December 4, 1995
Web posted at: 5:00 p.m. EST
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- The first rush of a 60,000-strong NATO force surged into Bosnia and Croatia Monday to handle the nuts and bolts of the coming peacekeeping mission in the Balkans.
Two dozen NATO troops made up the multi-national team that landed in Sarajevo early Monday in a camouflaged British C-130 Hercules plane. The troops included Britons, French, Belgians, and two American sergeants.
A second plane to Sarajevo brought a seven-member British logistics team, and a third flight carrying troops was expected later in the day. In Croatia, 56 British communications experts arrived in the port city of Split.
"These are the first definite NATO troops," said Paul Elmer, British U.N. spokesman.
Americans will form one-third of NATO's force. It will be the first U.S. peace-enforcing mission sent to Bosnia in nearly four years of war.
"We'll be setting up the headquarters for the bigger force to come down," said Sgt. Matthew Chipman of Beardstown, Illinois, who arrived Monday with Sgt. Todd Eichmann of Kansas City, Missouri.
Chipman said the time frame for the rest of the troops' arrival was undetermined. "Everybody is hoping (it will be) as soon as possible," he said. He added that he and Eichmann left their base in Augsburg, Germany, so hastily he couldn't say goodbye to his parents.
Later on Monday, several hundred U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany were scheduled to leave by train for Kaposwar, Hungary, their staging post on the way to Bosnia.
The troops arriving this week are part of a 2,600-strong enabling force. "They are the people who will set up in preparation for the main headquarters coming in here," said Lt. Col. Chris Vernon, a spokesman for UNPROFOR, the United Nations Protection Force that has been in Bosnia for several months. "The Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps is effectively what will replace my headquarters."
The 56 soldiers who arrived in Croatia on Monday as part of Britain's 7th Signal Regiment will start dealing with communications, logistics and supplies. Some will head for Sarajevo and Tuzla, and others will stay at Split, a key transit point for Bosnia.
The remainder of the 60,000 NATO troops will begin to move in after the peace agreement is formally signed December 14.
A NATO spokesperson said a convoy of 15 to 20 trucks was set to leave a NATO base in Naples, Italy, on Tuesday for Zagreb, Croatia, carrying equipment for the operation's headquarters in Sarajevo.
The troops arrival Monday comes two days after Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic rejected the Dayton peace accord. He demanded a reconsideration of the accord's transfer of control over Serb areas around Sarajevo to a new Muslim-Croat federation.
Speaking to his troops Saturday, Mladic said Serbs will never permit themselves to be ruled by "butchers" -- his description of the Muslims and Croats they have fought for nearly four years.
U.S. President Bill Clinton, speaking Sunday in Madrid at the end of a five-day European trip, swept aside Mladic's threats. The president has said he did not think the treaty is in trouble and ruled out any possibility of a renegotiation. He said he expected Serb President Slobodan Milosevic to honor the treaty.
Milosevic negotiated on behalf of Serb leaders Mladic and Karadzic during the Dayton, Ohio, peace talks, and signed the agreement along with the Croatian and Bosnian presidents. Both Mladic and Karadzic have been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
Members of the U.S. Congress said Sunday that both the Bosnian and Serbian leadership have promised that U.S. soldiers will be safe. But they acknowledged that the objections of Bosnian Serbs still worried them.
In an interview with CNN, U.S. Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili said he found Mladic's threats "bothersome." But he made clear the determination to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia "until mission is done, period," regardless of casualties.
"We need to be very clear that when we go into an operation like this, we must not fall into trap of saying after certain number of casualties we will leave, because that will just invite those who wish us harm or those who want us out of there to take us on as targets," he said.
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