NOT-SO-RAPID RESPONSE

By Bruce W. Nelan

The first French reinforcements landed in Bosnia last week. A flight of helicopters lifted 60 Foreign Legionnaires and six heavy mortars off warships in the Adriatic and set them down in a heavily wooded area on Mount Igman, a strategic height overlooking Sarajevo. The platoon quickly moved into position to support a French infantry battalion that had been under attack by Bosnian Serbs.

A platoon of 60 men, even of famously tough Foreign Legionnaires, will hardly make a difference in bloody Bosnia. Still, their arrival was apparently meant to send the Serbs some signals. They were the first new unit into the field since the Serbs rounded up more than 370 U.N. troops and observers as hostages three weeks ago.

The French soldiers were a symbolic down payment on the 10,000 troops who will form a rapid-reaction force to back up the 22,500 U.N. peacekeepers already in the country. The landing on Mount Igman also seemed to lend support to the Bosnia U.N. military command's tentative plan to open a supply route from besieged Sarajevo to the sea at Split.

It looked, at least at the outset, as if the U.N. military officers meant business. The 10,000 British, French and Dutch reinforcements were coming in two new brigades. They would be equipped with artillery and armored vehicles and would move quickly by helicopter to aid and protect peacekeepers in their humanitarian mission of distributing food and supplies. Discussions were held in Paris and London about changing the system under which military commanders must in practice obtain U.N. civilian approval to use force for anything beyond shooting back when under attack. On occasion it has been particularly frustrating to U.N. and NATO officers when they wanted to call in air strikes on the Bosnian Serbs and U.N. officials refused to go along. This time, French and British military leaders argued, the rapid-reaction troops should be authorized initially by the U.N. but then be available to the peacekeeping generals to use in Bosnia as they saw fit.

Such was the tough talk at the beginning of the week. By week's end, however, it was evident that no such significant changes would be made. As a Western diplomat put it, the situation in Bosnia was "going to be the same mishmash it has been." There would be no move from peacekeeping to forcible peacemaking, NATO defense ministers reaffirmed at a meeting in Brussels. At the same time, U.N. officials in the former Yugoslavia insisted that the new rapid-reaction force would operate under the rules that had applied since the beginning. The force would defend peacekeepers but would not launch offensive actions. UNPROFOR has always been permitted to use force in order to deliver aid, but it has never done so. The rapid-reaction force will technically have the same right, but it appears that the force will be treated in somewhat the same way that air strikes have been, and civilian U.N. agreement will in practice be necessary in order for it to act aggressively. Officials in several capitals began to see the decision to send reinforcements not as an indication of strength, but as a step toward eventual U.N. withdrawal from Bosnia.

British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind, whose country is contributing more than 6,000 troops to the new force, said flatly, "We are not going to wage war. That is not the role of the U.N." But even beyond that, he said, the kind of peacekeeping that is required can be carried out only when the combatants basically agree to it. "If the consent is not there, the U.N. will not remain," he said. Britain's Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd went further, saying the reinforcements were intended not to change the character of the U.N. force "but to increase its ability to protect itself." If the U.N.'s task becomes impossible, Hurd said, "it would have to withdraw."

The French for weeks have been demanding that the U.N. force be either beefed up or pulled out. Once the decision to reinforce was made, French officials said they were eager to use the new reaction force to open the road for supplies to Sarajevo, protect U.N.-designated "safe zones" and enforce freedom of movement on other roads as well. The peacekeepers have always had the right to use force if necessary, but as a French diplomat says, "up until now they have not had the means or equipment to do so. That's what the rapid-reaction force is for." If these missions lead to clashes with the Serbs, the French government seemed to be ready to accept a firefight as a legitimate exercise in self-defense. Without going on the offensive, the French seemed willing to push a bit to carry out the mission. But if the reinforcements do not soon deter the Serbs from attacking, and no sign of a political solution appears, the French are prepared to end the effort. "There is no formal deadline," says a government official in Paris, "but if everything is blocked and there is no prospect of a resolution in, say, two months, we would pull out."

