United Nations special envoy Yasushi Akashi "said we committed a war crime when all we did was kill Chetniks (Bosnian Serbs) like they've been killing us all these months," said Kemal, a Bosnian soldier who refused to give his last name.
"He wanted us to arrest our soldiers. We should give them a medal and parade them through the streets. How can we win the war if we don't kill Serbs? Akashi wants to let them steal our country but we will fight to get it back."
Bosnian government troops slipped behind Serb lines under cover of fog early Thursday morning, killing 20 Serbs -- four of them women -- and wounding six before withdrawing.
The action might have gone unreported except that the commando squad apparently used the cover of a UN-monitored demilitarized zone, or DMZ, to stage their attack.
Peacekeepers called to the scene by Bosnian Serb forces reported some bodies were mutilated, disfigured and burned, a charge Akashi repeated to reporters in Sarajevo.
UN officials withdrew the allegation Friday and said all the Serbs appeared to have been killed in battle, but the damage was done.
Sarajevans said Akashi's charge was another case of UN bias in favor of Bosnian Serbs, who have besieged the city for 30 months of bitter ethnic war.
"God knows how many times the neutrality of UNPROFOR has been in question," said the Bosnian Army's first corps command, referring to the UN Protection Force, in a statement. "Why is Akashi doing his best to equalize the victim and the aggressor?"
Thursday's incident drew fire from Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who blamed not the Bosnian army but the UN, accused of bumbling over the enforcement of the DMZ.
"This may influence us to decide to ask the UN to leave our country as it is unable to carry out agreements," Karadzic said, referring to the 70 percent of Bosnia controlled by Serbs.
Stung by Karadzic's complaint and worried the Bosnian Serbs might try to clear the DMZ themselves, UN peacekeepers drove 550 government soldiers from hideouts inside the zone throughout Thursday/Friday night.
That tough approach to Bosnian government violations of the DMZ further enraged Sarajevans, 10,000 of whom have been killed and another 50,000 wounded by Serb gunners.
"I'm sick of the UN blaming the war on our government and our army," said Haris Kenovic, 37, a shop owner.
"What about all the agreements the Serbs have violated? What about all the murders and massacres they have carried out? What about the ethnic cleansing?"
At least 200,000 people have been killed in the Bosnian war and another 2 million made homeless, the vast majority of them Moslems.
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