THE BOSNIAN government accused Serbs yesterday of abducting 16 civilians in Sarajevo and also protested to Nato, confronting the alliance with a law- and-order problem on its doorstep.
The Bosnian Serb authorities said they were holding the group of Bosnian Muslims but denied they had been kidnapped.
A group of Muslims, several of them in uniform, as well as a Muslim officer of the security services have been held for questioning," a spokesman said. He alleged that they had "deviated from the route that was designated for their passage" through a Serb neighbourhood.
Earlier the Bosnian Foreign Minister, Mr Muhamed Sacirbey warned Nato peacekeeping commanders they were being tested by Bosnian Serbs determined to sabotage the implementation of peace.
"Let's understand there are people on the other side [Serbs] who'll do anything to undermine the [peace] agreement and [Nato's] credibility and it seems to me [Nato] has not woken up to this reality," Mr Sacirbey said.
The government said the civilians were seized in defiance of agreements allowing free movement across former frontlines.
They were detained over the last week as they drove through the western Serb suburb of Ilidza where Nato forces have reopened roads once barred by Serb gunmen. Nato officials could not confirm the kidnappings, but civilian police working for the United Nations said contacts with the Bosnian Serb authorities indicated they happened.
The office of Mr Hasan Muratovic, a senior Bosnian government minister, said a protest was sent yesterday to Admiral Leighton Smith, Nato's commander in Bosnia.
"For days we have been informing IFOR [the Nato Implementation Force that people are being captured and they have not taken a single action to protect them," Mr Muratovic told reporters.
The seizures embarrassed Nato, which has the might to confront military opposition but is ill-equipped for small-scale intimidatory tactics that could undermine its mission to bring a stable peace to Bosnia.
"The Serbs told us their action was in response to the arrest of two of its people by the Bosnian government in October," a UN police official said.
The government is reluctant to swap the two Serbs for the 16 kidnap victims, believing such deals are reminiscent of UN-style compromises it hoped Nato would avoid.
The government said it told French Nato forces, who control routes around Sarajevo, of the problem five days ago but British and US alliance officials were unaware of the complaint.
The first abductions were on Christmas Day when three truck drivers were seized. Since then others have included a family of four, one of whom holds dual Bosnian and Swiss citizenship, three young men travelling together and more truck drivers.
"There was also one Lada car stopped and the three passengers were forced to pay 200 marks (£87) each to the Serbs," said a government official, Mr Amir Hadziomeragic.
Nato says it has no responsibility for investigating the disappearances, which it believes should be dealt with by local civilian authorities as a police matter.
Reporters who have travelled through Ilidza, a hotbed of extreme Serb nationalism, saw Serb policemen throw up impromptu roadblocks to stop vehicles without Serb licence plates. (Reuter)
IT WAS one of the few things that' came and went from Gorazde in the last two years, so the people harnessed its power. All along the River Drina home-bade generators churn in the muddy water, producing the town's only electricity
They are made from corrugated iron and floated on oil barrels moored with wires to bridges and banks.
The home-made power stations are the most visible signs of the' art of survival in Gorazde. The gaunt faces of the old and the very young betray the hardship. On the banks of the Drina yesterday a few people gathered at old market stalls.
They were selling a mixture of humanitarian rations, produce, stiff new jeans and trainers - the contents of the parcels newly arrived in the town.
On one stall a man offers tobacco leaves, cigarettes and a tin of corned beef with the French Aid Agency stamp. Another man lays out tools, and at the front of his stall a pair of fancy nylon tights, still in their cellophane.
Setkic Ejub brought two pairs of shoes and a sack of flour made from his own corn in a wheelbarrow. He says the women's shoes came in an aid package but did not fit his wife. It was almost midday and he had sold nothing.
Further along the river bank a row of small sheds houses families who were "ethnically cleansed" from the villages around Gorazde.
Under the Dayton Accord the town will remain under the control of the Bosnian government. On the IFOR map it looks like a lollipop shape extension, with its connecting corridor from Sarajevo and a circle of land around it. It is the most exposed outpost of the blotch on the map that is the agreed Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In one of the river bank sheds, Juso Hubjer (38) lives with his wife and 17-year-old daughter. The three share the tiny space with a cat and a fuming wood burning stove. Their clothes hang on nails hammered into the breeze blocks and their possessions are neatly arranged around the walls.
Juso worked in a factory in a nearby town. His house was burned down when the Serb soldiers took the town. "We hadn't anything so we moved in here to save our lives." A formica clock, some knitting and a candle are on one make-shift table. Underneath there are cabbages and a large pumpkin and one of his wife's shoes is filled with carrots.
Vegetables are growing on the flat roof and every other spare patch of ground. In the nearby Druga Osnovna school, pipes belch black wood smoke from the ground floor windows. More than three years ago Musan and Mujesira Cubara were expelled from their home in Visegrad. Like many refugee families in this housing collective they have been living in a schoolroom ever since.
Outside their door sit two pairs of home-made sandles, wood cut in a foot shape and the strap made from an old belt. Across the corridor there is a foul smelling communal toilet.
The couple, both in their 70s, have not seen four of their children in four years. They live in Sarajevo. Musan says he does not think about the future.
