Out With A Bang In Sarajevo 'Burbs -- Serbs Rampage During Turnover

ILIDZA, Bosnia-Herzegovina - As the largest of Sarajevo's Serb-held suburbs switched to Muslim-Croat control, drunken Serbian police careened through the district's streets, firing guns into the air and hurling grenades in farewell defiance.

The NATO peacekeeping force today deployed more combat troops on the streets of two Sarajevo suburbs to halt growing lawlessness in the suburbs.

"We've got our guys out there and we're doing everything we can short of shooting people," Adm. Leighton Smith told reporters.

The Bosnian Serb leadership had dispatched the police to the Serb-held suburbs to force as many Serbs as possible to leave, U.N. officials have said. The Serb leadership wanted Serbs to flee Sarajevo to prevent the preservation of a multiethnic Sarajevo, one of the main conditions for Bosnia's existence as a sovereign state, according to the peace accord.

Sarajevo will be the capital of the new Bosnia, which, under the Dayton peace plan, will comprise a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb entity. But if all the Serbs leave Sarajevo, the idea of a unified country could collapse.

Spokesmen for the NATO force implementing the U.S.-brokered agreement have repeatedly turned aside calls that they take stronger action to stop the looting, arson and terrorism that have gripped five Sarajevo suburbs reverting to government rule during a 45-day period that began Feb. 3.

NATO officers have insisted that their mandate does not include basic law and order. They defer to the U.N. police force created under the peace accord; that force, however, is unarmed and was not granted arrest powers.

During the war, Ilidza was home to an estimated 25,000 Serbs. Now, about 2,500 people, most of them elderly, have registered to remain, U.N. officials say.

Smith warned even a stepped-up NATO presence would not halt disturbances in the suburbs.

"I can't bring peace to Bosnia. Nobody can. It has to come from inside," he said.

Compiled from Los Angelses Times, Reuters and Washington Post reports.