AFTER ARRESTS: RETALIATION, THREATS. Following British military action that resulted in the arrest of one Serb war criminal and shooting death of another, there has been a wave of retaliatory attacks against international soldiers and workers in Serb-controlled Bosnia. ``Bombs have gone off almost nightly, and there has been harassment of NATO troops and international officials,'' Associated Press reports.

There have been no life-threatening injuries to date.

NATO and U.S. officials initially claimed the attacks were isolated incidents, often involving drunken Serbs. But the New York Times reported Saturday that American military officials now believe the attacks have been orchestrated by top Serb leaders, and say they have evidence that Interior Minister Dragan Kajic is involved.

``A senior administration official in Washington said there would be `serious consequences' in the event of `even one more such action,''' according to the Times. ```We've had enough of this,'' the official said.

``Administration officials declined to specify how NATO forces would retaliate. ... The first steps are likely to be diplomatic, but the officials said the next ones could include cracking down on television broadcasts the Serbs have used to incite attacks and seizing caches of weapons the Serbs were required to warehouse as part of the Dayton peace accords.''

U.S. Army Gen. William Crouch, commander of NATO troops in Bosnia, met the Serb member of Bosnia's collective presidency, Momcilo Krajisnik, yesterday and demanded Krajisnik ensure the attacks stop, according to AP.

In some of the most recent incidents, an American soldier's car was firebombed outside his apartment in Vlasenica; while Czech soldiers guarding some international offices had to dive for cover when a car drove straight at them, Reuters reports.

Earlier, a Dutch soldier was slightly wounded when a Serb passerby launched a hand grenade in Kotor Varos. Local police arrested a suspect in the incident. And, an American soldier was cut by flying glass in an explosion at a NATO office in Doboj. Earlier, another American was slightly wounded in the shoulder by a man wielding a scythe in Vlasenica.

An unoccupied truck belonging to American police monitors was destroyed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Bratunac, while explosions targeted the apartment of an international police officer in Gradiska, an OSCE building in Banja Luka, and an OSCE jeep in Zvornik. British soldiers also detained four Serbs in connection with three explosions at a British base in Banja Luka.

But while NATO soldiers say they are somewhat more on guard, U.S. Capt. Joseph Haack told the N.Y. Times at a Sarajevo cafe: ``I feel safer here than I do at home in Fayetteville, North Carolina.''

Bill Richardson, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Serbs have made threats against top Western political leaders. He called such tactics ``unacceptable.''

``I can tell you NATO is not going to be intimidated by any of this,'' said top NATO commander Wesley Clark during a visit to Sarajevo. And special American envoy to Bosnia Robert Gelbard told a U.S. Congressional hearing that apprehending war criminals was a top priority for the Clinton Administration. But according to Sen. Joseph Biden, a longtime Bosnia advocate, there is still a question of Western political will to take action.

Meanwhile, no further arrests have yet been made. The N.Y. Times reported a second operation had been proposed but vetoed by French officials as too risky. French and Italian troops staged a ``show of force'' with armored personnel carriers and helicopters near the home of indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic, according to Reuters, but there was no attempt to arrest him.

In Croatia, Globus magazine reported that the International War Crimes Tribunal may request a raid to capture indicted Bosnian Croats.

DONOR CONFERENCE. A long-delayed international donors' conference for Bosnian reconstruction this month has pledged $1.22 billion in aid. Officials decided to bar the Serb republic within Bosnia from receiving aid money until hardline nationalists there comply with the Dayton peace accords -- including turning over indicted war criminals for trial.

WAR CRIMINAL EULOGIZED AS A MARTYR. Simo Drljaca, the Prijedor police chief killed in a shootout with British troops trying to arrest him for war crimes, was ``eulogized as martyr'' and ``honored as a fallen hero'' by Serb officials at his funeral, Reuters reports.

Drljaca was charged with gruesome atrocities against Muslims at several notorious concentration camps, where inmates were regularly beaten, denied food and water, and tortured. Thousands of civilians were murdered during the campaign of ``ethnic cleansing'' in the Prijedor area.

HARASSMENT, BEATINGS CONTINUE IN SRPSKA. A Muslim man was badly beaten by two Serb police in Banja Luka recently, UN police monitors report, while a Catholic priest in Gradiska said several new landmines were planted outside his home. A Muslim woman in Prnjavor, meanwhile, was detained by Serb police and threatened with arrest if she didn't leave; she had tried to visit her home in the town. And, several Muslim-owned homes were damaged by explosions in Mrkonjic Grad area.

