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Aid donors set to dig deep for Bosnia rebuilding

BRUSSELS: International aid donors must dig deep this weekend to find $1.2 billion to try to salvage the faltering reconstruction effort in Bosnia and with it the chances of sustaining a durable peace.

A conference in Brussels, organised by the European Union and the World Bank, will bring together experts and foreign ministers from the Group of Seven major industrialised countries, the 15-nation EU, the Islamic world and Asia.

Officials will begin the work of the second aid pledging conference on Friday and hand the results of their deliberations to foreign ministers the following day for political approval.

"Bosnia-Herzegovina's urgent reconstruction priorities over the next three to four years will require an external resource commitment of about $5.1 billion, targeted across a wide range of sectors," said the European Commission, the EU's executive and the conference co-host.

"The urgent and at the same time implementable reconstruction programme for 1996 is estimated at about $1.8 billion," it noted, adding that $600 million of this had been raised at the first pledging session last December.

"The objective now is to mobilise the remaining $1.2 billion for 1996, and confirm donor commitment to the full medium-term programme," it said.

But getting pledges has so far proved far easier than converting the words to hard cash.

It is only now, nearly four months on, that the bulk of the $600 million pledged in December has been raised -- and only a fraction of it has been spent, meaning that rebuilding projects are only now slowly getting under way.

Engineers are struggling to restore power to major cities and water supply systems are just starting to be repaired.

"We are disappointed with events since the peace agreement," Hasan Muratovic, prime minister of the mainly Moslem Bosnian government said recently. "It was signed practically six months ago and you can see progress has been very, very slow."

"This conference is of utmost importance. We cannot find the conditions for normal life without economic support and we cannot implement the rest of the peace accord," he said.

Failure to find the cash at the weekend or to continue the drip-feed of pledged money will be counter-productive.

But the process has become politicised.

To date little cash has gone to Republika Srpska -- the Bosnian Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina -- and international peace coordinator Carl Bildt only decided on Wednesday that a Bosnian Serb delegation should be invited to the aid meeting after the release of three prisoners of war late on Tuesday.

Failure by the international community to fund projects in the territory could look like taking sides. But coming up with the cash could likewise strengthen the position of the Bosnian Serb leaders,indicted war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

Priorities in Bosnia remain the installation of doors, roofs and windows in 500,000 homes by winter, restarting the economy and creating jobs.

Three emergency projects have so far been approved:

- rebuild road, rail and air links.-Reuter