DIVIDED BY HATE

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But there is no mechanism for hunting war criminals. While the tribunal has handed down 52 indictments, it has only one defendant in custody. The U.S. and NATO forces being sent to Bosnia can arrest only those whom they might stumble across in carrying out their other duties. As for voluntary extradition by the signatories to the Bosnian agreement--well, consider the case of six Croats indicted by the tribunal for the massacres at Vitez. Officials of Herzeg-Bosna, the Croat entity that is to be merged into the Federation, flatly refuse to hand them over. One of the accused has been named to a top job in Croatia proper by President Franjo Tudjman.

Genuinely cleansing Bosnia of all suspected war criminals seems out of the question. It would require arresting and shipping to the Hague for trial much of the leadership of Herzeg-Bosna and of the Serb republic--the very people who will have to carry out the other provisions of the Dayton pact. A perfect example of the dilemma is Milosevic. The tribunal could indict him, but he is the man the U.S. has relied on to end the war. Some small fry, and perhaps a symbolic big shot or two like Karadzic and Mladic, might be tried. But basically the people who waged a murderously savage war will be in charge of making peace.

What sort of peace? The Dayton design to create a multiethnic Bosnian state out of autonomous and antagonistic pieces seems unwieldy even in theory. In practice, some experts fear it will actually create more refugees and further deepen animosities. To begin with, the Federation will have a Croat-Muslim government, and its citizens are likely to elect Croat and Muslim nationals to the Bosnian central presidency and parliament. The Serbs remaining in the Federation, at least 50,000 people, will be unlikely to have any political clout. In the same fashion, the ethnically cleansed Serb republic will be governed by Serbs, leaving Muslims and Croats--if they ever returns--hut out of both governments. Both parts of Bosnia will be run by extreme nationalists, predicts Adil Kulenovic, a Muslim intellectual in Sarajevo. Consequently, the Serbs in the Federation, the last hope for Bosnian multiethnicity, may flee from lands in which they will have no political voice--and the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia will be complete.

The peacekeepers might be able to keep things quiet for a year or so and then pull out without suffering many casualties. Whatever they leave behind, though, is likely to bear little resemblance to the Bosnia envisioned by the Dayton accord and all too much resemblance to the shattered country of today.

--Reported by Massimo Calabresi/Banja Luka, Dean Fischer and Mark Thompson/Washington and Alexandra Stiglmayer/Sarajevo