BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA: Muslim Countries Gain Voice Over Peace Pact

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 29 1995 (IPS) - After years of dismay over U.N. efforts in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Muslim nations are saying their voices are finally being heard here.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) air strikes this month against the Bosnian Serbs contributed to that shift, as have the recent victories by the Muslim-led Bosnian government. But perhaps the most significant factor is the increasing cooperation between the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the five-nation Contact Group on the former Yugoslavia.

The fruits of that cooperation were shown most clearly after the Contact Group — comprised of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — met with its counterpart group of OIC members Thursday night at the United Nations.

After the meeting, even some of the harshest critics of U.N. efforts in Bosnia seemed pleased.

“The OIC Contact Group is now accepted as having a role to play, and this is something that can be described as progress,” Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad told IPS Friday.

That was a rare optimistic comment from Mahathir, who just one hour earlier had told the U.N. General Assembly that “the United Nations has been a party to the double talk in Bosnia, insisting that morality had no place in peacekeeping.”

Yet Mahathir was encouraged by the results of the Contact Group talks, the second one following a Sep 7 meeting of the groups in Geneva.

Muslim nations will work with the European Contact Group in financing Bosnia’s reconstruction, the parties agreed. Some Muslim nations would also play a role in keeping the peace on the ground once a peace accord has been signed, Mahathir contended.

Many OIC foreign ministers were likewise confident that they have secured a niche for Muslim nations to assist the fledgling Bosnian peace process.

“We have found a consensus is beginning to emerge,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Abdellatif Filali said after the Thursday meeting. “We are all leaving the meeting today in an optimistic mood.”

Although no agreement has yet been reached on whether Muslim countries would join NATO in monitoring a peace accord, Filali is confident that “Islam is of necessity a participant.”

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, who co-chaired the Thursday night meeting with Filali, agreed with that principle.

“We have not discussed the details of an implementation force,” Kinkel said. “But NATO should play an important role, and Russia and Islamic countries should be included.”

Both Kinkel and Filali indicated there would still be some role for U.N. peacekeepers, who maintain some 40,000 troops in the Balkans. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has recommended, however, that U.N. forces in Bosnia be replaced by a multinational force — including NATO countries — if a peace pact emerges from the current U.S.-brokered talks.

The two Contact Groups also agreed to discuss further cooperation in helping refugees return to Bosnia, implementing disarmament and providing humanitarian aid.

The meeting itself, Kinkel added, is “a signal of our firm willingness and determination to cooperate.” That coordination, Filali said, would be helped in further meetings between the two in coming weeks, including possibly a meeting in Morocco next month.

Still, there remain some snags to achieving greater cooperation between the Muslim and European powers. Not only have the Muslim countries repeatedly voiced betrayal at the plight of the Bosnian Muslims, but many remain unconvinced that the current peace framework is workable or fair.

Mahathir complained that the “basic principles” recently agreed by the Bosnian, Croatian and Yugoslav governments appease the Bosnian Serbs — blamed for the bulk of the killings and displacements in the nearly four-year war — by allowing them to keep 49 percent of the land in Bosnia.

“If you agree on a 51-49 division, you are rewarding not only aggressors, but people who have been found guilty of all kinds of immoral acts,” Mahathir argued.

The United Nations and Western powers have only recently learned the lesson to counter Bosnian Serb aggression by using force, he added. “If you do apply pressure, the Serbs will give in,” he argued, noting the shift in the Bosnian Serbs’ fortunes since the NATO attacks.

The OIC also continues to seek progress on issues where Western powers fear to tread. In a release issued after the Thursday meeting, the OIC group said that the same rights that have been accorded to the Bosnian Serbs should also apply to the non-Serb peoples of Kosovo, Sanjak and Vojvodina.

But there is little chance that the current peace process will ever address the Muslim-majority Kosovo and Sanjak regions of Yugoslavia, nor the Hungarian-majority Vojvodina — all of which Belgrade argues are internal matters. OIC efforts to bring up harassment of those ethnic groups at the United Nations have consistently faltered.

Similarly, the OIC statement conditions any elections in Bosnia on the return of all refugees and displaced persons, and the handing over of all war criminals — including Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic and civilian leader Radovan Karadzic — to an international tribunal at the Hague.

The current Basic Principles, however, only agree on the right of refugees to reclaim or otherwise be compensated for their property, and refuses to address the issue of war crimes. Chief U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke said the latter issue would not play any part in peace negotiations.

But the differences remaining between the OIC and the Western powers over Bosnia are very small, Filali contended. “I hope the differences will be toned down to the point of disappearing completely,” he said.