Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: NATO to blockade Yugoslavia; Romania stops Danube boats Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD NATO to blockade Yugoslavia; Romania stops Danube boats \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT BRUSSELS BRUSSELS (AP) - NATO agreed yesterday to impose a naval blockade on Yugoslavia under a U.N. effort to intensify pressure on Belgrade to halt ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Romania announced that it began stopping boats on the Danube River to check for contraband under a new U.N. Security Council resolution allowing the use of force to block such shipments. The new U.N. effort is designed to cut off goods and fuel that have been reaching Yugoslavia despite six months of trade sanctions. Serbia's help for Serbian militants in Bosnia is widely blamed for the war that erupted after Bosnia's majority Muslims and Croats voted for independence Feb. 29. In other developments: * U.N. officials reported an outbreak of typhoid fever in Bosnia. They said the source appeared to be a contaminated spring in Jajce, a town that thousands of people fled after heavy fighting last month. Doctors have confirmed 25 cases among refugees, but many cases probably have been missed, the report said. * Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, was relatively quiet on the seventh day of a cease-fire, but many areas of the city did not have water or electricity. * U.N. relief officials took advantage of the relative calm to open new supply routes to beleaguered Sarajevo and nearby cities. Several hundred people left the capital by bus. * Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford and ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher issued a statement warning that the fighting in Bosnia could spark a wider war in the Balkans. * Opposition parties in Serbia decided to take part in elections in hopes of ousting hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic. The parties had considered boycotting the vote planned for late December or early January because Mr. Milosevic's fellow former Communists control state television. The 16 NATO allies said they will cooperate with the Western European Union in policing the Adriatic Sea to keep ships from breaking the U.N. ban on trade with Yugoslavia, which is now Serbia and Montenegro. The nine-nation union is being overhauled to serve as the future defense arm of the European Community. The foreign and defense ministers of its members are expected to endorse a blockade tomorrow. A statement from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the details for implementing the blockade will be worked out after consultations with the union. The two groups have 10 destroyers and frigates in the Adriatic. But until the Security Council authorized a blockade Monday, the ships were confined to monitoring traffic in the Adriatic. The U.N. resolution allows ships to fire on suspect vessels. But the key to cutting off trade will be cooperation from Romania and Bulgaria. Those two nations are struggling with the transition from four decades of communism, and their economies could be hurt by the embargo. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM