Playing for Time

BRCKO, Bosnia: Sometimes in Bosnia the best strategy is to punt. Such was the case Friday, when a mediation panel led by American Roberts Owen decided to leave the northern Bosnian town of Brcko in Serb control for another year. The dilapidated town, which serves as a flashpoint for tensions between Bosnian Muslims and the country's Serbs, is so strategically vital that the 1995 Dayton peace negotiations almost collapsed over it, and both sides say they are prepared to go to war over it again. Owen had tried to avoid an outright award of the town to the Serbs or the Muslim-Croat federation, which surely would reignite the fighting. One option he has considered would be dividing the city into three equal parts, with an international governor administering a free port, the Muslim-Croat federation taking the western half of the city and the Serbs taking the east. Before the Serbs seized Brcko at the start of the 3 1/2-year war, 68 percent of the population was Muslim and Croat. To them, allowing Serb control would in essence be a reward for ethnic cleansing. Sejfudin Zahirovic, deputy mayor in exile of Brcko, said local leaders were furious when they heard the reports. "We feel betrayed by the international community, especially the United States." The embattled town is crucial to both sides because of its strategic location. For the Serbs, Brcko sits on the narrow corridor that links the western and eastern parts of the Serb Republic. Meanwhile, the Muslim-led government wants to regain the city for its trade links that provide key access to central Europe and to return the refugees to their homes. But the long-term result of this will probably be closer to what has become a pattern in Bosnia: Muslims will insist on their right to return, which will lead to clashes with the Serbs. And Brcko will become yet another of Bosnia's troublespots.