Seeking Wiggle Room

The first week of U.N.-imposed economic sanctions did nothing to halt the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Serb forces have seized more than two- thirds of the territory and are bombarding the capital, Sarajevo. But the cutoff of trade, including oil, did make officials in the rump state of Yugoslavia squirm publicly.

In Montenegro, the only former federal republic that remains linked with Serbia and thus also subject to sanctions, President Momir Bulatovic implied that those ties may be a mistake. "We cannot endure months of sanctions," he said. "Change is possible."

Serbian officials pounced on a U.N. report on the situation in Bosnia to back their demand that sanctions be lifted immediately. The report, issued by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, pointed out that Croats were also grabbing Bosnian territory. It suggested that Serb forces in Bosnia and their commander, General Ratko Mladic, were outside the control of the government in Belgrade. The Serbs argued that they were therefore being unjustly blamed by the U.N.

Nonsense, replied Western diplomats in Yugoslavia. The Serb-dominated federal army left behind 80,000 Serb troops when it made a show of pulling out of Bosnia in May. Belgrade armed them and dispatched Mladic to command them. If Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic wants to call them back, the diplomats say, all he has to do is whistle.