Bosnian Serbs blocked U.N. convoys Saturday and forced the closure of the Sarajevo airport in retaliation for a NATO airstrike and U.N. sanctions imposed on them for rejecting a Big Power peace plan.
Bosnian Serb Army commander General Ratko Mladic, angered by the punitive measures and the NATO air raid which destroyed one of his tanks, told Reuters that "the United Nations is becoming more and more like an occupying force than a peace-keeping one.""We can no longer tolerate this arrogant behavior of theirs because there is nothing that concerns NATO here," Mladic said in the stronghold of Pale, outside Sarajevo.
Mladic told U.N. commanders by telephone Friday evening that if they failed to apologize for the air raid within 24 hours his forces would retaliate against peace-keeping troops, U.N. spokesman Herve Gourmelon said.
U.N. commanders refused to comply with the deadline that expired about 8 p.m. local time and told Mladic the raid was a "proportionate response" to a series of Serb attacks on peace-keepers and violations of the heavy weapons exclusion zone around Sarajevo, Gourmelon said.
The Bosnian Serb Army brought U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) operations to a standstill Saturday, halting 18 military and aid convoys and stopping patrols trying to check that banned artillery had been removed from the no-weapons zone.
The Serbs also banned U.N. helicopter flights over their soil and warned UNPROFOR they could not guarantee the safety of flights to Sarajevo airport where operations were suspended.
"It looks as if the Bosnian Serbs are tightening up around Sarajevo," said a U.N. source who asked not to be identified. "Things have really gone into deep freeze as a result of the airstrike."
Bosnian Serb forces were still firing at the airport and at U.N. troops despite the NATO attack on the T-55 tank and the threat of more if their guns remain in the 12-mile exclusion zone around the Bosnian capital.
The tank was hit after a French peace-keeper was seriously wound-ed by Serb fire Thursday.
The NATO intervention and the new sanctions were part of intensified efforts to make the Bosnian Serbs comply with U.N. resolutions and accept the peace plan for Bosnia.
The sanctions, agreed by the Security Council on Friday, ban foreign travel by leaders of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb Republic and trade with the territory.