From: wickerhauser-victor@math.yale.edu (Victor Wickerhauser)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Re: The New York Times Editorial - Nov. 20
Date: 20 Nov 1992 16:01:44 -0500
Organization: Yale University Mathematics Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2155
NNTP-Posting-Host: math-gw.cs.yale.edu

In article <92325.142724U15231@uicvm.uic.edu> <U15231@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>   At Sea, Still, on Bleeding Bosnia
>... It took six months and 100,000 deaths in Bosnia for the United
>Nations finally to order a maritime blockade, backed by NATO, on
>Serbia, the aggressor against beleaguered Bosnia. This resort to
>arms, while welcome, ought not to be confused with effective
>action. Even with this naval blockade, the West is still at sea.
>   The belated tightening of economic sanctions is no substitute
>for forceful pressure to stop the bloodletting in Bosnia. And it
>won't stop Serbia from blowing up more of the Balkans. It's only
>one of several strong steps the world needs to take, inside Bosnia.
>Serbian planes still attack unprotected Bosnian cities, in defiance
>of ano-fly order declared by the U.N. When will the West bestir
>itself long enough to enforce this order?
>   Bosnia is having trouble even trying to defend itself because of
>a superficially neutral U.N. arms embargo that Serbia has no
>trouble running. When will the West stop enforcing ferocious
>unfairness?
>   Serbian-sponsored ethnic cleansing still drives Muslims from
>their homes in northern Bosnia, swelling the tide of refugees. Safe
>havens, secured by a U.N. force, would keep them secure against
>further Serbian aggression. At least armed convoys are now
>protecting desperately needed relief supplies, previously held up
>by rival gunslingers.
>   And finally, U.N. troops could be deployed in Kosovo and
>Macedonia before the war spreads southward, even beyond the borders
>of the former Yugoslavia.
>   Aggressor regimes in Serbia and Croatia now press for peace on
>the assumption that outgunned Bosnia will soon collapse, allowing

Without the "informal" military aid from Croatia, the Bosnian problem
would not exists because by now the Serbs would have killed all the
Bosnians. 

>them to carve up the remains. While the U.S. contemplates backing
>U.N. resolutions with steel, European governments cravenly shrink
>from armed intervention in the vain hope that peace is at hand.
>   But the struggle is far from over. Many Bosnians are now aroused
>and armed.

By Croats.

> They have begun a guerrilla war in Serb-held areas that
>won't be readily suppressed. The war could easily spill back into
>Croatia if its dictator, Franjo Tudjman, double-crosses his Bosnian
>ally and cuts a deal with the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

I think by now Tudjman realizes just how little Milosevic can be
trusted.  I predict that any weapons Croatia might have obtained in
spite of the embargo will remain in Croatian hands until Bosnia and
Croatia sign a mutual defense treaty and declare war on Yugoslavia,
which I hope can be avoided.  I also think that Tudjman will likely
build up more and more power as long as parts of Croatia are occupied
by a foreign power.

>   Worse, this could soon become a holy war, with ramifications far
>beyond Central Europe. Bosnia's Muslims, Croats, and Serbs are, for
>the moment, fighting side by side. But if the West won't help,
>Bosnia's Muslims, radicalized by ethnic cleansing and abandoned by
>the Croats, will turn to other Muslims for support.

There are 300,000 Bosnian refugees in Croatia, Bosnians of Croatian
and Muslim nationality fight side by side, Serbian concentration camps
are intended for "non-Serbs", and Serbs started their ethnic cleansing
campaign in parts of Croatia last year and are carrying out atrocities
in Croatia even as we speak.  These and other aspects of this war
suggest to me that Bosnia and Croatia are wedded by experience and
unlikely to abandon each other.

>   Western governments have long been paralyzed by the risks of
>action to save Bosnia. How long will it take them to understand the
>price of inaction? Meanwhile Bosnia bleeds.

Croatia bleeds too, from earlier wounds.  How soon we (try to) forget.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna