Serbs poised to resist any foreign force in Bosnia

AMID the bustle of shoppers hunting for bargains in central Belgrade before the new year and new price hikes, Aleksander Filipovic was busking, trying to sell his self-produced cassettes by singing nationalist folk songs which urge the Serbian people to prepare for war.

'The foreign troops are massing against you. Rise Serbia and defend yourself,' he sang, after a short lecture on patriotism which drew a small, enthusiastic crowd.

The Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army, General Zivota Panic, did not have any musical accompaniment, but his message to his countrymen yesterday was basically the same. 'There is a shadow of threat, diktat and aggression hovering over our homeland. We must be ready to defend our freedom,' the general said in a new year's message carried by Tanjug news agency.

With the news that Britain had shifted its stance and was now ready to consider military action in former Yugoslavia to prevent a general Balkans war, Yugoslav leaders were bracing the country for a conflict they believe may be just around the corner. Lord Owen, the European Community peace envoy trying to forestall such a possibility, arrived in Belgrade for peace talks with Serbian leaders, but his efforts did not appear to have much of an impact on the general.

'According to our predictions, the danger of foreign military intervention has increased. But we are here to tell the world that we will not allow a new genocide of Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina,' Gen Panic was quoted as saying. He said that in the event of conflict Yugoslavia had 120,000 men at its disposal, including its 60,000-strong professional army, and that, if necessary, 2 million people could be armed to fight.

Although hopes are still high among many people that Lord Owen's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the fighting in Bosnia may succeed, those chances were minimised yesterday by Yugoslavia's President Dobica Cosic. In a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Mr Cosic warned of unforeseeable consequences should Muslim attacks on Bosnian Serb positions in Sarajevo continue.

'These developments reaffirm that our efforts alone to establish peace are not sufficient . . . unless your intervention in the next few hours proves to be fruitful, we shall be unable to assume responsibility for the inevitable consequences. This will undoubtedly paralyse our joint endeavours aimed at ending the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina,' said Mr Cosic in the letter quoted by Tanjug.

Although the letter referred to a new Muslim offensive on Sarajevo which apparently has yet to take place, Mr Cosic's remarks were significant in that they join a chorus of recent official statements which indicate that Yugoslavia is contemplating openly backing Serbian forces in Bosnia. Yugoslavia's supporting role in the Bosnian war was underscored on Tuesday when a convoy of Bosnian Serb tanks and armoured troop carriers were allowed to cross through Yugoslav territory to reinforce Bratunac, a small town in south-eastern Bosnia which is under attack.

The possibility of direct Yugoslav involvement in the war was made clear last week by Gen Panic, who told Tanjug: 'I personally think that the Yugoslav army cannot stand aside if the biological survival of Bosnian Serbs is endangered. This was followed with an announcement on Christmas eve by the head of Belgrade's civil defence committee that preparations for war in the capital were already underway. Colonel Zivojin Zdravkovic said that the committee had mapped installations that would be likely targets of Western bombing raids and added that 250,000 residents would be mobilised and 10,000 kept as reserves in case of an attack.