GORBACHEV DOOMS FREE CROATIA?: SOVIET VETO OF U.N. ROLE MAY PRODUCE NEW WORLD ORDER’S LATEST VICTIM

(Washington, D.C.): As the democratic
republic of Croatia is threatened with a
violent Serbian strategy of “divide
and conquer,” it has found its
communist adversaries succored by two
parties — one expected, one a
reprehensible disappointment. First, the
Gorbachev regime has, for domestic as
well as strategic reasons, made no secret
of its solidarity with the oppressors in
Yugoslavia. Taking cover behind such
concepts as “territorial
integrity” and
“non-interference in other nations’
internal affairs,” Moscow center is
looking to its own coming nationalities
crisis as well as tending to the
interests of fellow Marxists in Belgrade.
It would appear that the Soviet Union’s
disinformation apparatus is also playing
on Serbian fears of German, Austrian and
Hungarian revanchism to dissuade those
nations from becoming involved on behalf
of democratic Croatia.

Second, the Western democracies
tragically seem, as a practical matter at
least, to be accommodating the Gorbachev
stance on Croatia. According to an
article in the 20 July editions of the Washington
Post (a
copy of which is attached), the G-7
declined at their London Economic Summit
even to ask that international
monitors be dispatched to Croatia since
the USSR had signalled its opposition to
such an initiative. In other words, the
G-7 leaders were unwilling to put their
friend Gorbachev in the
awkward position of formally vetoing the
insertion of monitors from either
the United Nations or the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe (or both). Soviet
non-cooperation could, after all, derail
the West’s campaign to prop up the Soviet
leader. The heads of the major Western
democracies have, instead, apparently
simply resigned themselves to the
prospect of unchecked bloodshed and war
in Croatia.

Should the West persist in this
approach, it will not only allow the best
chance to prevent such an outcome to slip
away. It will also help shift the blame
for that tragedy to itself from where it
properly belongs — namely with the
communists in Serbia and their friends in
the USSR.

That the stage is being set for
communist-backed violence in Croatia is
no longer in serious doubt. With the
announcement last week that the
Serb-dominated federal army (JNA) would
withdraw — for the moment at least —
from its bases in Slovenia, the prospect
has grown that this force would not
simply relocate through the
neighboring Croatian republic, but occupy
it. Indeed, the army has already
violently intervened there using the
pretext of ethnic strife between that
republic’s Croat majority and the Serbian
minority — strife reportedly fanned, if
not deliberately fomented, by communist
Serbs in the federal government and armed
forces as well as in the Marxist republic
of Serbia.

Even before Slovenian-based forces
have been introduced into Croatia, the
JNA reportedly deployed four brigades
totalling 10,200 soldiers, 180 tanks, 200
tank transporters, 76 reconnaissance
tanks, 230 armored personnel carriers and
other combat vehicles in the eastern
portion of Croatia alone. Three
of these brigades have been
moved there in just the past three weeks.
These represent but a fraction of the
70,000 communist-controlled forces in all
of Croatia at present. What is more, a
further 200,000 reservists are being
mobilized in Serbia and in the Bosnian
region of Tusla. Should the federal
military decide to do so, these troops
together with some 161 ground attack
aircraft and 230 armed helicopters can be
rapidly brought to bear against the
democratic forces in Croatia.

By contrast, the Croatian national
guard has no tanks, armed military
aircraft or helicopters. While its troops
— predominantly equipped with
semiautomatic weapons and light anti-tank
systems — are capable of exacting a
punishing toll on invading forces, the
ultimate outcome is not really in doubt.
If the Serbian factions undertake to
subjugate Croatia militarily, victory —
if only a pyrrhic one — will likely go
to Belgrade.

The sole hope that such an outcome can
be avoided, and with it the chance
preserved for a free and democratic
Croatia, would appear to lie with the
external deterrents to Serbian
aggression. It is all the more
incredible, therefore, that the leaders
of the industrialized West have decided
not to take steps designed to maximize
such deterrence.

If reports of the G-7 summiteers’
decision on Croatia are true, the West
will have once again betrayed those
aspiring to freedom in the interest of
accommodating tyrants purporting to offer
“stability.” The Center for
Security Policy believes that such a
posture is wholly inconsistent with
Western values as well as the long-term
interests of the United States and its
allies. It finds totally
unacceptable the apparent premise that
the New World Order is an international
arrangement defined not by principles of
justice, freedom and the rule of law, but
by what suits — or is thought to suit —
the Kremlin.

Unless it wishes to assume
responsibility for the immense loss of
life and destruction of property sure to
result in Croatia from this abdication of
Western leadership, the Bush
Administration must
disassociate itself at once from
the putative G-7 consensus on Croatia.
This could be most swiftly
accomplished were the United States
to seek UN Security Council,
CSCE and EC support for immediate
deployment of international monitors
to the Croatian republic. The
Soviets (and, for that matter, the
Chinese) should be put on
notice that such a resolution is an
important test of their reliability as
partners in international
security — with obvious implications for
future economic aid and relations.

If all else fails, NATO — a
forum in which neither the USSR nor
China enjoys a veto —
should be called upon to sponsor a
contingent of unarmed monitors to
Croatia. Such a mission would
be entirely consistent with the new, more
political character that organization is
supposed to be adopting and would provide
a basis on which a constructive German
role could be played without arousing
unwarranted fears of revanchist
imperialism.

The Center calls upon the Congress to
encourage an Administration initiative
along these lines by enacting its own
resolution crafted to make clear the
United States’ view that the escalation
of violence now in prospect in Croatia is
neither inevitable nor acceptable. In
addition to endorsing the idea of rapidly
inserting international monitors, this
resolution should express the sense of
Congress that Serbian aggression against
Croatia would result in an immediate U.S.
recognition of Croatian independence.

In this connection, the Center urges
both the Bush Administration and the
Congress to bear in mind the powerful
warning expressed by Abraham Lincoln on 6
April 1859: “This is a world
of compensation….Those who deny freedom
to others deserve it not for themselves
and, under a just God, cannot long
retain it.”