Since the rapid-reaction force will operate under U.N. authority, its deployment to Bosnia requires a new resolution from the Security Council. To begin with, the Council must raise the ceiling on the number of troops approved for the U.N. Protection Force, UNPROFOR, from 26,000 to 36,000. Last week in New York City, British, French and Dutch officials sat down with U.N. diplomats to discuss the new plan. It does include assisting peacekeepers in danger and facilitating freer movement on Bosnia's roads. But, says a U.N. official who attended the meetings, they "are not going to blast their way through anything." They can fire back if fired upon, but they must not take sides. A Western diplomat who participated summed up the basic truth: "None of these countries wants to go to war on behalf of the Bosnian government."

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali then sent a letter to the Security Council. The letter reports that the new quick-reaction brigades will become an integral part of the existing peacekeeping force and will function under the existing U.N. command structure and the mandate of neutrality that has governed ground troops and the use of air strikes. A resolution to that effect could come up in the Council as early as this week. It will mean simply that UNPROFOR will be bigger, not different.

That leaves everyone right back where they have been, hoping for a diplomatic solution. But the peace process is stalled. For one thing, negotiations can go nowhere until the Serbs release the 146 U.N. hostages they are still holding. As for the peace plan on the table, it calls for partitioning Bosnia, with 51% going to the Bosnian government and its Croatian federation partner, and 49% to the Bosnian Serbs. The Bosnians and Croats have accepted the plan and so has Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. But the Bosnian Serbs -- led by the implacable Radovan Karadzic -- control 70% of Bosnia and are not ready to surrender any of it.

To pressure Karadzic Western leaders have turned to Milosevic, the Bosnian Serb's onetime mentor. Milosevic would like to consolidate his success. "Milosevic is like a big-time Mafia boss who wants to retire to Palm Beach," says one official. "He wants reintegration with Europe. He says he has done enough for the Bosnian Serbs." Western leaders are asking Milosevic to recognize Bosnia as a sovereign state and is offering a suspension of U.N. economic sanctions as bait. Special envoy Robert Frasure, a U.S. State Department official, has made six trips to Belgrade since February, but so far without success. Milosevic seems willing to lean on the Bosnian Serbs to settle, but he insists sanctions on Serbia proper must be lifted, with any future reimposition up to the Security Council, not the U.S. "Milosevic is dug in on reimposition and so is the U.S.," says the official. "The Administration has to decide how much they want to pay to make a deal."

Many Bosnian Serbs are gloomily convinced the deal is coming. In Pale, their so-called capital near Sarajevo, a grizzled soldier, still dirty from the trenches, sat at an outdoor cafa last week. "We will be sold out, won't we?" he asked. "It is only a matter of time," a civilian friend replied. In this third year of the war, the Serb forces are hard-pressed, and their morale is ebbing. For the first time desertions have become a serious problem. On the other side of the line, Bosnian government troops are getting better in both equipment and tactics. Their morale is rising, spurred also by the encouragement they received last week from the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted to lift unilaterally the arms embargo on Bosnia. In Croatia government troops have snatched back one of the three enclaves Serbs had occupied there.

NATO officials believe to counter this impression of weakness, the Serbs had gone on the offensive - taking peacekeepers hostage and resuming their shelling of Sarajevo in defiance of U.N. restrictions. Even so, European capitals did not react in fury. "National governments," says a senior U.N. official in Bosnia, "do not regard what has been done to UNPROFOR as a national slight, and only national slights count." Last week rifle and machine-gun fire echoed through the capital and soon turned into an artillery battle for control of high ground overlooking roads leading into the city.

Even as new battles erupt, the world's focus is turning to diplomacy. The nato allies will try to muddle through until fall, but if they truly mean it when they say the only possible solution is a negotiated one, Milosevic is inevitably the key. He represents the only evident way to pressure the Bosnian Serbs into negotiations. Right now, he is holding out for a lifting of sanctions, and the U.S. is balking. If something has to give, the sanctions regime seems to be it.

--Reported by Edward Barnes/Pale, Massimo Calabresi/ Vienna, Marguerite Michaels/Washington, William Rademaekers/London, Thomas Sancton/Paris and Alexandra Stiglmayer/Sarajevo

With reporting by EDWARD BARNES/PALE, MASSIMO CALABRESI/ VIENNA, MARGUERITE MICHAELS/WASHINGTON, WILLIAM RADEMAEKERS/LONDON, THOMAS SANCTON/PARIS AND ALEXANDRA STIGLMAYER/SARAJEVO