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U.N.'s Yugoslavia Envoy Says Rising War-Weariness Led to the Cease-Fire

U.N.'s Yugoslavia Envoy Says Rising War-Weariness Led to the Cease-Fire
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January 8, 1992, Section A, Page 3Buy Reprints
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Cyrus R. Vance, the special United Nations envoy for Yugoslavia, said yesterday that he believed that general war weariness was the primary factor leading to the cease-fire accord that took hold there under his supervision last Friday evening.

In an interview in New York, he said that while he was dismayed by the incident yesterday in which a Yugoslav Air Force jet shot down a helicopter, killing five European monitors, he did not think this could cause hostilities to resume between Serbs and Croats.

During the interview he received a call from Adm. Stane Brovet, the Yugoslav Deputy Defense Minister in Belgrade, who expressed sorrow over the incident and told Mr. Vance that the Air Force commander had been suspended and a full investigation begun.

Mr. Vance said he strongly suspected the incident was provoked by "hardliners" bent on discouraging intervention by the European Community or by the United Nations to bring an end to the still undeclared war that began last June in Yugoslavia. 'Growing Weariness'

"There is growing weariness on all sides," the 74-year-old former Secretary of State said of the leaders of the warring factions in Yugoslavia. "Secondly the economy continues to deteriorate on all sides. The problem of displaced persons continues to grow. Desertions are also growing."

He was joined in the interview by his deputy, Herbert Okun, a retired Foreign Service officer who accompanied Mr. Vance on all five of his missions to Yugoslavia that began in mid-October.

"On the fourth mission I began to see light," Mr. Vance said of his shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade, the Serbian and federal capital, and Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. "You could see it and feel it when people began to talk about the feasibility of a peacekeeping plan."

Despite Mr. Vance's sense of optimism, the cease-fire agreement resulting from that trip, signed in Geneva on Nov. 23 by Presidents Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Yugoslavia's Defense Minister, Veljko Kadijevic, was broken immediately, like the 14 that preceded it. .

The November accord envisioned a cessation of hostilities and a simultaneous move by Croatian forces to unblock some 40 Yugoslav Army barracks where more than 25,000 federal troops were held hostage.

Mr. Vance said the Croatian and Serbian leaders were "disgusted" that the cease-fire did not take hold, but "very appreciative" that the blockades were gradually removed.

The difference between all the previous cease-fire agreements and the current one, Mr. Vance said, is that last Friday's agreement includes detailed mechanisms for separating the warring factions and preventing them from "shooting back" without first consulting international monitors.

Amplifying this, Mr. Okun said of the new agreement, "There will be military liaison officers from the United Nations, attached to the Army headquarters in Zagreb and Belgrade and to field headquarters down to the corps level, and contact between the liaison officers across the lines."

He said both Serb and Croat commanders had vowed to support United Nations liaison teams with their logistics. Signed in Sarajevo

All this is detailed in the "implementation accord" signed by Serb and Croat armed forces commanders on Jan. 2 in Sarajevo, the Bosnian city where World War I was ignited by the assassination of the Austrian archduke.

Mr. Okun and Mr. Vance had flown to Sarajevo after whirlwind stops in Belgrade and Zagreb, where they obtained the approval of both Serbian and Croatian leaderships. There, they drafted the accord over a period of four hours in the Konak, or official residence of the Bosnian-Hercegovinian Government, "on a 1914 Underwood typewriter," Mr. Okun recalled.

Sitting in the Konak, with Mr. Vance at the head of the table, Gojko Susak, Defense Minister of Croatia, signed for his side, while Col. Gen. Andrija Raseta signed for the federal forces. Then the two Americans dashed back to Belgrade for a "working dinner" with Serbia's President.

Mr. Okun said that of the 11 weeks he and Mr. Vance had spent on the negotiating task, "six or seven weeks were on the road, mostly in Yugoslavia."

Initially they flew among Yugoslavia's republican capitals on executive jets lent them by the Swiss Government, but on the last mission they used a small American Air Force jet.

Asked about the protests against the Sarajevo accord by Serbian minority leaders that took place this week in the Croatian region called Krajina, a scene of major fighting in the previous six months, Mr. Vance said he believed leaders in Belgrade would be able to bring them into line.

On another critical point he said he was convinced that the Serbian-led Yugoslav Army would "literally pull out of Croatia," where it holds about one-third of the republic's territory. "Literally and definitively," he said.

He said the first United Nations liaison officers were being chosen this week and that the initial team of 50 would "probably include an American." They are scheduled to be sent to Yugoslavia next week, to be followed -- if the cease-fire holds -- by about 10,000 blue-helmeted peacekeeping troops.

Mr. Vance said he was heartened that the European Community's peace conference on Yugoslavia, involving leaders of all six former republics, would resume work in Brussels on Thursday. Mr. Okun is leaving Wednesday for Brussels to attend that session.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: U.N.'s Yugoslavia Envoy Says Rising War-Weariness Led to the Cease-Fire. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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