BLOOD ON OUR HANDS, TOO, LARRY: EAGLEBURGER EPITOMIZES FAILED U.S. YUGOSLAVIAN POLICY

(Washington, D.C.): On the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour last night, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger warned that "blood is going to be on somebody’s hands" in Yugoslavia if the current strife continued to escalate. When asked by host Jim Lehrer on whose hands such blood would be, Eagleburger solomonically blamed both the excessive violence of the Yugoslav army and the "stupidity" of the Slovenes and Croats who he alleges have declined to modify the present federal arrangement peacefully and through negotiation.

In so doing, the former U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, ertswhile American-Yugoslav entrepreneur (involved in banking arrangements and "Yugo" automobile franchises) and current resident "expert" on Yugoslavia in the State Department exemplified the failure of Bush Administration policy toward this crisis: He ignored the very real responsibility Washington and other Western capitals share for the present crisis.

A paper issued last week by the Center for Security Policy, entitled Blood on Our Hands: U.S. Shares Blame for Violent Repression of Democracy in Slovenia and Croatia (No. 91-P 56, 27 June 1991), described the two critical ways in which the West has contributed to the turmoil in Yugoslavia. First, by ignoring the year-long effort made by the democratic and free-market oriented republics to secure communist Serbia’s agreement to negotiate a new, confederal (or other) arrangement, the United States and the nations of Europe have wrongly sought to transform the victims of a crime into its perpetrators. Last night, Eagleburger peevishly dismissed the break-away republics’ claims that — in the face of relentless Serbian stonewalling — they were left with no choice but to declare their independence; he blithely asserted that "they could always negotiate" some sort of modification to the present federation.

Second, by expressing the United States’ unyielding refusal to "reward" any Yugoslav republics that might unilaterally declare their sovereignty — while emphasizing the importance of preserving Yugoslavia’s "territorial integrity" — the West sent another powerful, if subliminal, signal to Belgrade: The central, Serbian-dominated authorities there were encouraged to maintain control throughout the country, no matter what the cost.

Tragically, such a misbegotten policy is of a piece with that which the Administration is pursuing toward the independence-bound republics of the USSR. The Baltics and others have been enjoined from asserting their sovereignty until negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev allow them to leave the Union. Secretary of State James Baker has legitimized the use of force by Moscow center — so long as it can be justified as necessary to preserve "law and order" throughout the Soviet empire. And fearmongering about the dangerous strategic implications of an end to the "territorial integrity" of the Soviet Union continues to be the last resort of those opposed to a policy of favoring the restive republics rather than the ruling Gorbachev clique.

"Evidently, Larry Eagleburger didn’t get the word," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "Even as the Bush Administration was applying spin-control to the effect that its policy toward the Yugoslav crisis was being retooled in favor of a ‘kinder, gentler’ attitude toward the break-away republics, Eagleburger maintained that the policy was unchanged from that enunciated months ago."

Gaffney added, "The fact is that — as it reluctantly had to do with the Kurds in April and as it will surely be compelled to do with the democratic forces in the Soviet Union in the months to come — the Bush Administration must recognize that long-term U.S. interests lie with those seeking freedom and self-determination, not imperialistic, totalitarian central authorities of Yugoslavia. The 215th anniversary of America’s own declaration of independence would be a perfect opportunity to announce such a long-overdue policy shift by recognizing the independence of Slovenia and Croatia."

The Center for Security Policy believes that recent events have permanently altered and utterly delegitimized the so-called federal government in Belgrade. The governing, multi-ethnic collective leadership — at the moment nominally presided over by the Croat Stipe Mesic — has given way to a civilian government that, to the extent it functions at all, is entirely subordinated to the communist and Serbian factions. Even more importantly, communists and Serbs also dominate the ever-more headstrong Yugoslav army. Consequently, the present conflict should properly be viewed by the West as one between diverging republics, not between republics on the one hand and a higher authority at the national level that can claim to represent all of Yugoslavia.

In this vein, the Center renews its earlier call for the United States and allied nations to adopt a policy that encourages the creation of a new confederation, born of a common commitment to democracy and free enterprise. This policy should offer incentives for Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina and Kosovo as well as Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina to participate on the basis of these principles. It should also create formidable economic and political disincentives to those disposed to use violence to prevent the emergence of such an arrangement.