U.N. officials fear many of the 70,000 Serbs due to come under government rule will opt to flee out of distaste for the government, fostered by years of nationalist propoganda or fear of revenge by those they treated harshly. The United Nations and European governments have asked the Bosnian government to do more to reassure the Serbs that they would be safe if they stayed in their homes. A mass exodus of Serbs would be an embarrassing start for the peace process. The government told U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke Friday it would do more to get across its message that everyone could live together but diplomats say the signals it is sending are still not strong enough. At last weekend's London conference delegates agreed on a package of confidence-building measures to try to persuade Serbs not to abandon their homes.
Details are still to be announced.
Residents of Serb-held Sarajevo are holding a referendum Tuesday which is expected to reject the Dayton peace deal. Many are reported to already be packing up to leave. The answer is stay, just stay,'' said Radosav Gutaj, a Serb who left the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale outside the city because he disagreed with Serb hard-liners who fought for an ethnically pure state. Some 30,000 Serbs are thought to have remained inside Sarajevo throughout the war and have remained generally unharmed. Local authorities pride themselves on having kept the city relatively cosmopolitan despite the war.