Divided Mostar presents stark choice to EU

European leaders today face one of their toughest choices yet in former Yugoslavia: either to carry out a threat to end European Union administration of the divided town of Mostar, or to back down and open the way to partition.

An end to EU administration would help to torpedo the town's peaceful reconstruction - but the alternative would give the green light to a Croat partition of the Muslim-Croat federation.

Western governments were searching yesterday for ways to put pressure on President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia after his Bosnian Croat clients in Mostar refused to join a unified City Council. The EU and United States regard this as a deliberate blow at the Dayton peace settlement and an attempt to keep alive the option of partitioning Bosnia.

Mostar has been divided since the Muslim-Croat war of 1993-94, which left a Croat-controlled western sector and a Muslim-held east. The US is urging the EU not to walk away from Mostar, but the Bosnian Croat defiance of the EU underlines that the Europeans will need to rely on US diplomatic pressure if the Croats are to be brought into line.

The Bosnian Croats have refused to take up their seats on Mostar's council on the grounds that the city's elections last June were marred by fraud in polling stations abroad where Muslim refugees voted. The elections produced a narrow victory for a Muslim-led coalition and were declared fair by the EU, which viewed the Croat objections as a smokescreen for their policy of maintaining a Croat political entity in Bosnia.

"The only people who are going to be drinking champagne in Mostar now are the [Croat] thugs, gangs and criminals," said the EU's administrator, Sir Martin Garrod, after Bosnian Croat leaders failed to meet a deadline of midnight on Saturday for agreeing to join the City Council.

Western governments believe the Bosnian Croat intransigence sets a dangerous precedent for Bosnia's first post-war general elections next month, which are supposed to help re-unite the country. They also blame much of the crisis on Mr Tudjman, since he has encouraged the Bosnian Croats' separatist ambitions.

"We are outraged by the Croat behaviour," a senior US official said. "What point is there in holding elections in September if one side knows that if they are disappointed with the results they can ignore the fact that the voting every took place?" The US was angry because it arranged a meeting in Washington last week between Mr Tudjman and President Bill Clinton, who urged Croatia to apply the necessary pressure on the Bosnian Croats.

Croatia enjoyed US support in the latter stages of the wars in former Yugoslavia because the US regarded the Bosnian Serbs as the main problem, but US officials have warned the Croats that they will become "international pariahs" if they sabotage the Dayton settlement.

During last weekend's negotiations, the EU asked Muslim and Croat leaders to sign an agreement pledging co-operation with the EU administration of Mostar and attendance at the City Council. The Muslims agreed, but half an hour before the deadline the Croats refused to sign.

In a separate development, the Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Portillo, indicated that Britain was opposed to any attempt by Nato to seize Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal. "If Karadzic were to be snatched, my judgement is that we would put at risk, we might sacrifice, American, British, French lives," he said. "It's a very sombre calculation that would have to be made."

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