NEWS ANALYSIS : Bosnia Seen as Ill Prepared for End of Arms Embargo

VIENNA —  From the high-tech laser warning systems on their tanks to the mighty MIG-21 bombers in their air force, the Croatians have been masters at flouting an international arms embargo imposed against the republics of the former Yugoslav federation.

This month’s powerful onslaught on the Serb-held Krajina region in Croatia is the latest evidence.

But for the neighboring republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where war has dragged on the longest, the arms embargo has proven to be a more complicated matter.

Bosnian government forces battling better-armed Serbian rebels have been able to expand their arsenal despite the embargo. They have not, however, been able to acquire the long-range howitzers, armored vehicles and other heavy weapons that they most need in the numbers they desire. And what they do get, Bosnian officials say, is substantially more expensive than it would be at open-market prices.

Still, lifting the ban, which both houses of the U.S. Congress have voted to do, may not be the panacea that Bosnia and some American officials would have the public believe.

Left out of the debate in Washington and other world capitals is how the weapons would get to the Muslim-led Bosnian government in time to make a difference against the Serbs.

Who will protect the Bosnians and fend off the Serbs during the months while the less-experienced Bosnians learn to use their new weapons?

“Like fighting a war, equipping an army requires a major logistics chain,” said Paul Beaver, a leading weapons analyst and editor of Jane’s Balkans Sentinel, a London-based publication on military and security issues.

“There is a hiatus while equipment is marshaled, located and fed into it. And then you can’t just supply an army with howitzers and tanks and say, ‘Here you are, guys, off you go.’ They have to learn how to operate them.”

U.N. and other Western officials predict a lag of at least three months and maybe longer for weapons to reach the soldiers and be used effectively. Although the Bosnian government army has improved dramatically since its inception three years ago, it is still relatively inefficient, has lax discipline and is led by an officer corps of spotty professionalism.

These questions of logistics and capability outweigh questions of who would supply the weapons and how Bosnia would pay for them. There appears to be no shortage of Muslim countries eager to provide guns or at least the money for Bosnia to buy them on the black market.

The 52-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, after a summit last month in Geneva, declared the arms embargo for Bosnia “invalid.” On July 31, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, on a visit to Bosnia and Croatia, signaled his country’s intention to ship weapons.

Gen. Ratko Mladic, until recently commander of the Bosnian Serb army, has said he would welcome a lifting of the embargo because every new weapon in the hands of a Bosnian government soldier is a new weapon for his army; the weapons, he was suggesting, would be easily captured.

Mladic was speaking with his customary bluster, but analysts suggested there is a grain of truth to the scenario.

Bosnia’s relationship with Croatia is also a factor.

Because most of the arms that the Bosnians receive must pass through Croatia, it is the Croatians, more than anybody, who control access. Bosnian military officers like to complain that the only country really imposing an arms embargo on Bosnia is Croatia.

“The Croats are wary of too much getting in here,” said a European diplomat in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia.

The Croat-Bosnian war ended just 17 months ago, “and the Croats want to keep an eye on what goes in, just in case,” the diplomat explained.

With the Croatians and Bosnians now aligned in joint military action against their common enemy, the Serbs, some of the mistrust may subside, but it is not clear for how long.

The Croatians seemed to have had little problem taking in weapons during the embargo, thanks in part to a long, island-dotted Adriatic coast and two top-notch ports at Split and Ploce.

From the ports, many roads lead into Bosnia. Croatian officials and renegade warlords all demand a cut of each shipment, siphoning off weapons or demanding “fees.”

The Croatians are believed to have spent more than $1 billion in the last three years to equip an army that experts now put on a par with small West European countries.

They have gone almost exclusively to black-market dealers, acquiring German-designed anti-tank rockets in Singapore, Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns and a whole array of former East Bloc arms, from the latest-issue Russian rocket-propelled grenades to MI-24 Hind and MI-17 Hip attack and transport helicopters.

They’ve also beefed up their own tank factories with the help of neighboring Slovenia, cutting the numerical advantage that the Krajina Serbs had over them in tanks by about 50%, Western military analysts say.

They now have about 700 armored vehicles, more than 2,000 artillery pieces and a fleet of fighter-bombers.

The Bosnians pale by comparison but have made gains. They are said to be receiving steady shipments of U.S.-made M-16 rifles via mysterious night cargo flights through Tuzla and Bihac. Some antitank rockets are being supplied by the Croatians, analysts say.

In addition, the Bosnians are manufacturing mortars and ammunition; about six months ago they reactivated their ammunitions factory at Travnik, where they are fabricating Orkan rockets, the kind that the Krajina Serbs used to shell Zagreb, the Croatian capital, in May.

“The Bosnians can arm all [the]” soldiers in their army, Beaver said. “They couldn’t a year ago. It’s very much an infantry organization now.”

The government army outnumbers the Serb forces 200,000 (including Bosnian Croats) to 80,000.

But the Bosnian Serbs, who inherited a huge arsenal from the old Yugoslav National Army, have always had the advantage over the Muslims in artillery and heavy weapons. The Serbs are estimated to have about 800 artillery pieces and 450 tanks; the Bosnian government is said to have about 80 artillery pieces and 45 tanks, outgunned tenfold.

In addition, the Bosnian Serb army is experienced in mechanized warfare and has a professional cadre of officers.

By contrast, the officer corps of the Bosnia government army is still in formation.

The Bosnian army is without question more capable than it was when it began as a quickly assembled militia. Yet it melted last month in the face of the Serbs’ takeover of the Srebrenica and Zepa “safe areas.” An offensive launched in June and intended to help relieve the Serbian siege of Sarajevo underscored the significance of the army’s weapons deficit.

The offensive, which one foreign analyst said may have cost Bosnian government forces up to 5,000 casualties, had an important psychological impact in that it showed the people of Sarajevo that the army could mount a major operation. But many of the army’s gains were quickly reversed.

The army took the crucial road that leads from the Serbs’ principal garrison outside Sarajevo to their headquarters at Pale, nine miles southeast of the capital. But according to a senior Bosnian army commander, government troops were soon forced to relinquish the road.

“They came at us and began using their tanks and artillery,” said the commander. “We withdrew because we could not keep it. We didn’t have enough weapons to stay.”

The Bosnians need antitank weapons to defend themselves and also tanks and long-range artillery to begin to take back land.

The lifting of the embargo--regardless of whether the U.N. peacekeeping force withdraws, as it has threatened--will raise the level of warfare, most analysts predict.

“Even with the mere announcing of a lifting of the embargo, one can assume the Bosnian Serbs will take full advantage before it’s too late,” said Philip Gordon, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“How quickly you can get the Bosnian forces up to speed to prevent [a massive offensive] is an open question. Some people say there would be no Bosnians left by the time you get [the army] armed and trained.”