Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:09:13 CST
From: <U15231@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: The UN Must Deter, and Fight

From: Bos.Net@um.cc.umich.edu

Contribution by :  SII

THE UN MUST DETER, AND FIGHT

   (Editor's note: In this opinion piece, Flora Lewis, one of the
world's leading foreign-affairs journalists, examines the steps the
UN needs to take in order to quell the civil war in Bosnia.)
By FLORA LEWIS
Copyright 1992 Flora Lewis
World rights. (900)
   PARIS  Slowly, painfully, major Western powers are coming to
recognize that protecting humanitarian aid in Bosnia won't stop the
killing and won't stop the war from spreading through the Balkans.
   Some 2 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and
estimates of the dead range from an unlikely low of 30,000 to
200,000.
   The powers are preparing to act with force. But already there
are lessons to be learned  for what the Western powers authorize
themselves to do under the UN flag, and for the UN as the
institution in charge of keeping peace.
   ``The (UN) actions that were taken were not the right ones,''
Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, UN commander for former Yugoslavia, said
recently. ``They should have been more effective, but that's
history.'' In the future, he added, action ``has to be taken in a
preventive form rather than waiting for disaster to happen.''
   Speaking recently with Gen. Nambiar was Maj. Gen. Philippe
Morillon, French commander of UN forces in Bosnia. In commenting on
the recent mortar attacks on his residence on two successive days,
he says they were ``certainly meant to kill.''
   Gen. Morillon indicated the attacks came from Sarajevo
government forces. Similar suspicions of murderous provocation have
existed before, a Bosnian attempt to blame the Serbs so that the
West would act militarily.
   Now there is no doubt. Since last September, but only then, a
Ukrainian unit with fire-tracking equipment has arrived to pinpoint
the source of attacks.
   The UN didn't provide such equipment. In fact, last summer UN
civilian authorities refused the French offer of armed helicopters
to protect aid convoys, arguing they would make targets of relief
workers.
   What the Bosnians want above all is arms, even more than
intervention. They do not want to end the fighting but to reconquer
territory. That would escalate the conflict, though it might give
some temporary relief to Western sensibilities without risk of more
direct involvement.
   Gen. Zivota Panic, Yugoslav (Serb) chief of staff, says the army
was ``ready always and everywhere to protect Serbian people
subjected to unjust and unprincipled pressures.''
   That means not just in Bosnia but in Macedonia and Kosovo, where
the persecuted ethnic Albanian majority is already organizing
clandestine forces and arms supplies.
   There is no question that Serbs are the aggressors and primarily
responsible for the massive tragedies, already inflicted and yet to
come if they are not stopped.
   There is no question that moral, political and economic
persuasion won't stop them or produce a settlement.
   There is no question that the ``no-flight zone'' will be no
deterrence so long as the Security Council keeps it a UN
``no-shoot'' zone.
   There is no question that the UN force in Bosnia is
self-paralyzed as long as it can't use arms under its timid
mandate.
   Time is running out, not only for Bosnians but for a Security
Council decision.
   Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev is under heavy pressure
from the opposition in Moscow to block further UN action, if not
actually to support Serbia.
   The war won't wait for the U.S. presidential inauguration, and
without the U.S. nothing effective will be done.
   The U.S. can't be a global cop, but the UN can do no more than
its members insist. There should be a standing UN force, as UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali urged last June.
   The French Foreign Legion and British army Gurkha units, now
being disbanded, are good models of international volunteer
commands. That's the kind of force that should be available for the
borders of Kosovo and Macedonia.
   But an expression of clear international will to stop the war
and prevent its spread is essential now. Arguments that Bosnia
isn't ``do-able'' smack of excuses for dithering until the cost of
nonintervention by the international community becomes so high that
the powers must act in what will be far worse conditions.
   To talk about the invincibility of the Serb army and how
Yugoslav guerrillas pinned down German divisions in World War II is
to justify reluctance.
   There have been some 150,000 defections from that army; it is
deeply demoralized. The flood of Serbian refugees from Bosnia is in
part to escape conscription into Serbian forces there.
   Even the 21-year-old Bosnian Serb who confessed to many brutal
rapes and murders of Moslem civilians said he committed these acts
because otherwise he would be sent to fight.
   The spokesman for British troops in Bosnia, whose government is
reluctant to authorize military enforcement of the no-flight area
and the bombing of Serbian artillery and munitions for fear they
would be attacked, says, ``We don't feel so vulnerable. We could
give a nasty headache if we wanted.''
   The terrible mistakes so far have been made by indifference and
excess caution. Each one raised the stake. These are sins of
omission, not just wasted time and lives.
   It can't be allowed to continue. It is more than a matter of
morals. Our peace and security are also involved.
-0-
Copyright 1992 Flora Lewis
 NYT-01-04-93 1139EST



Status: RO

BUSH AND MITTERRAND AGREE ON SERBIAN FLIGHTS OVER BOSNIA
jk

c.1992 N.Y. Times News Service

   PARIS  President Bush and French President Francois Mitterrand
said Sunday that they had agreed on the military means to stop
Serbian flights over Bosnia, but they ruled out any decision on
armed intervention until the Geneva talks are concluded.
   After meeting for two hours, the two leaders repeatedly stressed
a shared approach to the Balkan conflict. With pressure mounting on
both to move beyond what is widely seen as ineffective diplomacy,
Mitterrand said that ``we agreed on the means to enforce a flight
ban on Serbia.''
   A ban on military flights over Bosnia was declared by the U.N.
Security Council in October, but has been flouted by Serbian
forces. The Security Council is contemplating a resolution that
would threaten military strikes to stop the flights.
   Sunday Bush said, ``France and the United States are very close
together on the no-fly zone enforcement, and I expect that it could
be passed fairly soon.''
   Together, France and Britain have 7,400 troops with the
international force in former Yugoslav republics, while the United
States has none. American efforts to secure an explicit threat of
force against Serbia from the Security Council have until recently
been met with reticence from the Europeans, who fear for the safety
of their ground troops. But in the face of continued Serbian
attacks, these differences seem to have diminished.
 NYT-01-03-93 2007EST