Croats Tell Muslims To Leave Sarajevo Suburbs

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - In another move pushing Bosnia toward partition, Croat forces broke with the mostly Muslim Bosnian army yesterday and threatened to drive Muslim forces from territory around Sarajevo.

The move appeared to further weaken the Bosnian government, and it tightened the vise on the Serb-besieged capital, where shelling resumed last night after a day of relative calm in the six-month-old civil war.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic has called for a unified, independent country. But Serbs and Croats have taken control of most of Bosnia since fighting broke out after a February referendum approved secession from Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia.

Velimir Maric, president of the Croatian militia for Sarajevo, said Croatian headquarters in Mostar, southwest of Sarajevo, had given the Bosnian government until today to withdraw from six suburbs around Sarajevo.

"After the ultimatum expires we will use all available measures to liberate Croatian territories," Maric told reporters in Stup, a western Sarajevo suburb controlled by Croats. "That could imply a conflict.

"Lots of blood will be lost ending one state and lots of blood will be lost creating one state," he said. "No one who lives in Bosnia-Herzegovina is a Bosnian. They are Croats, Muslims and Serbs. First of all, I am a Croat."

The six suburbs, most of whose populations are predominantly Croat, were Stup, Bare, Azic, Otes, Dogladi and parts of Nedzarici,

all communities along the city's western front line.

Bosnian government forces are surrounded on all sides by Serb fighters, and the government has relied on these suburbs for much of its fuel, weapons and food, via Croat-Serb cooperation.

Mustafa Hajrulahovic, commander of Bosnian forces in Sarajevo, reacted to the Croat ultimatum by saying: "We have to live in one republic, which is un-cantonized. If they don't agree with that, we will fight until we liberate our territory."

Maric said he would not help the Bosnian army try to break the siege of Sarajevo unless he received orders from his commander, Mate Boban - the leader of ethnic Croats in Bosnia and an ally of President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia.

Maric, a 40-year-old food inspector before the war, read from a statement on stationery of the Croatian headquarters in Mostar. It was not clear who had signed the letter, and it was not immediately clear whether Maric, an ultra-nationalist, was acting with Boban's backing.

Maric said that since Aug. 11, the Bosnian army had clashed with his forces six times. He accused Bosnian forces of looting Croatian homes and shelling Croatian positions.

He called for the partition of Bosnia into Muslim, Serb and Croat units. "We are talking about one whole, with Bosnia consisting of three constitutional parts, nations and territories," Maric said.

His position mirrored that of Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Bosnia's Serb forces, who also wants to replace the republic with ethnic cantons.

Karadzic's forces occupy about two-thirds of the republic, and Boban's forces claim to hold nearly one-third of the country.

Serbs, who are mostly Orthodox Christians, comprised about 31 percent of Bosnia's prewar population; Croats, generally Roman Catholics, made up 17 percent and Muslims 43 percent.

In other developments:

-- Sarajevo was almost without water after Serbian forces cut electricity to pumps serving the the city's biggest reservoir.

-- In Geneva, peace talks chairmen Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen said they expected Karadzic's forces besieging Sarajevo, Bihac, Jajce and Gorazde to put all their heavy guns under U.N. supervision within a week. Karadzic made the pledge last month.

-- The 108-member nonaligned movement, in closing its summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, denounced Serb "ethnic cleansing," in which Serb fighters have evicted thousands of Muslims from their Bosnian homes.