July/August 1993, Page 15

Words to Remember

Bosnia in Munich, May 17-June 20, 1993

"Islamic countries accuse the West of sacrificing Bosnian Muslims to sidestep involvement, poisoning a relationship that showed promise after their partnership in the Persian Gulf war. Political leaders have mostly heeded those warning against taking a side in the Balkan battles. But some have recently concluded that a failure to intervene now will only raise the stakes in a conflict likely to flare and demand quelling later.'' —Correspondent Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1993

"What Bosnia is about is changing borders. If the West acquiesces to a new map achieved by force in Yugoslavia, why shouldn't 4.5 million Russians in northern Kazakhstan change that border by violence and join Russia? . . . What we in the West are saying is, 'We don't care.' That's a dangerous answer in apart of the world where political borders don't correspond to ethnic borders . . . The day after the Serbs take Sarajevo, any Russian leader who stands up and says we have to create a 'Greater Russia' will be listened to."—Senior Associate Paul A. Goble, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 17, 1993

"We will watch the ethnic cleansing of Vojvodina, which is already under way, then we will watch the ethnic cleansing of Sandzak and then we will watch the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Conflict in Kosovo raises the likelihood of an international war, dragging in Albania, which has security arrangements with Turkey while the destabilization of Macedonia could easily bring in Greece and Bulgaria. " —Foreign Policy Adviser Karsten Voigt of Germany's Social Democratic Party, May 17, 1993

"Administration policy makers deny that they have abandoned their goal of arming the Bosnian Muslims, and Mr. Christopher saidtoday that the United States had 'not given up' on what they think isthe soundest approach, lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia with whatever compensatory air action that may be necessary. But he and other officials blame the Europeans for their failure to follow thatcourse. And given Mr. Clinton's insistence that the United Stateswill do nothing without allied agreement, policy makers concede that the proposal is on the shelf rather than on the table. . . As forMr. Clinton, he has once more removed himself from dealing with what Mr. Christopher today again called 'a problem from hell. "'—Correspondent Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, May 19, 1993

"Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic announced a set of radical new demands today that he said must be met if peace is to come to the Balkans. One would require tens of thousands of Slavic Muslims to leave eastern Bosnia . . . Previously, Karadzic had said he would accept creation of Serb-dominated provinces in Bosnia that would be surrounded by lands controlled by Muslims or Croats. Today, however, the Serb leaders said that the only way peace would come to Bosnia was if all three factions would separate in a massive population transfer that would rip apart the cultural patchwork that has endured here for centuries . . . The landscape claimed as the Bosnian Serb republic is a ruined one—burned out Muslim villages, gutted mosques, torched churches, barren fields, mined roads. At one point on a five-day trip through Serb-held territory, a visitor found every village destroyed along a 22-mile stretch of road." —Correspondent John Pomfret, Washington Post, May 19, 1993

"European editorialists now use Bosnia to link Clinton not only to Jimmy Carter but to an old line from Lewis Carroll: 'If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there' . . . The administration is now tempted to go into a sulk and withdraw from the front line of diplomacy on Bosnia and blame the Europeans, much as George Bush did. Bush was guilty of mere cynicism. Clinton will stand accused of the far worse sin of ineptness if, having asserted U. S. Leadership on this issue, he now abandons it.''—Columnist Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, May 20, 1993

"The lack of an effective international response to counter the policy of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Serb forces . . . created the precedent of impunity which has allowed them to continue and which has encouraged Croat forces to adopt the same policy." —U.N. human rights investigator (and former Polish prime minister) Tadeusz Mazawiecki, May 20, 1993

"The Clinton administration tried briefly and unsuccessfully to convince its European allies earlier this month that they could not simply watch as the Bosnian Muslims went down to defeat. But as the complexities mounted, the administration seemed to lose the courage of its conviction that lifting the arms embargo for the Muslim-led Bosnian government forces and bombing Serbian military targets would bring peace closer. " —Correspondent Craig R. Whitney, New York Times, May 21, 1993

