Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Sunday, 15 Nov 1992 18:45:13 CST
From: <U15231@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: U.S. senator calls for U.S. Air Force to move against Serbs



        ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- President-elect Bill Clinton's administration
should use the U.S. Air Force to stop Serbian agression in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini said Sunday during a visit
to the capital of neighboring Croatia.
        ``We can't stand by and watch the continual slaughter and starvation
of thousands of people,'' the Arizona senator said. ``We have to
respond.''
        DeConcini made the remarks at the Zagreb airport at the ceremonial
opening of a U.S.-sponsored, military field hospital set up to treat U.
N. peacekeeping troops in Croatia. The peacekeepers are supervising a
cease-fire following Serbian aggression in that former Yugoslav
republic.
        The senator was accompanied on the trip to Croatia by Rep. Frank
McClosky, D-Ind. Both men are U.S. delegates to the Commission for
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
        DeConcini said the U.S. Air Force should be used against the Serbian
forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which borders Croatia.
        Serbian rebels who live in Bosnia began fighting last spring to carve
territory from the newly independent republic for a self-declared state.
The Serbs now control almost 70 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina territory.
Bosnia is being defended by Muslim Slavs and Croats, along with some
moderate Serbs.
        The United Nations has reported atrocities by all parties in the war,
but most abuses are attributed to Serbian forces carrying out ``ethnic
cleansing'' of non-Serbs.
        ``This has gone on for too long,'' said DeConcini, referring to the
war that has killed thousands and forced nearly 2 million from their
homes.
        Serbian forces are supported politically and economically by the
hard-line communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.
        DeConcini said the new U.S. administration should ``take an activist
position and particularly tell Milosevic that he cannot get away with
this.''
        ``We can't give the impression that the whole world does not care and
looks the other way allowing people to die,'' he added. ``I for one
think that Clinton does care.''
        He also said Washington should use its influence to lift the U.N.-
imposed embargo on arms sales to Bosnia-Herzegovina, thus allowing the
poorly armed Muslim Slavs to defend themselves from the Serbian
landgrab.
        ``It (the embargo) just gives Milosevic greater military might,''
DeConcini said.
        DeConcini and McClosky earlier visited another former Yugoslav
republic, Macedonia, where they were shocked after seeing some of the
refugees who had fled from the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        ``These refugees were asking for shoes as we left,'' DeConcini said.
``I cannot understand why the world can not chip in and at least provide
some shoes for these people.''
        In September, Croatia closed its borders to refugees fleeing the war-
torn republic, but there are claims that ethnic Croats from Bosnia-
Herzegovina were still selectively allowed in.
        The new field hospital in Croatia which officially began operating
Sunday is be staffed by about 300 mostly U.S. doctors, nurses and
military personnel. The M.A.S.H. unit members are the first U.S. troops
in former Yugoslavia.
        The unit began setting up tent hospitals and living quarters at the
Zagreb Airport this week to service about 15,000 U.N. troops deployed in
Croatia, as well as approximately 7,000 U.N. troops to be deployed in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Although the unit is for U.N. troops only, the first patient was a
Croatian civilian airport worker who suffered minor injuries when he
drove a bulldozer over a land mine left over by Yugoslav army as it
withdrew after last year's war in Croatia.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna:563 soc.culture.afghanistan:1253