The West and Bosnia: What Now?

Last April the U.N. Security Council voted to establish “safe areas” around Muslim enclaves threatened by Serb forces in Bosnia. But according to the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping forces, although a minimum of 7,500 troops was needed to implement the resolution only 2,000 were ever sent. Belgian Lt. Gen. Francis Briquemont resigned in protest last week as Serbian forces outside Sarajevo renewed their shelling of the ravaged city.

Europe’s attempt to restore peace to the Balkans has been, in recent months, a British-French effort with the British leading the diplomacy and the French commanding the troops. Lord David Owen, representing the European Union, has served as principal mediator among the warring parties. Gen. Jean Cot is in charge of the overall 26,000-member U.N. Protection Force. Within that force, Briquemont and before him French Lt. Gen. Philippe Morillon, who was forced out for excessive boldness, have commanded the 12,000-member peacekeeping force.

Their indignation seems to be having a belated and unexpected impact in Paris. French Foreign Minister Francois Leotard is reportedly seeking the support of the Clinton Administration for a military intervention on behalf of the besieged towns of Tuzla and Srebenica. And new calls are being heard for NATO air strikes against Serbian mortar positions around Sarajevo--action that the West once promised in the event of a strangulation of the Bosnian capital.

Lord Owen, meanwhile, has warned the combatants--above all, the vulnerable Bosnians--that if they do not accept his latest peace plan the U.N. troops may withdraw. Owen’s view, apparently shared by British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, is that the Clinton Administration has sabotaged the peace process precisely by holding out the vain prospect of such an intervention as the French may now propose.

Owen has said, “If George Bush had won the American elections last year, then the war in Bosnia would have been over long ago.” Oversimplifying slightly, then, the choice between Leotard and Owen is the choice between up and out. But what does Bosnia want?

Bosnia, needless to say, would welcome a military rescue. Failing that, however, the arms embargo of Bosnia must go. It has been defended on two grounds: first, that it would prevent the violence from spreading; second, that without this demonstration of neutrality the Serbs might turn on U.N. forces. If and when the U.N. peacekeepers withdraw, those arguments, always weak, will collapse.

In truth, they have already collapsed. The violence has already spread. The Serbs are already attacking the U.N. forces. Whether or not French President Francois Mitterrand proposes military intervention to President Clinton at the European summit in Brussels, surely the two can agree that there remains no reason why the Bosnians may not arm for their own defense.