Europe’s Response to Balkan Conflict

In your editorial on foreign policy issues (Sept. 13), you write that NATO, the European Community (EC) and the Western European Union (WEU) have done “precisely nothing” in the face of the conflict taking place in the former Yugoslavia. On behalf of the current United Kingdom presidency of the EC, I have to say that the facts do not bear this out.

First, you do not mention that both NATO and WEU warships have been patrolling the Adriatic in support of the sanctions now in place against Serbia. British Royal Air Force cargo aircraft have been prominent in the hazardous delivery of relief supplies to Sarajevo, and 1,800 British soldiers have been made available to the United Nations for the protection of humanitarian ground convoys. Other European countries have made similar offers. The Italians and the French have lost lives in this operation.

Second, the international conference held in London at the end of last month resulted in a number of important agreements. These included: new negotiations in Geneva under the joint chairmanship of Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen; the placing of Serbian heavy weapons under U.N. supervision; the recognition of existing frontiers and withdrawal of Serbian forces from areas now under their control; the intensification of the humanitarian effort, and the dismantling of detention camps and release of detainees, under international supervision.

Sanctions are being tightened to ensure that all parties to the agreements reached in London live up to their commitments; and, on Sept. 13, EC foreign ministers endorsed the proposal for a military “no-fly zone” in Bosnia. We and our allies are now engaged on the detailed work to give effect to the secretary general’s plan endorsed by the Security Council.

On the question of the use of force (which by implication you appear to entertain), Western governments have concluded that the measures agreed at the London conference have a greater chance of success than the introduction of external forces which, given the ethnic and topographical complexity of Bosnia, could easily result in a wider and more destructive conflict.

As British Prime Minister John Major said at the London conference, a comprehensive framework is now in place and, while there may be setbacks, there will be no turning back. Taken together, these efforts by institutions of the international community clearly amount to considerably more than “precisely nothing.”

MERRICK S. BAKER-BATES, British Consul-General, Los Angeles