West's bold initiative may trigger catastrophe

COMMENTARY

BY TONY BARBER

Europe Editor

What will Bosnia look like a month from now? If the West's latest initiatives are successful, then the Bosnian Serbs will have released their United Nations hostages, the UN peacekeepers will be in safer places and more capable of defending themselves, Serbia will have recognised Bosnia in its pre-war frontiers, and the Bosnian Serbs will be so politically isolated that they will accept an international peace plan.

However, if the West's initiatives fail, then a real catastrophe may take shape.

Nato may implement plans to withdraw UN forces, the evacuation could be chaotic and cost the lives of soldiers and Bosnian civilians, vulnerable Muslim enclaves could collapse under Bosnian Serb pressure, and the war could expand, sharpening other disputes in the Balkans and putting the US at odds with Russia.

Over the past three days, Western governments have been careful to construct their policies in such a way that they can respond quickly both to positive and to negative developments in Bosnia. Thus, the new British forces on their way to Bosnia can either help to toughen up the UN presence there, or they can contribute to pulling out the peace-keepers.

For the moment, the preferred option is to keep the UN in Bosnia and make the operation more effective by rearming the soldiers and redeploying them in more defensible positions. At the same time, the West intends to pursue an energetic diplomacy aimed at enlisting Serbia's support for the total isolation of the Bosnian Serbs.

"There is no military solution on the part of the international community. A war-imposed solution would be folly and so once more we must pursue the diplomatic process," said Alain Juppe, the French Prime Minister.

British, French and US officials were keen yesterday to play up the prospects that Serbia's President, Slobodan Milosevic, would recognise Bosnia, thereby shattering the Bosnian Serbs' hopes of forming a Greater Serbian state. But in yet another sign of transatlantic differences over Bosnia, US diplomats appeared to be more sceptical than their European opposite numbers, putting the chances of Serbian recognition at 80 to 85 per cent compared with the 90 per cent cited by the Europeans.

European governments hope that if President Milosevic recognises Bosnia, this will demonstrate the value of emphasising diplomacy over force. This in turn might make it less likely that the Clinton administration, under pressure from the Republican-dominated Congress, would adopt the bolder but in some ways riskier course of lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia's Muslim-led government.

Mr Milosevic has so far held back from recognising Bosnia because he wants firm guarantees that UN sanctions on Serbia will be fully lifted and not reimposed at some future date. He also needs to be sure that he can sell such a startling switch in policy to Serbian domestic opinion, and in particular to the militant nationalists who are already poised to denounce him as a traitor.

Some uncertainty still hangs over the West's precise intentions with regard to the UN operation in Bosnia. Officials spoke yesterday of "regrouping" and "concentrating" the peacekeepers in safer places. Such language could mean removing UN troops from the three Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia at Gorazde, Srebrenica and Zepa.

Such a step would represent a serious blow to the UN Security Council's concept of "safe areas" for Muslims, and would probably open the way for more ethnic cleansing by the Bosnian Serbs and another Muslim refugee crisis.

However, it is known that the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, was ready to propose a withdrawal from the eastern enclaves last week, until US officials expressed vehement disagreement.

A UN pull-out from the three zones would leave the Muslim-led government with only three patches of territory around Sarajevo, Tuzla and Bihac. Under such circumstances, it is uncertain whether the Muslims would feel obliged to maintain their support for the Western-Russian peace plan that envisages giving 51 per cent of Bosnia to the Muslims and Croats and 49 per cent to the Bosnian Serbs.