February 8, 1996
Web posted at: 10:15 p.m. EST (0315 GMT)
MOSTAR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- An uneasy calm settled on Mostar Thursday, a day after violence erupted over the European Union's proposal to enforce boundaries in the city. The Croat-Muslim town was on a tight security leash as NATO's armored vehicles rolled through snow-blanketed roads and troops carrying flak jackets and helmets kept a wary eye out for possible trouble.
For two years the EU has been working to reunify Mostar, divided during one of Bosnia's most brutal sideshows -- the war between Muslims and Croats.
The U.S.-brokered peace treaty that ended nearly four years of war in Bosnia calls for Mostar to be one again, and the new boundaries are designed to calm tension between Muslims and Croats.
But Mostar's powerful Croat leaders reject total reunification. They've broken relations with the EU officials over their proposal for central political administration of the city, and the EU and NATO are concerned that the Bosnian Croats' defiance could plunge an already fragile peace accord into deeper crisis.
"I think the best solution would be three entities in Bosnia whose people would then decide how to live together," said Mijo Brajkovic, mayor of the Croat section of Mostar. "In my opinion you can make a temporary federation, but it will be very difficult to make it last."
Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic says he accepts the EU's proposals, and that he can't understand why the Croats are protesting. Croats say the plan favors Muslims.
But the European Union's administrator vowed to press ahead. "We cannot accept a situation as in Berlin with a wall, a division of the city," Hans Koschnick, a former mayor of the German city of Bremen, told a news conference.
Koschnick was one of the targets of Wednesday's violence. Surrounded by an incensed Croatian crowd, the administrator couldn't step out of his car, and was trapped inside for an hour.
In a sense, the Mostar crisis highlights the deep fissures in the Bosnian-Croat federation.
The accords establish two entities : one for Croats and Bosnians, another for the Serbs. But Croatia and Bosnia dispute such issues as who controls points along the international border between them.
"Everybody's concerned Mostar could blow up the federation, and the federation is the cornerstone of the overall peace process," said Klaus Metscher of the EU administration in Mostar.
Former Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic perhaps best underlined the importance of Mostar.
"If we partition Mostar, that would be the introduction of the partition of Bosnia," he told reporters in Sarajevo. "If we cannot keep Mostar together, how can we keep Bosnia-Herzegovina together?"
The EU administration says it will suspend economic and construction aid until Mostar's Croats resume relations and is calling on the United States and Europe to bring Mostar's Croats in line by exerting pressure on their patron -- Croatia.
Meantime, Britain's Prince Charles is visiting the war-ravaged resort city of Dubrovnik in Croatia Thursday. He says he's concerned about the fate of the historic port city. The heir to the British throne is in Croatia and Bosnia for two days to express support for peacemaking and for the soldiers trying to preserve it.
From Dubrovnik, the prince heads to Split, then on to central Bosnia on Saturday.
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