Bosnians in ‘Bihac Pocket’ Relieved Clinton Didn’t Endorse Peace Plan

President Clinton’s proposals to end the savage Bosnian war may have lacked promise of military muscle. But embattled Bosnians in the “Bihac pocket” sighed with relief Thursday to learn that Washington refused to endorse a plan they considered a death warrant.

More than 300,000 people live in or around this northwestern city, cut off from the rest of the republic by armed Serbian militants who have conquered all surrounding territory and expelled non-Serbs.

Those here--Muslim Slavs, Croats and a few thousand Serbs still loyal to Bosnia--feared the Serbian nationalists’ reviled practice of “ethnic cleansing” would eventually reach them, as well, if Clinton had accepted without protest a controversial ethnic partitioning of Bosnia-Herzegovina proposed by two Western mediators.

“If America doesn’t do something, all of us will disappear. It will be total ethnic cleansing, with no more Muslims,” said Hasib Zeric, a civil defense worker issuing ration cards.

He praised the White House initiative on Bosnia, unveiled by Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Wednesday, for its vow to bring war criminals to trial and for its demand that Serbian rebels end their deadly siege of Bosnian cities.

“This is excellent news. It shows that Clinton respects us and recognizes the truth,” effused Sofija Midzic, moved to tears by talk of American assistance.

“We know it will take time, but Clinton will stop the shelling,” the 48-year-old accountant said as she waited at a local aid office to get plastic sheeting to repair her apartment windows, shattered by shells.

Many Bosnians had hoped Clinton would call for lifting of a U.N. arms embargo that has prevented the republic leadership in Sarajevo from acquiring weapons to defend against Serbian nationalists fighting for an ethnically pure state.

“There are small doses of disappointment” over U.S. reluctance to let Bosnia arm itself, said Irfan Ljubijankic, a surgeon who heads the local governing council.

But like many here, he applauded Clinton’s refusal to succumb to pressure from Western allies to endorse unconditionally the proposals of U.N. envoy Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen of the European Community; they have suggested carving up Bosnia into 10 semiautonomous ethnic provinces.

The Vance-Owen plan would have bestowed legitimacy on some of the brutal border changes brought about by Serbian gunmen who have seized 70% of Bosnia and about one-third of neighboring Croatia. Under the mediators’ plan, Bihac and its environs would remain cut off from the heart of Bosnia and encircled by the rebel Serbs.

Clinton, who had been under strong pressure from allies in Western Europe and Russia to sign off on ethnic division as the best option in a bad lot, had earlier expressed doubts about the Vance-Owen formula because it failed to reverse ethnic cleansing or punish the terror tactics by which Serbs carried it out. Local leaders like Ljubijankic praised Clinton for what they saw as a Solomon-like compromise between pragmatism and justice.

European leaders have rejected military intervention for fear of further antagonizing the Serbs and exposing U.N. troops in Bosnia to hostage-taking or retaliation. Soldiers from Britain, France, Canada and Spain make up most of the roughly 9,000 U.N. troops and observers in Bosnia assigned to deliver aid to isolated communities like Bihac or to keep track of the frequent violations of U.N. resolutions prohibiting shelling and military flights. The troops have no mandate to interfere with the fighting that has already killed 20,000 by official count and left 10 times that number missing and presumed dead.

“What we want from America is help in achieving a balance in arms and recognition that our fight is a just fight,” Ljubijankic said. “It is not that we want to fight, it is an imperative for our survival.”

The soft-spoken 40-year-old, who sews up war casualties each morning before arriving at his sand-bagged government office, said no one expected a massive ground intervention by foreign forces, nor did he think such a move would be effective. “That would have meant sending guys to be killed here without any positive result,” said the Muslim doctor, who prefers to be called a Bosnian. “What is more important is that (Clinton) supported our fighting as a justified fight.”

Ljubijankic confirmed the assessment of U.N. observers in Bosnia that the Muslim-led government forces have become stronger and more organized lately, despite being vastly outgunned by Serbs armed and supplied by Belgrade.

One U.N. military observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, conceded that he feels admiration for the Bosnians who have pulled themselves together from a ragtag force of untrained volunteers and refugees to defend their remaining homes and families. “It’s quite impressive, from a military point of view, to see what they’ve been able to do, having started with so little,” the European officer said.

Around the MB Hotel used as a base by humanitarian aid agencies, the Bosnian forces have erected a shield against flying shrapnel by filling mini-bar refrigerators with gravel and piling them like bricks to protect windows and walls.

While most Bosnians expressed gratitude for the American initiative, some were disillusioned by Clinton’s failure to threaten military intervention to break sieges around cities like Bihac that are struggling through winter without electricity or water.

“Honestly, I expected more,” said Mensur Sabulic, a hospital administrator. “But I guess Clinton has to move slowly because of his domestic situation. Those people voted for him, not us.”

Despite the White House demand for an end to the sieges, Serbian artillery continued to attack the remaining government-held enclaves Thursday. Shells fired from Serb-held positions to the west and south of Bihac shook the crumbling facades and rubble piles in the city center. Bombardment was also reported heavy in Sarajevo.

In the Bosnian capital, President Alija Izetbegovic added his praise to the public’s enthusiasm for the Clinton initiative. “I think that Americans have a better understanding of what a multicultural community is, better than the Europeans have,” the president said in a statement, reiterating his criticism of the Vance-Owen plan.