‘METHOD TO THE MADNESS‘: U.S. STUDIOUSLY LOOKS THE OTHER WAY ON, ENCOURAGES INTENSIFIED SERBIAN GENOCIDE

p>(Washington, D.C.): If there were any
doubt where the Bush Administration
stands on the matter of Serbia’s
aggression in the Balkans, a report in
yesterday’s New York Times
should put it to rest: The United States
is considering vitiating the economic
sanctions on Serbia in order to allow
China to sell 850,000 tons of heating oil
to Belgrade. At the same time, the
Administration continues to resist
strenuously calls from Congress and
elsewhere for an end to another embargo
— that preventing Bosnia and Croatia
from obtaining access to weapons with
which to defend themselves against Serb
predations.

In other words, Washington is
sufficiently concerned about the
well-being of those universally regarded
as the perpetrators of genocide
— among other unspeakable crimes against
humanity — to undermine whatever limited
effectiveness inheres in the only tool
the West has been willing to use to stop
such aggression. By contrast, it is
insufficiently concerned about the
well-being of the victims of that
aggression to insist that the sanctions
applied to them (i.e., access to
weaponry) be preserved at all costs.

How Much Blood on Our
Hands?

This odious policy is all the more
reprehensible for the fact that it is
being pursued even though the CIA now
estimates that some 147,000 people are
likely to die from hunger and exposure
resulting from the siege of Sarajevo and
the ethnic cleansing of other parts of
Bosnia by Serbian forces. Others believe
these estimates to be absurdly
understated. Notably, the United Nations
and George Kenney, the former State
Department desk officer for Yugoslavia,
predict that the figure may be closer to
350,000-400,000. The Center for Security
Policy believes that the higher
estimate is much more plausible —
particularly when one considers the
devastating impact winter is likely to
have on the roughly 100,000 Bosnians,
Muslims and Croats now incarcerated in
inhumane and primitive Serbian
concentration camps.

“Open Season” for
Serbia At Least Until After 3 November

On 26 September 1992, the Bosnian
government warned the UN Security Council
that it is in “imminent danger”
of “what is likely to be the final
assault” on Bosnia-Hercegovina by
Serbian forces. The Bush Administration’s
response was, to put it charitably:
“Please hold.” According to Jim
Hoagland’s column in the 29 September Washington
Post:

“European officials who met
with Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney in Paris and London this
month have concluded that there
will be no ‘October surprise’ in
this election year: The Bush
Administration has decided to
avoid any military action in
Yugoslavia or Iraq before the
November 3 U.S. elections.”

Powell: ‘Hell No, We Won’t Go’

Worse yet, if it is left up to the man
Norman Schwartzkopf correctly describes
as the most influential military officer
since George Marshall, the open season
will extend indefinitely. In an interview
with the New York Times
published on 28 September, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin
Powell signalled to Serbia’s Milosevic
that even the election will not unbind
America’s hands.

Among other strong expressions of
opposition to the use of U.S. forces in
the Balkans, Gen. Powell dismissed —
even ridiculed — suggestions made by the
likes of former British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher concerning the need for
limited military action to stop Serbia’s
carnage: “As soon as they tell me it
is limited, it means they do not care
whether you achieve a result or not. As
soon as they tell me ‘surgical,’ I head
for the bunker.”

A Blind Eye to Genocide

This chilling attitude of Western
indifference and passivity comes even as
the evidence mounts that earlier reports
of Serbian death camps, crematoriums and
atrocities are true. On 28 September, the
State Department reported that it had
received:

“Some credible eyewitness
reports that large numbers of
people, primarily Bosnian
Muslims, were executed at
Serbian-run detention camps near
Brcko in northeastern
Bosnia….One of the prisoners
has said that on several
occasions he helped transport
bodies of dead prisoners to a
local animal rendering plant
where they were cremated. The two
prisoners independently have
estimated that some 3,000 men,
women and children were executed
in Brcko in the May-June
period.”

When asked pointedly whether these
revelations would prompt the United
States to take any additional steps, the
most that State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher would say is: “We’ve
started discussing with others — other
allies and other governments in the
Security Council — the need for a UN
resolution to establish a war crimes
commission.”

That pathetic
response is even more inadequate in view
of the fact that Serbian forces are
prosecuting a new wave of “ethnic
cleansing” in northwestern
Bosnia-Hercegovina, aimed at purging this
Serb-held territory of its roughly
200,000 Muslims residents. Compounding
this catastrophe is the fact that Croatia
— already overrun with hundreds of
thousands of Bosnian refugees for whom it
cannot provide basic necessities — has,
like Austria, closed its border to
further influxes of these desperate
people.

Milan Panic: Cat’s-Paw for
Milosevic

Adding insult to grievous injury, one
of Serbia’s most visible representatives,
Prime Minister Milan Panic is making
inroads in his efforts to defuse
international outrage over his
government’s ongoing, hideous activities.
For example, as a result of Panic’s
interventions in New York, the United
Nations last week: advised the Milosevic
regime that it could continue to enjoy
the benefits and perquisites of
Yugoslavia’s membership in all U.N.
bodies except the General Assembly;
urged Belgrade to apply for U.N.
membership as a new state; and promised
that it would consider such an
application on a fast-track basis (i.e.,
before the end of the year). As a result
of this diplomatic legerdemain,
Milosevic’s Serbia will be able to retain
a mission at the UN, the right to issue
documents from that vantage point, the
right to participate in Security Council
meetings whenever invited and even the
privilege of maintaining a name plate for
“Yugoslavia” in the General
Assembly hall.

