EU takes over Bosnia peacekeeping from NATO
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-02 14:18

The European Union's biggest military operation began in Bosnia as the 25-nation-bloc takes over peacekeeping duties from NATO, nine years after the end of the bitter inter-ethnic war in the Balkan country.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer were to oversee the ceremonial transfer of power from the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) to the EU's 7,000-strong EUFOR at Camp Butmir in Sarajevo.

A British soldier places a new EUFOR sticker on a vehicle at a base near the northwestern Bosnian Serb town of Banja Luka. The European Union's biggest military operation began in Bosnia as the 25-nation bloc takes over peacekeeping duties from NATO, nine years after the end of the bitter inter-ethnic war in the Balkan country. [AFP]

A 60,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission, including 20,000 US troops, was deployed in Bosnia-Hercegovina to keep the peace after the 1992-95 war which left over 200,000 people dead.

As the security situation improved the mission was scaled back and now there are only 7,000 NATO troops left on the ground.

The majority of the NATO soldiers here will simply change their badges and armbands when the EU's "Althea" force takes over, forming the biggest military operation yet undertaken by the bloc.

It will be the EU's third military operation after a small security mission in Macedonia and a French-led force deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003.

More than 30 countries including 22 EU nations are contributing to the force which will be led by British General David Leakey.

While peace has returned to the mountainous republic of around two million people, tnter-ethnic tensions between Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Bosnian Muslims continue to simmer below the surface.

The EU peacekeepers may also have to deal with problems arising from flourishing organized crime and corruption, as well as the possible presence of foreign Islamic extremists who entered the country during the war and remained behind.

NATO will maintain small contingents of troops in Sarajevo and the northeastern town of Tuzla, notably to keep hunting alleged war criminals such as wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Many agree that despite more than nine years of successful peacekeeping in Bosnia, NATO's record here has been blackened by its failure to arrest the pair, who are wanted on charges including genocide.

Both NATO and the EU will be mandated to hunt for war crimes suspects, and insist they will coordinate closely in that task.

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