20 Killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina; EC Peace Mission on the Way

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Machine-gun, mortar and cannon fire swept Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday, killing more than 20 people, but a European Community peace mission remains scheduled, EC envoy Colm Doyle said.

Speaking at his bullet-pocked Sarajevo hotel, Doyle said that Lord Carrington, Portuguese Foreign Minister Joao de Deus Pinheiro and Portuguese diplomat Jose Cutilheiro intend to arrive in Sarajevo today.

“Nothing is certain, but as of now it is the intention that Minister Pinheiro, Lord Carrington and the chief negotiator Cutilheiro come to Sarajevo tomorrow morning,” Doyle said Wednesday.

A day of violent clashes in the city ended with a lull after nightfall, but members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces sent to control neighboring Croatia said more than 20 people had been killed Wednesday.

“We saw more than 30 wounded and counted 20 corpses,” said one of the U.N. soldiers.

After talks here, the EC delegates will fly on to Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, to meet Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Afterward they will go to Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where a shaky cease-fire has reduced but not ended a nine-month conflict between Croats and Serbs.

Carrington has already said he will tell Milosevic the EC considers Serbia, along with the army, chiefly responsible for the violence.

In Washington on Wednesday, the Bush Administration said all parties in Bosnia must share blame for the warfare. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the U.S. government continues to regard Serbia, the Yugoslav army and Serbian residents of Bosnia as the worst offenders, but “no party is blameless.”

She said responsibility must be assigned to “Croatia and Croatian irregular forces in Bosnia (and) Muslim . . . irregular forces (which) also are now involved in actions contrary to peaceful resolution of the crisis.”

It was the first time that Washington has specifically criticized the Muslims, the largest of Bosnia’s three ethnic communities.