A Hint of Spring in The Balkan Tangle

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Hundreds of pale, war-fatigued Sarajevans turned out to cheer when their familiar red streetcars went back into service. Their daily lives had long been framed by falling shells, and the friendly clanging of the trams sounded like a hint of peace, a bit of normality now that a NATO ultimatum had silenced the Serbian siege guns. The streetcars must have carried the same symbolism to Serb soldiers staring down from the hills around the city: last week a sniper fired into one of the jammed cars and wounded a passenger, and 12 people were killed elsewhere in the city.

By any standard, this is not a peace or even the cease-fire Serbs and Muslims agreed to in Sarajevo on Feb. 10. Nevertheless, the combatants may have taken the first serious steps in a Bosnian peace process last week. Diplomats began talking hopefully about finding an end to the 23-month war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The complementary pressures of Washington and Moscow appeared to be nudging their respective clients toward accommodation. A tide seemed to be turning as zeal for warfare ebbed and attention flowed toward crafting a negotiated settlement.

Last week every faction was talking to someone. In Sarajevo the Bosnian government and Serb rebels agreed to open some roads to civilian traffic in and out of the city. In Belgrade Serbs and Croats announced that they would begin negotiating a formal settlement of the war they fought in Croatia in 1991, which left almost a quarter of Croatia in Serbian hands.

In Washington Bosnian and Croatian leaders signed two documents to establish a Bosnian federation and link it to Croatia. Real peace in Bosnia, said Secretary of State Warren Christopher, is "a ways down the road," but he hoped these pacts would "provide the basis for a larger political settlement, which must also include the Bosnian Serbs."

The federation agreement is both complex and incomplete. It provides for a merger of the Croat and Muslim areas of Bosnia under a strong central government and for a system of cantons with their own legislatures and courts. Bosnia's President, Alija Izetbegovic, and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman thought enough of the plan to fly to Washington to sign the papers linking their two countries. But what the arrangement does not cover is almost as important: the Serbs and the 72% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina they occupy.

President Bill Clinton, looking pleased at having some good news to report, presided over the ceremony and found it "a moment of hope." His flowing phrases and lavish praise for a host of negotiators ended with a quote from a 19th century Balkan poet, Ivan Jukic, who wrote, "Only those are heroes who know how to live with their brothers." Like Christopher, Clinton hoped "the Serbs will join in this effort for a wider peace. We invite them and urge them to do so." Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic shrugged, saying Croats and Muslims can "decide the way they want to live" as long as it is not a threat to the Serbs. Momcilo Krajisnik, head of the Bosnian Serb legislature, dismissed the federation as "an unnatural creation" that would not work.