PERSPECTIVE ON BOSNIA : A Balkans Peace That Cannot Last : The West-imposed division is unworkable and unjust, and will encourage ultranational forces elsewhere.

For me as a Bosnian it has been sad to watch international mediators, including, it seems, the leaders of the G-7 nations, carve up my homeland. The European Union’s Lord David Owen and the U.N.’s Thorvald Stoltenberg even sat with the self-proclaimed leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic (who is neither a Bosnian nor a Serb, because he came from the mountainous Montenegrin region of Durmitor, nor even a leader, because he ran for no public office in the first free elections in Bosnia in 1990). In their discussions on a terrace overlooking the Drina River in the town of Zvornik, they proposed dividing Bosnia-Herzegovina, giving 51% of its territory to the newly created Bosnian-Croat federation and 49% to Serbian forces. This plan has since been ratified by the Western powers.

There are few towns that symbolize all the weaknesses of this formula for division as strongly as Zvornik. It was one of the first Bosnian towns stormed by the Serbian paramilitary forces, supported by the Yugoslav Army, in their genocidal campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in April, 1992. The Muslim majority was either expelled or killed, including correspondent Kjasif Smajlovic, who was executed while writing in his office for my paper, the Bosnian Independent Daily (Oslobodjenje). He was the first journalist killed in the war in Bosnia. Thus Zvornik became an almost ethnically “pure” Serbian town. And there, now, in Zvornik sat the European and U.N. mediators with the person most responsible for this and so many other crimes, discussing ways to legalize the Serbs’ violation of all the norms upon which the “new world order” was supposed to rest.

Look again at Zvornik to see one of the best examples why this latest design to divide Bosnia is not only legally and morally wrong in rewarding aggression and “ethnic cleansing,” but also unworkable. Even if Karadzic and his Serbian boss, Slobodan Milosevic, agree to the proposed formula, how can they tell their followers, who they moved to other people’s towns, homes and property, to leave? There are tens of thousands of Serbs who now occupy other people’s homes in the Serbian-occupied parts of Bosnia, who would be required to leave if Serbian conquests were reduced from more than 70% to 49% of Bosnian territory. Many of those Serbs committed unspeakable crimes, killing thousands of innocent civilians and expelling almost the whole Muslim population, including my mother, Sena, and my good old stepfather, Kemal Kolonic. They had to leave their home in Prijedor, their family house and land and their newly bought Ford Fiesta, and also pay 2,000 German marks each just for a Serbian ausweiss --permission to leave as propertyless refugees. How are such Serbs to be told that there is now some peace agreement and they have to leave the houses, lands and goods they acquired? Serbs are not going to surrender any of this voluntarily.

I think there is a better path, at least for the United States. Instead of joining the Europeans in dividing Bosnia, President Clinton could build on his own initial successes. Those include the removal of the Serbian artillery around Sarajevo and Gorazde and the more decisive protection of other “safe havens,” implementation of the “no-fly zone” and, especially, the creation of a Bosnian-Croat federation and cessation of the fighting between the Croatian and Bosnian armies.

Instead of appeasing the Serbs by allowing them to create their “Greater Serbia” empire, the world should insist that they accept the same constitutional framework and the same rights and guarantees accepted by the Bosnians and Croats in the redesigned Bosnian federation. The Serbs should be told that there is no prospect of recognition of their conquests or of the borders they have changed by force. They should be told that there is no prospect of easing or lifting of sanctions against Serbia until they accept an internationally sponsored just and durable peace. There should be an extended threat of the use of air power to protect Bosnian towns and a lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnia to give that country a fair chance for self-defense and even liberation of its territories if peace efforts fail.

These sorts of conditions and demands have already been tested, with the Croats. There was a strong ultranationalistic current among them, asking for a division of Bosnia and creation of a “Croatian Republic” on Bosnian soil. But, faced with the threat of sanctions and international isolation, they opted for federation. Given the proper message of resolve, instead of legalization of their crimes, Serbs would, sooner or later, do the same. And, more important, that wouldn’t be a message just to them, but to all other ultranationalists throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe--starting with Serbia’s best friend, the Russian rightist Vladimir Zhirinovsky--who see creation of Greater Serbia as a signal that they, too, can fight for their dream empires. President Clinton recently stated that the United States and NATO should not change the military balance or enter the war on one side against the other. But that is exactly what they did by imposing the embargo and keeping Bosnia’s hands tied in the face of brutal aggression. They gave the Serbs the decisive advantage in the war. President Clinton would now do much better if he followed his own, tougher course than by joining the Europeans in their attempts to impose an unjust and unworkable division on Bosnia.