A single mortar shell killed 68 people in Sarajevo on Saturday. Sixty-eight people. Muslims, Croats and Serbs, who have one thing in common: they live together in a Sarajevo besieged by Serbian artillery forces.
The strangulation of Sarajevo must stop. It is time for the Western powers to end the siege. Serbian guns have pounded the multi-ethnic city long enough. NATO planes must bomb Serbian artillery positions overlooking Sarajevo.
United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has asked NATO to prepare punitive air strikes against the Serbs. France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Turkey have pressed NATO to hit Serbian positions around Sarajevo. Within the Clinton Administration, Anthony Lake, National Security Advisor, and Madeleine Albright, the United States delegate to the UN, both argue for the use of force. Senator Bob Dole said that air strikes would receive "strong bipartisan support" in Congress. So what are we waiting for?
President Clinton came into office threatening air strikes against the Serbs and calling for a lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnian Muslims. He succeeded in doing neither. On Sunday, Clinton said, "I hope that the shock of these deaths will reinforce to [the warring parties], as it does to the entire world, that they ought to go on and reach a settlement." Sixty-eight dead tell the Serbs that they can use murder to win territory. Sixty-eight dead tell the Muslims that they should either surrender or suffer more deaths.
The current settlement on the negotiating table would divide the sovereign, internationally recognized state of Bosnia-Herzegovina into three mini-states. The Bosnian government is being asked to accept a divided Bosnia, the product of ethnic cleansing. This settlement, immoral and a source of future conflict in Bosnia, also teaches the world that the use of force to take over territory is acceptable, and that genocide will be allowed in the 21st century.
The West's inaction in Bosnia-Herzegovina highlights the weaknesses of NATO, the UN, the European Community and the Clinton Administration. After the passage of countless resolutions threatening the Serbs with retaliation against their actions, nothing has been done. By maintaining an arms embargo on Bosnia the West puts into question the right to national self defence. By allowing the extermination of the Bosnian people, the West ignores the UN Convention on Genocide. Western inaction is making a mockery of the slogan "never again" and of the institutions that were put in place to uphold its banner.
The West fears that if bombed, the Serbs will turn against peacekeeping forces and foreign relief workers. The people of Sarajevo and of the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina do not need western food and assistance. Faced with the choice between being alive and hungry or fed but dead, Sarajevans prefer the former.
Sixty-eight people died on Saturday afternoon in a open air market. Ten people died on Friday while waiting in line for bread. This weekend signifies the beginning of the Serbian all out attack on Sarajevo. The city has a long and enduring tradition of peaceful cohabitation between different ethnic and religious communities. Today this way of life is the target of unrelenting Serbian artillery fire.
There will be no settlement until the Western world stops Serbian forces from attacking. The Serbs want to defeat the city: they will not stop shelling until they are silenced by NATO bombs or until they capture all of Sarajevo. If the West stands by and watches, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina will not end at the peace table but in Sarajevo's streets. If that happens, sixty-eight will seem like a small number.
