHERE IS SERBIA? 



   On the vast platform where monuments commemorate the Serbs'
defeat by the

Ottoman Turks in 1389 - a debacle transformed by myth and song
into the

beacon of the long Serbian struggle for a state with stable
borders - weeds

now push through the cracks in the stone. 



   The adjacent flower beds are barren. Garbage skitters in the
wind. A

solitary cafe has closed. Nothing stirs on the the Field of
Blackbirds, where

Serbian blood ran in the Middle Ages and Serbian hopes coalesced
as communism

died. 



   The fever has evaporated, but it was inebriating while it
lasted. It was

at Kosovo Polje, on the 600th anniversary of the defeat by the
Turks, that

Milosevic, now 54, revealed his heady formula for adapting
communism to

changing times. A million Serbs - from Serbia itself, but also
from Bosnia

and Croatia - gathered to hear the message. 



   Amid a panoply of national costumes and a cacophony of
national song, he

announced that the time was at hand for Serbs to avenge a
demeaning history. 



   "The fact that we are the big nation in this region is not a
Serbian sin

or shame," he declared, blaming the "inferiority complex" of
past Serbian

politicians and the divisions among them for the "humiliation of
Serbia."

War, Milosevic intimated, might even be necessary to right this
affront. 



   The warning was vague - what injury exactly had Serbia
suffered? - but

then nationalist thunder is not about precision. Milosevic had
already

crushed the autonomous status of Kosovo and of the ethnically
mixed northern

Vojvodina region of Serbia, so eradicating one long-standing
Serbian grudge. 



   Perhaps he was appealing to a deeper frustration: the sense
among Serbs

that Yugoslavia should have been their country because their
sacrifices

during the 19th century and in World War I were decisive in
bringing it into

being. 



   "The Serbs fought for centuries to live in one state," said
Borislav

Jovic, vice president of Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party.
"That state was

Yugoslavia. We suffered great injustices in it - economic and
political - but

it was ours, and we sought to protect it." 



   Whatever the real grievance, Milosevic's message was enough
to galvanize a

people afflicted by 2,600 percent inflation and the disorienting
collapse of

communism. Other Yugoslav leaders, particularly Franjo Tudjman
of Croatia,

got the message: nationalism can fill a political void and cause
falling pay

to be momentarily forgotten. 



   Yugoslavia - always a delicate mosaic - cracked. Then it
collapsed in

1991, as the drumbeat of Milosevic's propaganda pushed Serbs to
try to forge

the largest Serbia since Dusan's 14th-century empire. 



   After repeated migrations across the Balkans, centuries of
Ottoman Turkish

dominion and more than 180 years of struggle to establish the
borders of a

modern state, the campaign of the Serbs was and remains an
attempt to settle

a fundamental question: where is Serbia? 



   In Kosovo, where the medieval kingdom was strong? In Bosnia,
where a Serb

nationalist shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in
1914, setting off

World War I? In Croatia, where Serbs had fled westward from the
Turks and

formed a military frontier, or "krajina," against them?
Milosevic's initial

answer was simple: Serbia lies wherever there are Serbs. 



   But four years and a quarter of a million lost lives later,
it seems clear

that this whole Serbian drive - marked by great brutality
against Bosnian

Muslims - was based on two central illusions. Milosevic was
never a Greater

Serbian nationalist; he was a Communist casting around for a new
legitimacy,

and Serbs, divided by their history, were ill-suited to life in
a single

state. They fought one another in World War I, when many of the
Serbs in

Croatia and Bosnia fought on the side of the Austro-Hungarian
empire they had

long been part of against Serbia. 



   They fought one another again in World War II, when some
Serbs sided with

the communist guerrillas and others with the royalist Chetniks.
The

Partisans, led by Tito, won. 



   But the internecine grievances lived on to resurface in the
current wars,

sapping the Serbs' strength. One result is that the
centuries-old community

of Serbs in the Krajina was unable to beat back the Croatian
army and has

been destroyed. 



   Bosnian Serbs, whose political leaders preach church and
crown, have

uneasy relations with the Communists-turned-Socialists of
Serbia. Radovan

Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, talks of privatizing all
industry in his

part of Bosnia, flanks himself with Orthodox bishops whenever
possible, and

suggests that the royal family should return. Milosevic and his
wife, Mirjana

Markovic, fan a wave of Yugo-nostalgia; photographs of Tito are
multiplying

and guerrilla monuments being restored. 



   This struggle in Serb-held lands is likely to unfold over the
next several

years. 



   "For a brief moment, Milosevic was able to fuse the Chetnik
and Partisan

traditions, the two major political currents in Serbia," said
Stojan Cerovic,

a writer. "The Chetniks saw a Great Serb nationalist; the
Communists saw his

attachment to a strong party apparatus and a state-dominated
economy. But it

was fleeting. The Communists were right: He is an apparatchik
above all." 