A DREAM DYING. Severe housing discrimination against non-Muslim Sarajevans is causing the Bosnian capital to lose what is left of its multi-ethnic character, human-rights workers and Western diplomats charge.

``When we tell the government that their policy is illegal and it destroys a multicultural city, they say you are absolutely right," a European human-rights official complained to the Times. ```Then they do nothing to change it.'''

Sarajevans who fled the city's brutal siege have not been able to return and reclaim their homes, because the government has given their apartments to others, the N.Y. Times reports. And that scarce housing isn't only being used for refugees from elsewhere in Bosnia; but is also being given to ``hoodlums, police officers, political leaders and high government officials,'' the Times charges. ``Some of the well connected have acquired several additional homes; others have gone from their old places to ones of comparative luxury.''

For example, Mira Cokorilo, whose mother was Croat and father was Serb, lost her family's spacious apartment in the city center to Kemal Muftic, head of the Bosnian state press agency and a presidential advisor. And Marjiana Papo, a 72-year-old Jew, lost her apartment to popular television anchorman Senad Hadzifejzovic. The TV newsman claims his original apartment was destroyed, although Times reporter Mike O'Connor found ``it seems to be intact and still has his name on the door.''

Papo left the city during the heavy shelling only after being assured by government leaders that her home would be safe upon her return. ``Mrs. Papo's family says that at her age, and after two wars and confinement in a Nazi concentration camp, she has little spirit left to fight for her home anymore,'' the Times says.

```I used to think this was a religious or ethnic-group question, but I was wrong,''' said Esad Muhibic, a Muslim human-rights official in the city. ``It is not about Muslims vs. Serbs or anybody. These are masks to hide theft.'' He estimates that about 30% of those getting new homes in Sarajevo are ``untouchable'' because of their powerful connections. ``Nothing happens to them,'' he said. ``We do not have the rule of law here.....

``Deep in the soul of Sarajevo we want to return to the tolerant and multiethnic city we had before. But Sarajevo is losing its experts and intellectuals. Now it is beyond whether they may get their homes back -- it's becoming a question of whether they should bother to return at all."

In fact, it is not only those who left the city who are losing their homes, according to reports from Sarajevo; people who suffered and fought for Bosnia are also affected. Non-Muslims whose relatives left the city or who recently died are being evicted from their family's apartments, even though legal residency rights are supposed to be able to be passed down among family members. And in at least one case, a non-Muslim Sarajevan lost his apartment when he temporarily went abroad for medical treatment for a war injury.

WEAPONS NABBED. U.S. peacekeepers confiscated ``a large cache of weapons, ammunition and explosives from Bosnian Serb special police loyal to indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic,'' Reuters reported in early July. International police initially found the illegal weapons during an inspection in Brkco. Serb nationalists refused to hand over the weapons to the unarmed monitors, but backed down after American troops were called in.

NEVERTHELESS, SOME PROGRESS. While expressing concern at the failure of officials across Bosnia to live up to their Dayton commitments -- particularly in the Bosnian Serb republic -- High Representative Carlos Westendorp said ``the notion of minimal progress since the end of the war is clearly wrong.''

Speaking at the international donors' conference, the Spanish diplomat said: ``People have started working again, rebuilding destruction of war and opening businesses. The common institutions specified in the constitution have been set up. Freedom of movement has improved. Goods move increasingly between the entities. Some 88,000 refugees and 164,000 displaced persons returned last year. Threats to fundamental human rights have diminished.'' Two years ago at this time, Serbs were still shelling and strangling Bosnian civilian centers.

JOINT PATROLS IN MOSTAR. ``A joint Muslim-Croat police force began patrolling the Bosnian town of Mostar on Monday, after months of difficult negotiations,'' Associated Press reports. Croats and Muslims there were initially allies against Serb nationalists. But shortly after Western officials proposed a doomed peace plan aiming to carve Bosnia into ethnic cantons, in order to ``recognize reality on the ground,'' Croat nationalists turned on their allies in an effort to create their own ethnically pure ministate. Croats drove Muslim residents out of modern west Mostar and into a besieged ghetto across the river, which was largely destroyed by months of shellfire. Western officials say the city's western sector is now controlled by criminal gangs that made fortunes from plundering Muslim homes and reselling their apartments.

SRPSKA `PRESIDENT' BOOTED FROM PARTY. Biljana Plavsic has been thrown out of Radovan Karadzic's hardline nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) after criticizing party members for corruption and speculating in an interview that Karadzic could be subject to arrest.

