Biljana Plavsic: striving to assert control

Plavsic Meets Army Commanders

Most attended - but the army Chief of Staff, General Pero Colic, stayed away, despite an offer from the NATO stabilization force, SFOR, to fly him to Banja Luka.

This was no surprise. Ms Plavsic had indicated that she was minded to replace him at the meeting.

The president is embroiled in a power struggle with supporters of her predecessor, the indicted war criminal, Radovan Karadzic. The acrimonious battle for control of the Bosnian Serb entity has been building up for several months. Ms Plavsic has accused Mr Karadzic of corruption and criminal activity.

So far, the army has supported Mr Karadzic. Last week, it even threatened to intervene against Ms Plavsic, claiming that she was acting outside the limits of the Bosnian Serb Republic's constitution. There has been no clear outcome from the meeting on Tuesday.

Supporters of Ms Plavsic at a rally in her Banja Luka stronghold

Ms Plavsic had said its purpose was to establish "whether the chief of staff and the corps commanders are people who know where the place of the army is".

And NATO announced that it had reminded General Colic, along with Bosnian and Croat army commanders, that the army should stay out of political disputes.

Meanwhile, the Bosnian Serb parliament defied Ms Plavsic's dissolution order, convening in Mr Karadzic's stronghold of Pale, to the east of the capital, Sarajevo. Ms Plavsic has been pressing for fresh elections to the parliament.

It made changes to the defence laws which meant from now on the army would be ruled by a collective body, and said any military decisions made by Ms Plavsic would be ignored.

Duncan Bullivant, spokesman for the civilian High Representative in Bosnia, Carlos Westendorp, said that there was no legal basis on which to convene the parliament.

Duncan Bullivant: "We do not recognise the legitimacy of this meeting."

Western leaders stepped up their support for Ms Plavsic, calling on the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, to clearly state his backing for the Bosnian Serb leader.

James Rubin, a US State Department spokesman, told reporters that during a telephone conversation with Mr Milosevic, the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, had "urged him to get off the fence and to start supporting more clearly, more effectively and more comprehensively those in Bosnia who are supporting the (Dayton) Agreement that he signed."

Mr Rubin added that Ms Plavsic had "worked very hard, at some risk to herself, to try to bring the Bosnian Serb entity into compliance with Dayton".