The role of a U.N. peacekeeper in Bosnia has never been easy. In their attempts to mediate disputes, monitor the war and protect convoys of humanitarian aid, the 24,000 blue-helmeted soldiers have been shelled, shot at, arrested and held hostage. But until recently most of the mistreatment came from the Bosnian Serbs.

That changed with Srebenica, when Serb forces swarmed past 400 Dutch U.N. troops and took over one of the cities the United Nations had vowed to keep safe, driving 42,000 Muslims into the hills of eastern Bosnia and onto refugee buses. For U.N. soldiers, a difficult situation became nearly unbearable almost overnight.

Bosnian Muslim forces began imitating the behavior of the Serbs. In the past two weeks they have detained and shelled a Ukrainian U.N. unit near the besieged Muslim enclave of Zepa, shot at a British helicopter and arrested the officer on board as he landed in central Bosnia, and delayed for hours at a time one U.N. convoy after another, including those carrying aid to Muslim refugees.

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It was particularly frustrating the other night when we were held up at a checkpoint for a number of hours, said Simon Farmer, who, as a British army chaplain is paid to keep in close touch with the mood of the troops.

A lot of the soldiers I was talking to as I walked down the line felt very frustrated, especially seeing some of the local factions who had probably had a bit to much to drink and were sort of jeering at us, he said. The lads themselves were feeling like, well, we’re here to help. So deep down people are sort of asking, what the devil are we doing here?

That’s the question I ask myself every day, said Cpl. Denis Perrier, a French Canadian from Montreal, serving as a military policeman for U.N. forces. I would like to work to help the country, but if they don’t want us here, what can you do? We used to have some observation posts at Visoko. The Muslims told us to take them down. Maybe they thought we were giving out information, even to the Serbs. I don’t know what we’re doing here anymore.

It’s not that the soldiers don’t understand the post-Srebenica reactions.

I’ve a good deal of sympathy for these people, said Maj. Alan McCubbin, a British army doctor. The U.N., as far as they can see, has singularly failed to act to save those (Muslim) enclaves.

Or, as Swedish Pvt. Schaerer put it, The U.N. has not done what it should have done.

But there are also deeper currents of resentment that the soldiers sometime fail to sense. Some are a result of the way each U.N. unit has set up its own little world within Bosnia, isolated and seemingly aloof.

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