Intent on luring former President Jimmy Carter to Bosnia, the Bosnian Serbs declared the Sarajevo airport open Friday after a break of almost one month and eased their stranglehold on U.N. convoys.

A convoy carrying 106 tons of food was allowed into the encircled northwestern Muslim enclave of Bihac, and the United Nations said it would resume flights into Sarajevo on Saturday. The airport, the chief conduit for food aid into the Bosnian capital, has been closed since Nov. 21 because of threats from new Serbian surface-to-air missile systems.Freedom of movement for the United Nations and the opening of the Sarajevo airport were among six steps promised to Carter this week by the Bosnian Serbs' political leader, Radovan Karadzic. Ka-rad-zic's compliance with the promises is viewed by Carter as an essential condition for a visit.

But the forced expulsion this week of 15 Muslim civilians from the Serb-controlled northeastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina suggested that perhaps the most significant of the six Serbian promises made this week - the respect of human rights - was still far from being honored.

During the course of the 32-month war, more than 700,000 Muslims have been forced from their homes by the Serbs. Many were killed, but most of those evicted were herded across front lines into government-held territory.

If kept, the pledge by Karadzic to "guarantee human rights now and in the future" would represent a potential turnabout. He has often made such pledges to U.N. officials, only to continue with the so-called "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims and blame supposedly uncontrollable local commanders for the abuses.

The 15 Muslims were expelled into territory held by the Muslim-led Bosnian government and reached the northeastern town of Tuzla Friday, according to wire service reports.

It quoted Fadila Abdurahmanovic, 24, as saying she had been beaten after Bosnian Serb police officers kicked down the door of her family's home in Bijeljina and forced them to leave. Her father, Mehmet, said he had been kicked in the chest while Serbs cursed his mother. Such accounts have become almost repetitive in their consistency since the war began.

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