Plavsic was closely aligned to Karadzic during the war, and many considered her an even more rabid nationalist than he. However, while Karadzic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity over atrocities in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, she has not faced any charges. And more recently, she called for some compliance with Dayton as a way to attract investment and aid to the poverty-stricken republic.

The SDS called on her to resign, but she refused.

WAR-CRIMES SENTENCE. Dusan ``Dusko'' Tadic was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the International War Crimes Tribunal for torture, beatings, and murder of Muslim civilians in Bosnia.

``You committed these crimes with intention and with sadistic brutality using knives, iron bars, the butt of a pistol, sticks and...in one case tightening a noose around the victim's neck until he lost consciousness,'' presiding judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald said at the sentencing, Reuters reports.

A FEW VICTIMS IDENTIFIED. ``The names of some of the thousands believed killed at Srebrenica are finally being discovered two years after the Bosnian conflict's worst massacre,'' according to AP. ``Work by the Physicians for Human Rights team has resulted in positive identification of three victims and likely IDs for two others. ... About 7,000 mostly male residents and defenders are missing and feared massacred.'' So far, an estimated 700 bodies have been exhumed from mass graves near the eastern enclave, which was a ``UN-protected safe haven'' when Serb troops overran the town and subsequently executed thousands of unarmed men there.

CROATIA LOAN POSTPONED. A $40 million International Monetary Fund loan to Croatia has been postponed at U.S. insistence until the Croatian government better complies with the Dayton peace accords. American officials complained that the Tudjman government is not allowing freedom of movement for refugees or cooperating in handing over war criminals to the International War Crimes Tribunal.

Croatia currently maintains firm control over Bosnian-Croat-controlled areas of Hercegovina, in what the N.Y. Times calls ``one of the most flagrant violations of the Dayton peace agreement.''

In west Mostar and elsewhere, ethnic Croats who are supposed to be Bosnian citizens vote in Croatian elections and use Croatian currency, while local officials and military are financed by Zagreb.

``In theory this region is part of the American-brokered federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina,'' the Times reports. ``In fact, it has been annexed by Croatia.''

STOLAC RETURNS STILL BLOCKED. Stolac officials continue to block international efforts to help expelled Muslims return to their homes there. A pilot program involving 68 families has been delayed since last year.

STILL NO JOINT CURRENCY. There is still no agreement on a unified currency for Bosnia-Hercegovina, Reuters reports. Bosnian officials had agreed to allow two designs -- one for the Bosniak-Croat federation and one for Srpska -- as long as they were not promoting separatism, but Serb hardliners are insisting on Serb nationalist symbols for currency circulating within Srpska.

REPATRIATION CENTER OPENS. A Repatriation Information Center has opened in Sarajevo, aimed at compiling and computerizing data affecting the return of refugees in Bosnia, according to the High Representative's office.

WASHINGTON UPDATE. For the first time, President Clinton appears to have left the door open to a possible continued military presence in Bosnia after the pledged pull-out date of June 1998.

``We will have to discuss what, if any, involvement the U.S. should have,'' he said during a visit to Denmark, according to Reuters. ``[The mission has] been much less expensive and much less hazardous to America than a resumption of full-scale war would be. ... I think its been a very good thing we've done and I hope the American people would be very proud of it.''

The House of Representatives voted to cut off funds for military operations in Bosnia after June 30, 1997. However, the U.S. Senate voted for a softer, non-binding resolution calling for a June '97 pullout instead of a firmer measure seeking to require one.

The Senate also passed a measure calling on President Clinton to consult with Congress on efforts to arrest war criminals. A harsher proposal, stipulating NATO should not hunt down war criminals, was altered.

Earlier, the Coalition for International Justice, representing more than 80 groups across America, called on the U.S. to lead a strong arrest effort. In an open letter published in the N.Y. Times, the group said that by shying away from confronting men responsible for genocide, the U.S. was in essence colluding in protecting them and allowing them to live freely and openly.

Peace will not be possible while those responsible for horrendous crimes in Bosnia go unpunished, the group argued. Former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole joined Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman at a news conference demanding justice in Bosnia.

DIVING COMPETITION RETURNS TO MOSTAR. Although the famous Stari Most bridge was destroyed by Croatian shellfire in southern Bosnia-Hercegovina, diving competitions have resumed at the spot on a temporary platform built for the occasion. Thousands of spectators lined the banks of the Neretva to watch an international competition Friday, Reuters reports.

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--Sharon Machlis Gartenberg, for the Bosnia Action Coalition (Mass./NH)

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