SARAJEVO, Aug. 7 -- Growing political rifts in both the Muslim- led Bosnian and Bosnian Serb governments could destabilize the two regimes and further complicate the 4-year-old conflict in war-torn former Yugoslavia, local news reports said Monday. In Sarajevo, Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey angrily condemned Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic's decision to turn in his resignation over personal disputes, calling him a 'a prima donna and spoiled brat.' Sacirbey said the unexplained decision by Silajdzic to offer his resignation last Thursday was based on a personality conflict and was unacceptable under the present circumstances. 'Silajdzic has said he won't serve this government as long as I am foreign minister. This is nothing other than a personality conflict, a personality problem, and Bosnia is much too precious for this kind of thing,' said Sacirbey. Silajdzic's offer to resign would become reality only if the Bosnian Parliament accepted it at a meeting next month. But the rift in the Bosnian government is by no means as serious as that brewing at the highest levels of the Bosnian Serb leadership Monday in their stronghold of Pale, 12 miles (20 km) east of Sarajevo. Late Sunday, the Bosnian Serb Parliament backed a decision by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to demote Gen. Ratko Mladic to the position of advisor, thereby making Karadzic the supreme commander of the armed forces. The backing of Parliament came just 24 hours after 18 senior Bosnian Serb generals reaffirmed their allegience to Mladic.
'I think that he (Mladic) is emontional right now, but he must do as I say,' said Karadzic before Sunday's Parliament meeting in Pale. The statement, along with Karadzic's support in Parliament, has set the stage for a confrontation with the powerful military. Mladic, the former Yugoslav army commander in Knin, Croatia, took the reigns of power in Bosnia in April 1992 and is considered by most Serbs to be a hero for solidifying and keeping Serb land gains at the current 72 percent. Karadzic invoked the rath of the army this past weekend by suggesting the general spent too much time and resources on the eastern Bosnian enclaves, specifically Zepa, while the Croat army pounced on western Bosnia and the rebel Croatian Serb-held Krajina region. Croatian army forces continued their offensive for a fourth day Monday against rebel Croatian Serbs. Several more Serb-held towns reportedly fell to the Croatian army, according to Croatian state-run radio Zagreb. But a Croatian military spokesman, Col. Gen. Ivan Tolj, said the military operation is expected to end by sundown. Sporadic fighting continued Monday monrning in isolated pockets of Serb resistance, a U.N. sokesman said in Sarajevo. A U.N. aid spokesman said that as many as 150,000 Serb refugees have fled to Bosnia from Croatia and two U.N. teams headed to northcentral Bosnia to verify the number of displaced Serbs in what he called 'the biggest single aid operation' in the four-year conflict. Croatian radio said Bosnian Serbs used two aircraft Sunday to bomb a Croatian chemical plant at Kutina. The bombarding reportedly killed one and wounded 11 other people. The U.N. could not confirm the incident.