THE SUFFERING 



REFUGEES OR NOT, 

MANY ARE LOSERS 



   Vojna Adamovic, a refugee from Bosnia, is one of the many
Serbs who now

feel betrayed by Milosevic. She fled from Sarajevo to Belgrade
on April 12,

1992, six days after the Bosnian war began, because she felt
threatened by

the Muslims. But increasingly she feels isolated in Serbia, and
her ire has

focused on the government. 



   "I had everything in Sarajevo," she said. "Great friends,
great music, the

sea three hours away, the mountains 20 minutes away. What did I
need Greater

Serbia for?" 



   She lighted a cigarette and continued: "You know, it's funny,
you can't

imagine how I've come to miss the mountains. Everything here is
so flat and

boring. I ache for the mountains and forests. The people here in
Serbia are

colder, less open-hearted. They tend to think we Bosnians just
came down from

the trees." 



   Thus Ms. Adamovic, who is 36, has arrived at the bitter
conclusion that

she is a Bosnian more profoundly than she is a Serb. It has been
thus with

many Serbian refugees: They are products of the culture from
which they came

more deeply than they belong to the overarching vision that
Milosevic briefly

sought to promote. 



   Her parents, refugees from Muslim-controlled Tuzla, now live
in the

northeastern Serb-controlled Bosnian town of Bijeljina. There,
Ms. Adamovic

observes officials close to Karadzic buying BMWs and Belgrade
apartments with

the money made from sales of everything from smuggled gasoline
and arms to

the right not to fight on the front line. 



   A conspicuous criminal class is also evident in Milosevic's
post-communist

society, dominated by the party (socialist in name but communist
in sprit), a

huge police force and official control of all important media. 



   The paradigm of this class is the paramilitary
leader-turned-oil smuggler

Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, who is wanted for murder in
Sweden and

whose forces began the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia. He now runs
a thriving

oil business with official support. 



   Meanwhile, professionals who used to earn $2,000 a month now
earn $150. A

pension may be half that. At flea markets, retired diplomats
sell off family

heirlooms for a pittance. 



   The average Serb lives like Ljubisa Djuric. He stood recently
on the

highway near Nis in eastern Serbia with strings of dried red
peppers and

jerry-cans of gasoline arrayed in front of him. 



   As a steelworker in Leskovac, his salary has dropped from
about $1,000 a

month to $70 over the last five years. He supplements this by
making regular

visits to Bulgaria, where he buys about 200 liters of gas and
then bribes

customs officials to ignore trade sanctions and allow him to
bring it back. 



   "You can't choose," he said. "I've got a wife and kid, you
have to do

something to survive." 





ONE FAMILY 



REFUGEE SERBS 

'BETRAYED BY SERBIA' 



   Of course, Milosevic has been able to blame the sanctions for
such misery.

They have certainly hurt the country deeply. But the greatest
tragedies in

Serbia are linked to the wars Milosevic foresaw at Kosovo Polje
in 1989 and

then helped foment. 



   Take the Miljevic family. On Aug. 19, after traveling for 14
days in

tractors, they reached the central Serbian town of Kraljevo.
They went to

that city because, when they reached the Serbian border after
fleeing their

home village of Kostresi in the Krajina, a policeman handed them
a piece of

paper saying "Kraljevo." No explanation was given. 



   On arrival, they were directed to the technical school. The
gymnasium

became their home, shared with 300 other refugees. From where he
sleeps,

Milos Miljevic, 63, looks up at a basketball net. Children
stare; babies

scream; aged widows in black sleep, their thin mouths fixed in a
rictus of

bewilderment. 



   "We felt so safe," Miljevic says. "We were defending our
homes. But we

were betrayed by Serbia." 



   It is not the first time that Miljevic has been a refugee. As
a boy he

spent four years in the woods near the Krajina town of Glina,
hounded by

Croatian fascists bent on killing Serbs. 



   When he got back to Kostresi in 1945, all that was left of
his home were

the chicken coops. "I was 12," he said. "I went to work
repairing the house.

With Tito things seemed all right. But the peace depended on
him. Now it

seems none of the rifts was healed." 



   In 1991, a few months before Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia
and war

began, Miljevic fled the Croatian town of Sisak, where he had
lived for many

years and worked in a steel mill. As the propaganda machines of
Tudjman and

Milosevic moved into high gear, reopening the wounds of World
War II, his

Croatian co-workers labeled Miljevic a "Chetnik." 



   He moved back to Kostresi, near Kostajnica, with his wife,
Danica,

becoming part of the Serbian campaign to hold on to part of
Croatia, only to

lose his home again to the Croats this August. 



   His son Zeljko, 30, and his grandson, Miroslav, 3, stood
beside him: three

generations of Serbian refugees. Miroslav started to cry; he
asks why he

cannot go home. A Serbian policeman appeared and said the
conversation was

against regulations. 



   Vistors, especially journalists, are not allowed into the
refugee centers,

the policeman said. The decision bears the hallmark of the
government. These

Serbs who have lost everything are not to be seen, for images of
their

suffering could hurt Milosevic. 