"After a month that began with fears of American fighter bombers striking from aircraft carriers in the Adriatic, the Serbian nationalists appear to have concluded that the only force that ever threatened their hold on 70 percent of this former Yugoslav republic, NATO firepower, is not going to be aimed at them...'You Americans couldn't even win in Vietnam,' said a 25-year-old soldier who gave his name as Zoran . . . As Zoran spoke, the roar of jet engines could be heard somewhere far above, apparently from one of the NATO aircraft patrolling the no-flight zone imposed over Bosnia to stop Serbian military aircraft from attacking Muslim and Croatian areas. Zoran laughed and pointed to the skies. 'You see,' he said, 'they dare not get anywhere close to us. They try to frighten us with their noise, but that's all it is, noise. That's all America has ever been good for here, noise' . . . The Serbs know that President Clinton has backed away from the tough talk of only three weeks ago. In Pale, Mr. Clinton's shifting resolve appeared to have encouraged moves that carried Bosnia closer than ever to dismemberment . . . The self-styled parliament of the Srpska Republic approved measures aimed at consolidating the breakaway state and making it, in practice if not in law, a province of Serbia. . . There was a palpable confidence, too, that there was nothing to fear from the embargo purportedly imposed on the Srpska Republic by Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia. Mostly, Serbs questioned about the embargo seemed to consider it a ruse that Mr. Milosevic had adopted to put distance between Serbia and the dismemberment of Bosnia. " —Correspondent John F. Burns, New York Times, May 20, 1993

"After months of discord and vacillation, the United States, Russia and key European allies agreed today on a joint strategy to contain the fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to create and protect safe havens for Muslim civilians besieged by Serbian nationalists there . . . Mr. Christopher. . . said the havens would be nearly impossible to protect through the threat of air strikes alone if the Bosnian Serbs decided to attack. [He] said today that he himself had not changed his mind about 'the pluses and the minuses of safe havens,' but that the United States had decided to go along with it because the Europeans wanted it . . . But the strategy outlined by the allies is designed to contain the war, not to punish the aggressors, and it essentially accepts the territorial gains of the Serbs." —Correspondent Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, May 22, 1993

"We are determined that the international community will act together based upon shared responsibilities and a common purpose to bring increased pressure to bear on those engaged in the conflict in Bosnia. This international pressure will be brought especially to bear upon the Bosnian Serbs who stand solely isolated from the community of civilized nations. . . Since the international community feels, as represented by my colleagues . . . that that can be a valuable concept, the United States is willing to cooperate in that endeavor."—U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, after Washington meeting with foreign ministers of France, Britain, Russia and Spain, May 22, 1993

"On his way to a lunch in Manchester, NH, Clinton said of the joint statement, 'At least we're together again. ' Later he described the pact as 'a step toward ending the ethnic cleansing and slaughter by staking out safe havens. . .The American people should be reassured that we have limited the possibility of quagmire and strengthened the possibility of [ending] ethnic cleansing and the possibility of limiting the conflict."' —Correspondent Daniel Williams, Washington Post, May 23, 1993

"Reaction from Bosnia is perhaps the best measure of the plan and its likely outcome. Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic bitterly rejected the plan yesterday, saying it was 'totally unacceptable' and rewarded genocide. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic . . . called the plan 'realistic, ' adding that President Clinton was 'going to be a great president."' —Correspondent Carla Anne Robbins, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 1993

"We had faith that the Americans, if nothing else, would behave like gentlemen . . . Clinton talked a lot. But instead of leading, the Americans followed—of all people—the Russians."—Murat Efendic, military mission representative in Sarajevo of the besieged Bosnian town of Srebrenica, May 24, 1993

