From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Fear of Military Intervention ( VREME NDA 28 Aug 1992 )
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:44:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.19943
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                     No. 47, August 17, 1992
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Fear of Military Intervention
    -----------------------------


    To protect Serbs  from the threat of genocide, if  necessary by fire and
    sword,  was the  idea of  the  guiding  star, Dobrica  Cosic, and  other
    nationalist  ideologists  at  the  beginning  of  the  mortal  spasm  of
    Yugoslavia. Today, after three wars in a year, the Serbs as a nation are
    being charged with  genocide, their state and leaders  considered by the
    world to be fascist.

    "We pose the following question to the people of Serbia and Montenegro -
    do they want to go down in  history as members of the last fascist state
    in Europe?" -  were the words of the Deputy  State Secretary of the USA,
    John  Bolton, at  a meeting  of the  UN Commission  for Human  Rights in
    Geneva  at  the  close  of  last  week.  The Yugoslav ambassador, Branko
    Brankovic, replied that  in as much as the  Commission wanted to condemn
    fascist regimes, it should start with the role of America in Vietnam.

    The  television  pictures  of  starving   people  in  Serbian  camps  in
    Bosnia-Herzegovina first shocked  and then set the world  in motion. The
    International  Red Cross  Committee,  after  visiting four  Serbian, six
    Croatian  and  two  Moslem  camps,  announced  that  they  were "full of
    innocent and  terrified civilians". "The  internment of these  people is
    part of  the politics of coercive  exchange of civilians which  is being
    massively  carried out  marked by  systematic brutality.  On the list of
    methods are intimidation, murder,  confiscation of property, deportation
    and hostage taking, which brings individuals  down to the level of being
    used  in the  settling of  accounts..." says  the report  by the  Geneva
    organization.

    Despite   the  fact   that  the   Red  Cross   and  other  international
    organizations  carefully point  out that  all three  sides are violating
    international human rights, the Serbs are being incriminated as the main
    offenders. There are many reasons for this, of which an important one is
    that they do not denounce the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in big enough
    numbers. With three abstentions  (China, India and Zimbabwe), Resolution
    770 was  passed, authorizing the  world organization, in  as much as  it
    sees  fit,  to  apply  force  to  ensure  humanitarian  aid  reaches the
    jeopardized    population   of    Sarajevo   and    other   places    in
    Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Resolution 771  the Security Council demands free
    access to all the camps in the former Yugoslavia and warns transgressors
    of  the  Geneva  Convention  that  they  will be individually considered
    responsible for the violation of human rights.

    Resolution 770 does not prescribe the use of arms in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
    but is "only a case of a resolution which authorizes the use of force as
    a last resort". Nine members of  the Western European Union (WEU), whose
    warships on the  Adriatic coast are already overseeing  the execution of
    the sanctions against Serbia and  Montenegro, immediately said that they
    had no intention of taking part in major military intervention.

    The  estimate of  Western military   experts on  the number  of soldiers
    necessary for "protection" increases parallel to the length of time this
    possibility is  considered. From the  first few hundred  thousand it has
    already  become half  a million,  with reference  to the  fact that  the
    coalition  against Iraq  had almost  the same  number of  troops at  its
    disposal. There  is a preponderance of  those who warn of  the danger of
    "sliding" into  the "Yugoslav quagmire". Three  NATO countries, Germany,
    Italy and Greece, made it clear even before the OUN Resolution that they
    were against military intervention. Chancellor  Helmut Kohl was more for
    a "total blockade", and the Italian Minister of Defence, Salvo Ando, for
    a "blockade to the strangulation" of Serbia and Montenegro.

    The  reason  why  a  military  strike  against  the  Serbian  forces  in
    Bosnia-Herzegovina is still  not on the horizon is  not, however, due to
    the fact frequently  used by Moslem politicians in  Sarajevo, that there
    is no oil in question. American president, George Bush, announced at the
    beginning of last week: "Before I send our forces into battle, I want to
    know what the  beginning, goal and end will be.  I don't see any answers
    to my questions."

    In line with its consistent  inconsistency throughout the whole Yugoslav
    crisis,  the West  simply doesn't  want to  pay the  necessary price  to
    realize its axiom  - to prevent the changing of  borders and taking over
    of  territory  by  force.  The  dogma  of  irrevocable borders, which it
    abandoned in  accepting the disintegration  of Yugoslavia, must  now, at
    the cost of war, be proved in the instance of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    Resolution  700  is  the  watershed  in  the  tortuous  extinguishing of
    Yugoslavia. Nonetheless, while everyone  is fearfully looking on, afraid
    that from  this "serpent's egg" will  appear "the mother of  all wars in
    the Balkans",  many fail to see  that at the same  time, just before the
    conference on  Yugoslavia on August  26, favorable conditions  are being
    made for the changing of internal boundaries.

    Repugnance  for the  actions of  the  warring  sides in  Bosnia, and  in
    particular  those of  the Serbs  as the  strongest military  force, is a
    consequence  of  something  deeper  than  mere  moral  revulsion. Balkan
    atavism threatens the West itself, in the beginning via the East, but it
    could explode amongst the "European partners" themselves.

    President Yeltsin continues to once  more establish the Russian presence
    in Yugoslavia, based on troops and not emotions: in the Security Council
    "approval" was heard of the "interventionist" resolution, accompanied by
    a readiness to despatch new Russian units as part of UNPROFOR, this time
    to Bosnia

    Panic's only option is to  incline the international community towards a
    more  favorable impression  of Serbia.  He has  paid the  first terrible
    price of currying public favour: last Thursday morning it was clear that
    there  was  no  reason  why  the  Federal  Prime  Minister  should go to
    Sarajevo.  Nobody  there  wanted  to  see  him.  Nevertheless, Panic had
    previously promised the American  television network ABC, which followed
    him  for a  few days,  that he  would make  a photogenic  journey to the
    besieged capital  of Bosnia-Herzegovina. At  the airport he  pondered on
    whether  to  go  or  not  and,  as  witnesses  confirm,  gave  in to the
    persuasion of the American team.  Its producer, David Caplan, was killed
    by a sniper's bullet half an hour after arriving in Sarajevo.

    Panic is  prepared to accept  many of the  demands of the  international
    community, using dogma such as  the non-recognition of ex-Yugoslavia. In
    this  way he  will ignite  the momentarily  constrained Serbian national
    chauvinism.  At   best,  he  could   be  overthrown  by   some  Chetnik,
    neo-Stalinist coalition. At the worst,  "poor quality Serbs" in Belgrade
    could find themselves to be sniper target.
                                                                Dusan Reljic


    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                     No. 47, August 17, 1992
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------
Vreme Magazine,			|telephone :	+38-11-646-070
Narodnog Fronta 45/ VIII sprat.	|		+38-11-642-743
11000 Beograd, Srbija		|telefax   :	+38-11-657-454
Yugoslavia			|6 months subscription - 85 USD (airmail)
--------------------------------------------------------------
e_mail subscription              pirot@buengc.bu.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,eunet.politics,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory,soc.culture.bulgaria,soc.culture.turkish