From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: The prisoner exchange that wasn't
Date: 10 Sep 92 05:29:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.20254
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

[ re-posted from SII w/o premission ]
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Subject: The prisoner exchange that wasn't
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:49:27 GMT

	SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- This is a tale of arms and men,
the evils of drink and of more than 900 people who disappeared in the
prisoner exchange that wasn't.
	It is also the story of a stolid Royal Canadian Mounted Police
sergeant from Winnipeg who tried to make it happen, but learned that in
the Balkans, things rarely come off the way one hopes.
	``I respect these people here, but I don't respect their ability to
organize things,'' said Sgt. Jim Hull, the commander of the civilian
police unit of the U.N. Protection Force in Sarajevo.
	U.N. police and troops Tuesday set out to oversee a swap of 470
Serbian and Bosnian war prisoners in Kobiljaca, a town wedged between
Serbian and Croatian lines, 15 miles northwest of Sarajevo.
	The swap was agreed by the warring factions for 1 p.m. It began with
U.N. personnel escorting two buses of Bosnian captives from the Serb-run
prison of Kula, outside Sarajevo.
	Things began going awry immediately.
	The convoy arrived in Koblijaca an hour late because it was held up
at a Serbian checkpoint and forced to pick up more prisoners.
	In Kobiljaca, U.N. personnel found seven more buses of Bosnian
captives, said Hull. ``These nine buses were later joined by two more
buses containing alleged prisoners.''
	Hull said the U.N. unit was then told by negotiators of the two sides
that the exchange had grown, with 462 Bosnians to be swapped for 454
Serbs -- who had still not arrived.
	U.N. officers waited three and a-half hours for the Bosnian side to
deliver the Serbian prisoners. During that time, they noticed ``the
Serbian military presence in the area appeared to increase and the
indulgence of alcoholic beverages was clearly evident,'' Hull said.
	A U.N. armored car was sent to find the Serbian prisoners, who were
discovered 8 miles away in six buses. The buses were escorted by the U.
N. vehicle to within less than a mile of Kobiljaca, where they were
stopped at a Croatian checkpoint.
	An argument erupted between the Bosnian negotiators and the Croatian
commander that soon embroiled bystanders, Hull said.
	``It was learned that Croatian military were justifiably concerned
about the presence of many armed Bosnian soldiers who had come with the
convoy,'' he explained. ``This in all probability could have caused an
armed confrontation (with the Serbs).''
	U.N. personnel also objected to the Bosnian soldiers. But, unable to
resolve the dispute and growing anxious because of the approaching dark,
the U.N. unit tried to coax the convoy to move by proceeding through the
checkpoint.
	Only one bus followed, but ``broke down...and had to be left behind,''
Hull said.
	The U.N. unit continued into Kobiljaca, where ``it was quite apparent
that tension was mounting among everyone present,'' he said.
	``With this in mind and the fact that the liquor being consummed
during the day was now showing undesirable effects on the Serbian
soldiers and civilians present,'' the U.N. contingent abandoned the
exchange, Hull explained.
	The prisoners were left with their captors and ``we have no idea
where they are,'' said Hull.
	That, however, was not the end of the story.
	More than seven hours after leaving Kula, the four-vehicle U.N. unit
set out to return to Sarajevo, but was forced to stop for about two more
hours at a Serbian checkpoint.
	Hull said the halt resulted because a Serbian police chief wanted to
arrest the Bosnian prisoner exchange negotiators accompanying the U.N.
personnel back to Sarajevo.
	The U.N. officers refused to surrender the Bosnians, and after 
``cooler heads prevailed,'' the convoy was allowed to continue, Hull
said.
	Despite the farcical nature of the incident, Hull was not amused.
	``We, under the circumstances, don't find it very comical,'' he said.
``This is too deadly a situation...to be messing around.''