(1 Jan 1995) Eng/Serbo-Croat/Nat
A four-month ceasefire between the Bosnian government and rival Serbs took effect Sunday, raising fresh hopes for peace in the New Year.
The truce started effect at noon (1100 GMT), and military officials from the two sides met at Sarajevo's airport to begin working out how to separate their forces.
Sarajevo resounded with celebratory gunfire overnight to ring in the New Year but was quiet on Sunday morning.
However, Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic says he is pessimistic about the truce, saying it was up to the warmakers to make peace and that the Serbs might just use the time to consolidate their gains.
SOUNDBITE:
"We have done what we could to make peace but alone we cannot make peace because we have not made the war. Those who made the war can make peace. The main thing is the political will behind the cessation of hostilities. Will there be real cessation of hostilities, real ceasefire, or is this a ploy to buy more time and to create more status quo for the aggressor? If that is the case then the international community must finally do its job and that is to arm Bosnia-Herzegovina."
SUPER CAPTION: Haris Silajdzic, Bosnian Prime Minister
The truce was finally signed on Saturday after a week-long cease-fire and hectic shuttle diplomacy by Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, the UN commander in Bosnia.
Rose and Yasushi Akashi, the top UN official in former Yugoslavia, engaged in frantic mediation efforts between the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and Pale, the Bosnian Serb
headquarters, throughout Saturday before the two sides signed.
A joint commission, set up under the agreement and chaired by Rose, met Sunday at the airport to begin implementing the agreement.
So far, the talks have gone well.
However, the people of the city, used to broken promises and worthless ceasefire agreements, remain sceptical.
SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat)
"I think the ceasefire is good only for the other side. But even if that is so, we will respect it, just like we always did, we never broke ceasefires. It was always they who did that."
SUPER CAPTION: Bosnian soldier
SOUNDBITE:
"On the basis of previous experience with the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina I don't think that peace will come soon"
SUPER CAPTION: Civilian Man
The cease-fire brokered by former US President Jimmy Carter 12 days ago called for future negotiations based on an international peace plan drafted by the United States,
Russia, France, Germany and Britain.
The Bosnian government has accepted the plan and insists the Serbs do likewise. But the Bosnian Serbs, who would be forced to relinquish about one-third of the 70 percent of Bosnia they hold, have repeatedly rejected it.
But Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said Saturday, after he and Mladic signed the truce, that Serbs "are ready to negotiate a stable, political solution."
Despite Karadzic's words and Akashi's optimistic assessment, doubts persist as to whether the two sides are ready to silence their guns and sit down to negotiate.
All previous cease-fires have been broken in the war that began in April 1992 when Bosnian Serbs rebelled against a Muslim-Croat decision to secede from Yugoslavia and become independent.
More than 200,000 people are dead or missing.
Several warring parties did not sign the agreement: Croats allied with the Bosnian government, and Serbs from Croatia and rebel Muslims who have fought alongside the Bosnian Serbs in Bihac in northwest Bosnia.
withdrawal of "all foreign troops," a reference to the Croatian Serbs fighting in Bihac.
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