U.N. Refuses to Lift Bosnia Arms Embargo

The United States and its European allies split over Bosnian policy at the United Nations for the first time Tuesday as the Security Council refused to approve an American-endorsed proposal to allow the sale of arms to the embattled and besieged government of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The United States joined the five sponsor nations to vote for the resolution. But all other members of the Security Council, including Britain and France, abstained and the six “aye” votes were three short of the nine needed for passage.

Representatives of the two European powers had made it clear that they would have voted to veto the resolution if it had won enough support for passage. Russia, too, made clear that it would use its veto if necessary.

The sponsors--Cape Verde, Morocco, Venezuela, Pakistan and Djibouti--knew that their resolution had no chance to pass but wanted to put the positions of the major powers on the record. President Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher had failed in earlier efforts to persuade European allies to lift the embargo.

The ban on arms sales, imposed by the Security Council on all of the former Yugoslav federation in September, 1991, has hurt the Muslim-led Bosnian government most of all.

Repeating the Clinton Administration policy, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said: “We do not believe that this body should deny the Bosnian government the wherewithal to defend itself in the face of brutal aggression conducted by the Bosnian Serbs and their backers in Belgrade.”

She warned the Bosnian Serbs that “it would be a grave mistake . . . to interpret today’s action by the council as an endorsement of their intransigence or of their attempts to use military force to change international boundaries and destroy a neighbor.”

British Ambassador David Hannay underscored the embarrassment that had enveloped Europe and the United States because of the proposal advanced by the five weaker nations on the council.

“We regret that this issue, so divisive in the council, is being pressed to a vote,” he said. “We regret this in particular because the unity of this council, in handling what is recognized by all as being the most complex and difficult international issue that has faced the council in recent years, is an absolute prerequisite to achieving results.”

Hannay called lifting of the arms embargo “a solution of despair.” And he argued that it “would provide a probably irresistible temptation to the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats to intensify their military efforts. . . .”

The British ambassador insisted that it would also cripple U.N. humanitarian efforts in Bosnia.

“This resolution would be seen as a signal that the United Nations was turning its back on Bosnia and leaving its inhabitants to fight it out, come what may,” he said.

Bosnian Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey delivered a bitter speech to the council in which he castigated the United Nations’ failure to rescue the Bosnian Muslims from the aggression by Bosnian Serbs.

He said Bosnians are “dead tired of running on this treadmill of cynicism that exhausts us with bitterness, hopelessness and helplessness while serving the public relations interests of certain political leaders.”

The ferocity of Sacirbey’s rhetoric angered French Ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee. He said that France has 6,300 troops on the ground in the former Yugoslav federation, including Bosnia, and has lost 11 lives there.

“My country, which has committed so much on the soil of Bosnia-Herzegovina, will take no lessons in morality from anyone,” he said.

Abstaining with Britain, France and Russia were Brazil, China, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand and Spain.

Venezuelan Ambassador Diego Arria, one of the sponsors, reminded members of the Security Council that he was asking help for Bosnia under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter that guarantees the right of self-defense, the same article that Clinton had invoked to justify Sunday’s cruise missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.