The French-U.S. Pas de Deux on Bosnia
VALLS-RUSSELL, JANICE
AS NATO GROPES FOR AGREEMENT The French-U.S. Pas de Deux on Bosnia BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL WHILE MORTAR SHELLS killed children playing in the snow and people going to the market in Sarajevo,...
...Germany and the Vatican pressed the case of the Croats, the former's allies in World War I and the latter's only Catholic fold in the region...
...This is why the order for any air attack should come from a UN officer or representative on the spot, says General Jean Cot, the French commander of the "blue helmets" in former Yugoslavia, who is critical of the World Organization's cumbersome chain of command and the dithering of Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali...
...France has kept one foot in the Alliance, however, benefiting from communications and radar systems, taking part in joint exercises and, of late, contributing to debates on peacekeeping...
...A group of intellectuals, led by essayist Bernard-Henri Levy, argues the arms embargo must be lifted...
...Otherwise Yugoslavia will become a Serb colony, allied with Russia and Greece against Turkey, the way Lebanon has become a Syrian colony...
...18 have been killed and at least 265 injured...
...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...
...The situation will remain confused and dangerous so long as the Serbs think they can count on the Russians, the Croats on the Germans and the Muslims on the Americans, declares Pierre Lellouche, an adviser to Jacques Chirac, leader of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republican Party...
...French military experts reckon that the UN force would need to be considerably beefed up to achieve any of the above goals, especially if in addition a decision were taken to free Sarajevo and, perhaps, Mostar...
...will participate in its implementation...
...But as I write, the big, agonizing decision on Bosnia rests with the politicians, not the generals...
...present a united diplomatic front...
...Today's neo-Gaullists favor a rapprochement...
...Outwardly, Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher's visit to Paris on January 24 hardly seemed a success—although privately there were hints of a new initiative to coordinate European and U.S...
...Americans reason that since the Serbs are well armed, having taken over the former national army, the UN arms embargo must be lifted so that the Muslims can fight on a more level field...
...In addition, it was thought that direct American presence would dissuade angered Serbs from turning on the UN troops once the bombing began—and guarantee a prompt reaction if they were rash enough to do so...
...We cannot let others transform nato without us," said one of them recently...
...The U.S...
...Wait and see how the situation evolves" was how diplomats at the Quai d'Orsay, seat of the French Foreign Ministry, summed up Christopher's attitude...
...There is a danger of UN personnel getting caught like sitting ducks in an air strike...
...They were also worried about the safety of their troops on the ground—unless the U.S...
...This seemed the best protection against possible heavy-handed or casual air attacks by the U.S...
...Jacques Attali, ex-president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a former adviser to Mitterrand, is far less romantic: "There is no alternative to war, war against all the warring factions...
...Pas de Deux on Bosnia BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL WHILE MORTAR SHELLS killed children playing in the snow and people going to the market in Sarajevo, Western capitals continued to exchange heated diplomatic crossfire about the best way to halt the slaughter in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
...But if it is to have any chance of success at all, Paris is convinced, Washington will have to lead the way in persuading the Muslims of partition's virtues and assuring them the U.S...
...Except for the reserve of the United States, nato members expressed support for the latest partition plan of Bosnia that the Muslims rejected, despite Juppe's almost pathetic efforts to obtain an agreement...
...Both still hoped a diplomatic solution was possible and were reluctant to "get involved in an internationalized conflict," to quote Mitterrand...
...As if to drive his point home, soon afterward yet another massacre was perpetrated in a Muslim village, this time by Croat troops...
...More radically, Bernard Kouchner, the former Minister for Humanitarian Aid, would have the UN "go in and stop the fascism in Sarajevo"—meaning the Serb aggressors, naturally...
...On January 24 the UN's commander in Bosnia, Belgium's General Francis Briquemont, was replaced by Sir Michael Rose...
...had soldiers at risk too...
...Reiterating the threat of air raids that had already been voiced last August, the Alliance further demanded both the reopening of Tuzla airport, held by Muslim forces but paralyzed by Serb guns, and access to the town of Srebrenica, where Serbs are refusing to let Canadian troops leave out of an alleged fear that the new UN forces sent as replacements would be better armed...