In crowing about this coup on
“Good Morning America” on 23
September, Panic took pains to praise
those who aided him: “I have
received an enormous support for my
mission…from Secretary of State of
United States, Mr. Eagleburger,
to Secretary of State of Russia Kozyrev,
to Secretary of State of Great Britain,
Chinese Secretary of State, French
Secretary of State. I have total support
for my mission, including Secretary of
United Nations.”

In a 25 September New York Times
interview, Panic laid out the kind of
line that is apparently having such
salutary effects with world leaders:
“I am hope and Milosevic is
fear….I think I am through with
him….We are on a collision
course.” And yet, for those willing
to do so, his ruse is easily penetrated.
For example, in his “GMA”
interview, Panic disputed reports —
confirmed by the State Department — to
the effect that some 200 Muslims were
dragged off buses on 21 August and shot
by Serb nationalists:

“I don’t have information
that this is correct….Lots of
news of that type, like
concentration camps in
Yugoslavia, has been thrown at
United Nations to be found later
by lot of inspectors and
international commission not to
be accurate….Civil war is no
good. The leaders of
Bosnia and Herzegovina are
responsible for that.”

Larry Eagleburger: Cat’s-Paw
for Milan Panic

Unfortunately,
Lawrence Eagleburger is not among those
disposed to see Panic for what he is.
Indeed, Eagleburger himself
validated Panic’s assertions about the
personal support the “Yugoslav Prime
Minister” is receiving from the
Acting Secretary of State by
when, in the 23 September edition of the New
York Times, the latter declared,
“In our view, [Panic] is working
very hard and as constructively as he can
to bring peace to Yugoslavia.”

Eagleburger’s comments speak volumes.
They not only reflect his tragically
misguided view of Panic’s true
agenda; they also accept — at least
implicitly — Milosevic’s view that the
now defunct “Yugoslavia” still
exists and, more amazingly, it includes
the independent nations of
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and
Slovenia.

Worse yet, Eagleburger
continues to indulge in the sort of moral
equivalency and aloof self-righteousness
that has characterized the West’s policy
toward this crisis — and done so much to
contribute to its tragic course.
On 29 September 1992, he made the
following sanctimonious pronouncement:

“I have said this 38,000
times and I have to say this to
the people of this country as
well: This tragedy is not
something that can be settled
from outside and it’s about damn
well time that everybody
understood that. Until
the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats
decide to stop killing each
other, there is nothing the
outside world can do about
it.”

Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy believes that
this human tragedy — a tragedy
encouraged and compounded by Bush-Baker
foreign policy missteps — must not be
permitted to continue. Toward this end,
the following actions should be taken at
once:

• The United States should
  make clear that it will only
  support Serbia’s admission to the
  General Assembly when
  Serbian-backed aggression and
  ethnic cleansing have been halted
  and when Belgrade has
  relinquished its ill-gotten
  territorial gains. In
  addition, a precondition should
  be that those believed
  responsible for war crimes
  against humanity are brought to
  justice.
• The United States should
  desist once and for all from the
  practice of referring to the rump
  coalition of Serbia and
  Montenegro as
  “Yugoslavia.”
  There simply is no such entity
  except in Serb propaganda. It has
  been replaced by individual,
  separate and independent nations.
  Even the UN has recognized
  this reality; in a
  resolution passed last week by a
  vote of 127 to 6, the General
  Assembly declared that the state
  “formerly known as the
  Socialist Federal Republic of
  Yugoslavia” has ceased to
  exist.”
• Similarly, U.S.
  policy-makers as well as the
  press should stop dignifying
  Panic with the self-proclaimed
  title of “Prime Minister of
  Yugoslavia.” He is
  simply Milosevic’s Trojan Horse,
  a figurehead designed to mask the
  real power in Belgrade
  — Prime Minister Milosevic of
  the fascist government of Serbia.
• Panic should be
  immediately stripped of his U.S.
  citizenship. Under the
  Immigration and Nationality Act,
  U.S. citizens can lose their
  nationality by accepting a policy
  position in the government of
  another country and pledging
  allegiance to that nation.
  According to the State
  Department, “The
  assumption of cabinet or policy
  level positions in a foreign
  government is generally
  considered to be a significant
  indicator of an intent to
  relinquish U.S. citizenship and
  has typically resulted in the
  loss of U.S. citizenship.”
• This is not merely a hypothetical
  issue. After all, just last year,
  former Minnesota Governor Rudy
  Perpich declined an offer by
  Croatia’s President Franjo
  Tudjman to serve as Minister of
  Foreign Affairs on the basis that
  he had been advised by Washington
  that “accepting a position
  in the Croatian government would
  cloud my United States
  citizenship and may lead to my
  expatriation.”