BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA: U.S., U.N. Show Relief at Peace Agreement

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - U.S. and U.N. officials showed relief Tuesday as the presidents of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia concluded a full peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio.

“After nearly four years of 250,000 people killed, two million refugees, atrocities that have appalled people all over the world, the people of Bosnia finally have a chance to turn from the horror of war to the promise of peace,” U.S. President Bill Clinton said at the White House.

And U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali added that “the accords announced in Dayton give us hope that peace can now become a reality in the war-torn lands of the former Yugoslavia.”

The agreement came just hours after Bosnia’s outgoing foreign minister, Muhamed Sacirbey said they had failed and that only a miracle could salvage the Dayton talks. At the same time, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic were fuelling their planes in preparation to leave.

But a last-minute deal to secure the unity of Sarajevo and a few small land transfers clinched the deal, allowing Tudjman, Milosevic and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to receive an agreement for their signatures.

The agreement, initialed Tuesday, is to be signed formally by the three presidents a few weeks from now, Clinton noted.

“Something stirred among the leaders themselves and they decided that they should not let this moment pass, for the benefit of their people,” Clinton said.

For Bosnian and Serbian leaders, the accord presents an opportunity to end U.N. sanctions against their countries.

U.N. diplomats told IPS the Security Council may — as early as Wednesday — lift the three-year-old trade embargo against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and end the arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

One British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he saw no problem passing both resolutions even though Britain had until recently opposed a lifting of Bosnia’s arms embargo on the grounds that it could worsen tensions.

The agreement, Clinton affirmed, paves the way for a united Bosnia, albeit one divided roughly in half between a Bosnian-Croat federation and a Republika Srpska (RS) held by Bosnian Serbs. The republic, as previous agreements have outlined, will have a rotating central government, including Croat, Muslim and Serb members.

“There will be an effective central government, including a national parliament, a presidency and a constitutional court, with responsibility for foreign policy, foreign trade, monetary policy, citizenship, immigration and other important functions,” Clinton said.

But diplomatic sources here tell IPS the central government will remain fairly weak, allowing broad veto powers to each ethnic community.

The agreement also allows for a united government-held capital at Sarajevo. One major snag in the Dayton talks, which entered their 21st day Tuesday, had been the Bosnian Serbs’ insistence that they control part of Sarajevo, following a three-year Serb siege of the city.

But after all-night negotiations led by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, the Bosnian Serbs apparently backed down, allowing for a united Sarajevo.

The agreement allows the Bosnian Serbs to have a nine-mile-wide strip of land, the Posavina Corridor, connecting the territory the Serb rebels have seized in central Bosnia to their holdings bordering Serbia itself.

It allows the Bosnian Serbs and their allies in Belgrade to keep much of the land they seized in Bosnia.

Croatia, which has been promised the return of all the land within its borders over the next year as well as a prominent position in the Bosnian-Croat federation, emerges as the big winner.

The Muslim-led Bosnians stand in a weaker position, having conceded the RS’s existence while giving up possession of such recent Serb-conquered territory as Srebrenica and Zepa. But the Muslims have won a united Sarajevo, as well as continued control of, and land access to, the eastern town of Gorazde.

Disputes over land formed the main disagreement in recent days, with Bosnia’s Muslim-led government especially worried that their more than 51 percent of Bosnian land may not be secure enough. The government asked for U.S. help to defend and arm the Bosnian government — which remains a hard sell for Clinton.

“Now that the parties to the war have made a serious commitment to peace, we must help to make it work,” Clinton said.

He pledged his commitment to work with Congress to dispatch some 20,000 U.S. troops as part of a 60,000-soldier Implementation Force (IFOR) run by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Although IFOR is to be commanded by U.S. Gen. George Joulwan, Congress still wants to avoid sending U.S. troops to monitor a Bosnian peace. Congress last week passed a resolution requiring Clinton to seek its approval before he can commit any troops to Bosnia.

“We have assured Congress that there will be no complete deployment until they have a chance to be heard on this issue,” Clinton promised.

But he implored the U.S. public “to remember what we have seen and heard and read about for the past four years, and remember what the implications were not only for our consciences but for the prospect that the conflict could spread.”

BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA: U.S., U.N. Show Relief at Peace Agreement

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - U.S. and U.N. officials showed relief Tuesday as the presidents of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia concluded a full peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio.
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