...The United States is suspected here of siding with the Muslims not only because they have largely been the victims of the ensuing conflict but also as a gesture to the Arab world...
...Bosnia was included on the agenda, at the request of Britain and France...
...Everyone is uneasily aware that the UN's mandate ends March 31...
...Nonetheless, appalled by the evidence of "ethnic cleansing" directed mainly at Muslims and by the plight of Sarajevo's besieged civilians, the French authorities promptly called for UN-backed relief aid, while supporting all efforts to bring about a negotiated settlement...
...The only solution is a rapid settlement, Paris insists, and the international community can bring this about through combined military pressure on the Serbs and diplomatic pressure on the Muslims...
...Admittedly of questionable viability, partition is viewed here as a last-ditch attempt to avoid the intensification and extension of a war the Muslims would surely lose...
...Forbesides air cover by nato planes, that will require a substantial UN force which would be difficult to put together without Americans joining others on the ground...
...To hear France shore up its argument with references to nato may seem paradoxical to Americans who remember that General Charles de Gaulle pulled it out of the integrated military command in 1966...
...Since his surprise visit to Sarajevo in June 1992, resulting in the airport reopening and relief airlifts resuming, President Mitterrand has expressed dismay and concern about the human cost of the various Balkan ethnic groups' "fascination with death...
...Ideally, of course, everything should be in place by the time the UN's current mandate ends, hence the frantic urgency...
...The French claim their position is in line with the consensus the nato allies painstakingly achieved when they gathered in Brussels to receive President Bill Clinton on his first visit to Europe in mid-January...
...Their logic is that one cannot impose peace on people who do not want it...
...Briquemont and Cot have irritated the Secretary General by protesting against the constant humiliations troops endure at the hands of the various factions while the warlords are feted at peace talks in Geneva...
...This call for action came as parliamentarians here, as well as in Britain and Canada, were asking how long their countries intended to keep troops under the United Nations flag in ex-Yugoslavia...
...In his view, and with hindsight, the international community's initial mistake was its rushing to recognize Serbia (December '91), Croatia (January '92) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (April '92) without first securing an agreement on borders and the rights of minorities...
...France, with 8,000 soldiers on the ground, has the biggest contingent there...
...Like Juppe, he believes it essential that the European Union, Russia and the U.S...
...France's sympathies tended to go to the Serbs because they resisted the Nazis 50 years earlier...
...He and Abbe Pierre, a charismatic priest, have been active in the French media and in Sarajevo, organizing concerts in the besieged city and trying to get French public opinion to display solidarity with Bosnia's Muslims in a number of ways, such as placing lighted candles on window sills New Year's Eve...
...Yet not everyone in France shares the Mitterrand-Balladur conviction that there is no alternative to partition...
...And we are telling our American friends that they would be responsible...
...That would be a catastrophe...
...A total pullout of the 25,000 or so troops, UN peace mediator Thorvald Stoltenberg warned not long ago, would have "catastrophic consequences" for the civilians...
...On January 26, Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and Center-Right Prime Minister Edouard Balladur issued a joint communique demanding that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreements on Bosnia be implemented, and that air raids be used if necessary...
...France's pro-Serb feelings soon dissolved into a general distaste for all three warring parties...
...and French positions on ex-Yugoslavia differ radically...
...French diplomats first favored a multiethnic, multireligious Bosnia—in effect a mini-Yugoslavia, minus Communism...
...Air Force, with bombs mistakenly hitting UN positions instead of Serbian ones...
...Once the plan put together by special UN representative Cyrus R. Vance and European Community representative Lord Owen collapsed, Paris advocated partition...
...If America fails to persuade the Muslims of Bosnia that they must cease hostilities," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe declared, "it will be providing them with an incitement to fight on...
...peacemaking efforts...
...Not with candles...
...With weapons...
...The French counter that this would merely condemn the Muslims in the long run, because the Serbs and Croats would rearm too and might well join forces to drive them into the sea...
...When the United States first suggested airraids last spring, France and Britain rejected the idea...
Vol. 77 • January 1994 • No. 1
