Why U.S. Should Lift Bosnian Embargo

The time has come for a unilateral U.S. lifting of the arms embargo on Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Clinton Administration has preserved the Serbs’ arms advantage for two years, deferring to the wishes of the British and French and ignoring the stated preference of Congress. The result has been a sorry disappointment.

When the Bosnian Serbs defied a July 20 ultimatum for the acceptance of a peace plan, the five powers that had issued the ultimatum responded with only a minor tightening of economic sanctions on Serbia proper. Several other threats the five had made turned out to be empty.

Even leaky sanctions (Russia has ignored them) hurt in the long run, however, and Serbia has sought an end to the sanctions by suddenly stopping traffic with Serbian Bosnia and denouncing its recalcitrance. But in the Stalinist manner of old, President Slobodan Milosevic controls both policy and media. Yesterday’s dogma is today’s heresy and may be dogma again tomorrow.

The Serbian action that matters is the action being taken in Bosnia. Momcilo Krajisnik, speaker of the Bosnian Serb assembly, has declared that the Serbs will not settle for less than 64% of Bosnian territory--as against the 49% assigned them in the five-power plan. Consistent with this view, the Bosnian Serbs are continuing their notorious ethnic cleansing. Within the past few days, according to reports confirmed by the Red Cross, the Serbs have sent 100 Muslim men to a labor camp in the Bosnian northeast and expelled more than 300 Muslim women and children from a town in the area.

In the NATO heavy-weapons exclusion zones around Sarajevo and Gorazde, the Serbs, undeterred by a pinprick NATO air attack, have escalated their attacks with virtual impunity. The U.N. commander, British Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, declined to call for NATO retaliation in Gorazde on Monday even after Serb forces fired anti-aircraft rounds in the exclusion zone and repeatedly attacked his forces there.

Sarajevo is the soul and the symbol of ethnically mixed Bosnia. The lifting of the arms embargo should not mean an end to the NATO exclusion zone there. That zone should be enforced by vigorous retaliation against, among other targets, the Bosnian Serb capital, Pale. But given Rose’s refusal to enforce the zone, his call for a broader demilitarization of Sarajevo rings hollow.

Elsewhere in the country, in any event, only the Bosnians themselves can deter further aggression; and they can only do so if they bring their forces into parity with those of the Serbs. The lifting of the arms embargo will take months to have any effect and can be reimposed if needed, but the moment for the change is now. Given the isolation of the Bosnian Serbs, the risk to the U.N. troops will never be smaller. And even that risk cannot be overwhelming in view of the reluctance of the United Nations to avail itself even of the NATO protection already available.