Serbs must pay for violence, says US

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton said last night that he wanted to extend the same air cover and military protection that broke the siege of Sarajevo last month to Gorazde and the other Bosnian Muslim enclaves. He said he wanted 'to create Sarajevo-type conditions' around all the so-called safe havens.

In addition to threatening more air strikes, Mr Clinton said he supported sending more United Nations troops to Bosnia, though no American soldiers would be among them. 'We must make the Serbs pay a higher price for the continued violence,' he told a press conference at the White House.

Mr Clinton refused to give details of the measures he wanted the UN and Nato to take to create a momentum towards peace. But he said he had just had a helpful telephone conversation with President Boris Yeltsin, who has called on the Bosnian Serbs to withdraw from Gorazde. He added that he and Mr Yeltsin had 'agreed to work closely together' on Bosnia policy.

Asked about lifting the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims, he said he favoured it, but advanced a series of reasons why it might prove counter-productive. He asked how, if the US breached the UN ban, could it call on others to stick by sanctions against Iraq. Ending the embargo might also provoke a fresh Serbian onslaught.

Mr Clinton pointed to the success of the threats of action against the Bosnian Serbs by Nato last month as the example he wanted to follow. They were required to hand over or withdraw all heavy weapons within 12 miles of the city. 'If there is any violation by anybody, there can be air action,' he said.

Emphasising that he wanted Nato to pursue achievable objectives, the President did not say if he wanted another ultimatum against the Serbs, but his new policy would make little sense without one.

'Air power alone will not settle this conflict,' he said. 'This conflict will have to be settled through negotiations.' He also said economic sanctions on Serbia should be tightened.

Mr Clinton's comments came after Bosnian Serb gunners killed up to 14 hospital patients in Gorazde yesterday. Fifteen other patients were wounded when three shells struck the hospital early in the afternoon, according to reports from foreign aid workers in the town.

The destruction of Gorazde by artillery and heavy machinegun fire continued despite the emerging Western consensus that the Bosnian Serbs should not be allowed to get away with their defiance of UN resolutions and international opinion. UN military spokesmen said the chief purpose of the latest Serbian assault appeared to be to eliminate a munitions factory.

However, one shell that hit a building near the hospital killed eight refugees sheltering in an apartment. In all, about 390 people have died and 1,100 have been wounded since the Serbian offensive started late last month.

The UN commander in Bosnia, Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Rose, also indicated earlier that the preferred option of the UN and Western powers was to declare 12- mile heavy weapons exclusion zones around the 'safe havens'.

'You have got to be terribly careful when we are here as a peacekeeping force,' he said. 'Having said that, I think there is a use for air power. I think that the imposition of the total exclusion zone for heavy weapons around Sarajevo is something that could well be replicated elsewhere in the safe areas.'

Bosnia's other wars, page 10

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