   Later, the Miljevic family appeared at a cafe in Kraljevo's
main square.

The expanse is dominated by a monument to the Serbian dead in
the Balkan wars

of 1912 and 1913, wars in which Serbia pushed its borders
southward to

embrace Macedonia and Kosovo. 



   Macedonia is gone now, independent since Yugoslavia broke up.
Serbian

control of Kosovo is threatened by the Albanians who want
independence.

Miroslav, the little Krajina refugee, ran around the
hero-warriors of Serbia

on their stone pedestal. 



   His father, Zeljko Miljevic, a carpenter, watched him. He was
in a unit of

special forces in the Krajina. He knows all about the Serbian
defeat there.

It was Saturday, Aug. 5, at about 2 in the afternoon, when his
unit was

ordered to withdraw. 



   "No explanation was given," he said, "but our commanding
officers were

already in Bosnia. We could have defended ourselves, but Krajina
had already

been sold. The officers who ordered the withdrawal were from
Serbia; they had

nothing to lose." 



   His account coincides with those of dozens of other refugees.
Many

civilians left, under orders, thinking that they were going to
Bosnia for a

night while the Croatian threat was rebuffed. But no attempt was
made to

fight. Maj. Gen. Milan Mrksic, a Serbian officer, had been sent
from Belgrade

in May to command the Krajina forces; his real role, American
officials now

say, was to prepare for an abandonment of the area. 



   "This happened to many Croats in 1991," Zeljko Miljevic says,
"and now it

is happening to us. But it always seems beyond our control. In
1991, when the

Croatian houses in the Krajina were being burned, there were all
these

outsiders, militia groups, people we'd never seen before, who
were doing it."





   Those militia groups - like Arkan's "Tigers" - were armed and
deployed

from Belgrade. At the time, Milosevic spoke of the Serbs'
"legitimate right

to live in one country." 



   But Serbs are now being gathered into Serbia where Serbia at
first reached

out to them. In 1992, Serbs held almost one-third of Croatia and
70 percent

of Bosnia; today they hold 4 percent of Croatia and 60 percent
of Bosnia.

They have agreed to give up an additional 11 percent of Bosnia. 



   Milosevic's Yugoslav air force stood by while Serbs in Bosnia
were bombed

by NATO. "He has become a dove," a Western diplomat said of the
Serbian

leader. 



   The fate of Zeljko Miljevic suggests that this conversion is
not quite

complete. On Aug. 24, five days after his arrival in Kraljevo,
he and his

brother-in-law Slobodan Jelic were arrested by the Serbian
police and taken

away. They were not allowed to say good-bye to their families. 



   "Miroslav was crying for days, asking for his father," said
Zeljko's

distraught wife, Mirjana. 



   It was several days before she heard from her husband. He was
taken to

Erdut in Eastern Slavonia, the one remaining Serbian-occupied
sliver of

Croatia. 



   There, he was thrust by the Serbian police into the "military
training

camp" of Arkan, whose business interests now center largely on
Eastern

Slavonia. 



   In early September, Zeljko Miljevic could be found in
Petrovci, near the

Serbs' front line in Eastern Slavonia. His head had been shaved.
His beard

had been shaved. He had new boots, a new uniform, and a new,
deeper

resignation in his eyes. 



   He spent six days in Arkan's camp. Arkan came every day and
harangued the

hundreds of refugees there on their failure in the Krajina. 



   "I was not physically abused," Miljevic said, "but I saw lots
of people

who were. They were made to carry heavy rocks. When they dropped
them, they

were beaten." 



   Now, after four years of war, this Serb stands on another
front line, far

from the home he was denied the right to defend. He is marooned,
forbidden to

return to Yugoslavia, where his wife has been told she cannot
put their

children in school because the Miljevices have no home. What
appear to be the

dying gusts of the Serbian storm have tossed him this way and
that - another

migration in the long Serbian history of migrations. 



   Where will this suffering end? "Milosevic started all this,
and now he's

the one who really wants to finish it," said Richard Holbrooke,
the Clinton

administration's mediator in the Balkans. 



   But difficult issues, including Kosovo, remain. The basic
question - where

is Serbia? - is not completely answered. Moreover, Milosevic,
both of whose

parents committed suicide, has proved himself a man of unusual
coldness,

capable of shifting hundreds of thousands of people like pieces
in a chess

game. 



   For many Serbs, distant from the fighting, informed only by
the official

media, all that upheaval has remained far away. They put their
faith in the

man who has preserved order in Serbia and may come away from the
wars with

half of Bosnia under his effective control. In Leskovac,
Srboljub Ilic, a

bank employee, did not hesitate when asked who might one day
succeed

Milosevic. "We'll find another Milosevic," he said. 



   The phrase echoed the lesson Yugoslav schoolchildren used to
learn under

Tito. In reply to the question, "Who will succeed Tito?" they
were told to

say "Tito." They believed it, in all sincerity. 





Copyright 1995 The New York Times





