Blood, Threats and Fears

By Bruce W. Nelan

The British diplomat grumbled sarcastically: "Full marks for Clinton for appalling timing." Visibly angry, he was also speaking for most of his NATO colleagues. As Europeans saw it, they had the besieged Bosnian government just where they wanted. President Alija Izetbegovic was ready to capitulate to a plan to partition Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic zones, with the largest slice going to the biggest aggressors, the Serbs. However distasteful, it was a settlement that might end the war with a "negotiated," face-saving way out for the West.

That was the precise moment Bill Clinton chose to threaten to bomb the Serbian forces that were "strangling" Sarajevo. Encouraged, possibly believing that U.S. military intervention could still save him, Izetbegovic bolted from the talks in Geneva. When Clinton's renewed determination to mount air strikes hit the NATO council in Brussels, it set off a 12-hour meeting so acrimonious that some participants feared the alliance itself was in danger of breaking apart over what would be the first offensive military action in its 44-year history.

The U.S. threat has catalyzed events in a way that forces all sides into critical decisions this week: NATO will have to decide what to bomb and under whose command. In order to avoid being bombed, the Serbs must demonstrate that they will live up to their promise to pull back a step from Sarajevo. Izetbegovic and the Bosnians will have to choose between defeat at Geneva and extinction. And all these decisions must be made at roughly the same time.

In spite of what resentful European allies think, Washington was not trying to complicate the Geneva negotiations. The proximate cause of war talk was a report in early July from the World Health Organization, saying Sarajevo faced potential catastrophe because of shortages of food, fuel and electricity. Worried by that -- and by the political beating the Administration would take for "losing" Sarajevo -- U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher joined hawkish National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in ordering an analysis of air power to break the Serbian choke hold on the capital. That surprised many policymakers unused to seeing Christopher push the government toward the use of force in Bosnia. But the Secretary of State felt badly stung by the failure of his attempts in May to push NATO into military intervention, and was worried that U.S. diplomatic credibility had been eroded by months of vacillation. As a result, he seemed determined not to be blamed if Sarajevo fell. He may also have felt disgust at the bad faith of the Serbs, who promised once again last week to lift the siege, then immediately started squabbling about exactly where their front line had been.

Clinton accepted the plan and told leaders of the NATO states about it in personal letters on July 30. Christopher followed up with letters of his own to foreign ministers of the NATO countries, Russia and U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.S., said Christopher, intended to use military force not only to relieve Sarajevo but also to push the warring parties toward a negotiated settlement.

When the alliance council met in Brussels last week to debate the U.S. proposal, tension built quickly. Washington's plan to issue an ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs was rejected. So was the suggestion that the Serbs' headquarters should be a bombing target. The British, French and Canadians, all of whom have troops at risk on peacekeeping duty in Bosnia, staunchly opposed any action other than the most limited retaliation for attacks on U.N. forces. Eventually the allies cobbled together a compromise committing the alliance to prepare air strikes but not specifying when or how to undertake them. They left undecided knotty issues of whether the U.N. or NATO would command the strikes, the range of acceptable targets and the degree of Serb aggression necessary to trigger the raids.

If the NATO plan seemed less than clear-cut, it was concrete enough to produce results -- desired or not. "It was bound to raise false hopes among the Muslims," snapped the senior British diplomat. Sure enough, Izetbegovic announced that he was boycotting the talks until the Serbs halted the offensive that had seized the last two important mountaintops around Sarajevo. "Air attacks won't save the Muslims," said a conference official in Geneva. "They must talk or die."

The Serbs also reacted, with a promise to ease off. Saying he takes the threat of air attacks "very seriously," Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic pledged his forces would withdraw from newly captured mountains and allow free flow of aid convoys into the city. Similar commitments have gone unfulfilled in the past, but this time hard-line Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic stood next to Karadzic and said, "Everything which is agreed will be carried out." The U.N. commander in Bosnia, Belgian Lieut. General Francis Briquemont, was still skeptical. Said he: "Actions speak louder than words." On Friday he and Mladic talked for six hours at Sarajevo airport without reaching agreement on handing Serb positions on the mountains over to U.N. peacekeepers. Briquemont said he and Mladic "did not have the same concept about conditions, control or monitoring an area."

Izetbegovic had little choice but to agree to return to the talks, which were to resume in Geneva this week. If he had refused, he would have risked being labeled the obstacle to peace. Moreover, the U.S. told him flatly that no bombing of Serb positions would be considered unless the Bosnian government had returned to good-faith negotiations. "We're making it very, very clear to him," said a senior official. "The cavalry is not coming to take back his country for him." The co-chairmen of the negotiations, Thorvald Stoltenberg representing the U.N. and Lord Owen for the European Community, say they are committed to allocating 30% of Bosnia and Herzegovina's territory to Muslims, even though they hold only about 10% now. Izetbegovic considers 30% insufficient. "There is no final map yet," said Owen.

At the same time, NATO was to meet again in Brussels to try to resolve the outstanding issues on who would control the air strikes and how they would be carried out. The U.S. is still trying to persuade its allies that bombs and rockets, if used, should be directed not just at Serbian troops who endanger | U.N. peacekeepers but also at ammunition dumps, roads, bridges and communications. Once such questions are settled, says an Administration official, the allies "may or may not be at the point at which a political decision is made to authorize strikes." To be ready, NATO ground controllers are moving into position in Bosnia equipped with radar and laser targeting systems and digitalized maps accurate to within 50 ft.

Washington officials say their bombing policy is primarily intended to spur negotiations by warning the Serbs that they cannot hope for total victory and reassuring the Muslims that the U.S. can be counted on for serious peacekeeping efforts after an agreement is signed. What precisely that portends has not been spelled out, and even Clinton may not know. Reflecting the mixed messages that have characterized his Bosnia policy all along, the President told a Congressman on Capitol Hill, "I will not let Sarajevo fall." Then, as he walked away, Clinton turned and added, "Don't take that as an absolute. I'll do my part."

In this phase of the Bosnian endgame, the U.S. and its allies -- whether they admit it or not -- are disputing methods rather than objectives. The international community is not talking about rolling back the victorious Serbs and restoring a multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina to its former territory. The most that may happen is that Serbian victors would face a tribunal for war crimes. But even a conviction could not remake the map. "The fundamental purpose of all this," says a congressional staff expert, "is to achieve the partition of Bosnia in the Geneva talks." Senior Administration officials do not challenge that grim prescription. "Our effort," says one, "is serious, but it's also limited." With luck the U.S. and Europe will get a signed agreement at Geneva they can endorse, no matter how distasteful it may be -- and never have to bomb at all.

With reporting by James L. Graff/Vienna and J.F.O. McAllister and Bruce van Voorst/Washington