SARAJEVO, Sept 5 (Hina) - Main IFOR commander Admiral Joseph Lopez on Thursday forwarded a stern warning to the president of the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Biljana Plavsic, calling her to keep the conduct of her police and
civilians under control. Lopez forwarded the warning after Wednesday's incidents in Banja Luka when the Serb police and civilians attempted to prevent IFOR troops to confiscate unregistered heavy weapons which was discovered in a local police convoy.
SARAJEVO, Sept 5 (Hina) - Main IFOR commander Admiral Joseph Lopez
on Thursday forwarded a stern warning to the president of the Serb
entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Biljana Plavsic, calling her to keep
the conduct of her police and civilians under control.
Lopez forwarded the warning after Wednesday's incidents in
Banja Luka when the Serb police and civilians attempted to prevent
IFOR troops to confiscate unregistered heavy weapons which was
discovered in a local police convoy. #L#
IFOR spokesman in Sarajevo Bratt Boudreau said that ten
British military police officers accommodated in Banja Luka were to
accompany a convoy in which had been two armoured vehicles
belonging to the Serb police for which Serbs had requested a
transferal.
The British soldiers, however, discovered that there was a
larger amount of other unregistered weapons, among which were anti-
aircraft cannons, heavy machine guns and rocket launchers, which
they decided to confiscate.
The convoy and IFOR soldiers were then quickly surrounded by
150 to 200 Serb civilians.
The Serbs overturned one of IFOR's terrain vehicles, after
which the commander of the patrol ordered his soldiers to fire
gunshots in the air as a sign of warning.
The mob then dispersed and the convoy continued towards IFOR
headquarters in Ramici. The convoy was soon stopped and blocked by
Serb police vehicles and several civilian cars.
IFOR soldiers then brought the chief of the Banja Luka police,
asking him to disperse the crowd and his police officers.
The convoy took temporary cover in Bosnian Serb army
headquarters where IFOR soldiers discovered another unregistered
armoured vehicle which they confiscated as well.
Some time before midnight, after the blockades were removed,
all confiscated weapons were transported to the IFOR headquarters.
According to Boudreau, the weapons confiscated included three
armoured vehicles, an anti-aircraft cannon gun, three double-
barreled 20-millimetre cannons, seven single-barreled cannons and
three rocket launchers.
Lopez warned the Serb entity leadership that such incidents
would not be tolerated.
NATO soldiers in Bosnia had been trained to shoot to kill, not
to fire warning shots, so any repeated incidents could have serious
consequences, Lopez's spokesman Marc van Dyke said on Thursday.
(hina) lm jn
051531 MET sep 96