Muslim Gangs Harass Serb Residents In Sarajevo Suburbs -- Young Marauders Weaken Bosnia Peace Accord

ILIDZA, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Muslim gangs harassing their former enemies and a dispute over the color of police uniforms worn by their supposed allies are widening the cracks in Bosnia's peace accord.

The United Nations said its police received appeals for help every five minutes from terrified Bosnian Serbs as young Muslims from Sarajevo marauded through four Serb suburbs now under the control of a Muslim-Croat federation.

Serbs who dared to heed the international community's plea that they stay in the capital city, which is reunifying under the Bosnian peace accord, are being victimized by Muslims engaged in looting, intimidation and death threats, NATO and U.N. international police officials said.

Many Muslims, themselves driven from their villages in eastern and central Bosnia at the start of the war, feel entitled to homes belonging to their enemies, the Serbs.

The latest turn in Bosnia's wheel of ethnic strife plays into the hands of hard-line Bosnian Serb leaders like Radovan Karadzic, who has said all along that Muslims and Serbs cannot live together - and waged a war based on the idea of ethnically purifying areas by force. "This is another blow to the multi-ethnic character of Sarajevo," said U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko.

The Muslim-Croat federation was formed under U.S. pressure in 1994 to end a year of fighting.

While the Muslim-led government publicly preaches multi-ethnicity, some Muslims are trying to use the federation to assert themselves over the Croats. Bosnian Croat hardliners would much prefer to unite their territory with neighboring Croatia than share power with the Sarajevo government.

Tensions also simmered between Muslims and Croats after Bosnian government police in Ilidza turned back nine Croat policemen for the second time in two days, this time claiming their uniforms were the wrong color.

It was agreed among the Muslim and Croat authorities that the Croats could wear blue uniforms, while those from Sarajevo would wear green uniforms until all federal police get gray uniforms now being made.