"We used to say, 'Never forget, never again.' What was it we were supposed to never forget? What we're allowing to happen before our very eyes . . . The moral basis of the world international order in the aftermath of Bosnia is weakened as it has not been since the 1930s . . . The world that watched has committed a grave sin. " —Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), May 24, 1993

" The commander of Bosnian Serb forces has backed out of talks here at the last moment, jeopardizing plans to establish a U.N. mandated 'safe haven' around the Bosnian capital, U.S. officials said today." —Correspondent John Pomfret, Washington Post, May 28, 1993

"As Serb nationalists have nearly completed their drive to expel Muslims from territories the Serbs claim in Bosnia, Muslims across the border here in Yugoslavia are fleeing what they say are increased attacks against them . . . They say such attacks have increased in recent weeks, since Serb nationalist hard-liners called for these 'ethnic cleansing' tactics to be extended into Sandzak, one of two Muslim majority regions in Serbian-ruled Yugoslavia. . . Sandzak abuts Yugoslavia's other Muslim flash point—Kosovo, a tense Serbian ruled province with a 90 percent Albanian population where Western governments fear fighting could erupt that would risk drawing in other Balkan nations. "—Correspondent James Rupert, Washington Post, May 29, 1993

"Behind the fanciful phrasing of NATO defense ministers meeting here last week—as they talked of Muslim 'safe havens' in Bosnia and of military options still somehow 'on the table'—the reality of the situation in the Balkans was clear. With Europe and the United States hiding behind each other, Serbian and Croatian aggressors have been given carte blanche to make good on their gains in Bosnia." —Correspondent Roger Cohen, New York Times, May 30, 1993

"Sarajevans say they have become used to the horrors of the indiscriminate shelling that has ravaged their city and compelled those who refused to abandon it to shield themselves from the random shooting by huddling indoors or scurrying through back alleys . . . But what many claim they cannot get used to is the constant disappointment they have suffered as a result of having counted on outside forces to do the right thing." —Correspondent Carol Williams, Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1993

"They want to put us in these safe zones so Bosnia won't be a problem for them anymore. Maybe they'll come back to us in a few years . . . But with this plan, the international community is killing us . . . I feel like I was cheating the people, because I was the one advocating Western democracy all the time. I believed in it. " —Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic, June 1, 1993

"Mortar shells exploded today amid a neighborhood soccer tournament, killing at least a dozen people and wounding 80 in the worst single incident in a year in the bombardment of [Sarajevo] by Bosnian Serb forces . . . The attack on the soccer match was the largest single civilian blood-letting in Sarajevo since May 27,1992 when 16 people were killed in a shell explosion while waiting in a downtown bread line." —Correspondent Chuck Sudetic, New York Times, June 1,1993

"U.N. troops assigned to Bosnia are heavily deployed in troubled areas in the center of the republic, where Croatian forces have been attempting for two months to expand the territory they hold by driving out Muslims who for most of this war were their allies. Those bitter clashes have flared repeatedly and inspire acts of revenge. . . On Monday U.N. troops patrolling the Gornji Vakuf area interrupted an ambush by about 50 Croatian fighters who had halted an aid convoy headed for Muslim areas, [UNPROFOR spokesman Barry] Frewer said. After beating one of the drivers and setting mines around the trucks to detain their convoy, the Croats planted ammunition in the cargo, then filmed themselves searching and discovering it 'for obvious propaganda purposes,' Frewer said." —Correspondent Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1993

" [The Bosnian Serbs think] they can just sit on their territory. They are cocky and they are confident and we will just have to wait until they face the reality . . . I am certainly not going to be used as a fig leaf for Mr. Karadzic's behavior. The greatest danger is that governments mouth support for the Vance-Owen peace plan but don't actually believe it." —Lord Owen, in Sarajevo, June 4, 1993

"Serbs have lately resumed the offensive after a retreat by Washington and its European allies from threats to use force to halt the Serbian tide sweeping across Bosnia." —Correspondent Carol J. Willians, Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1993

"A weeklong assault against the Muslim enclave around the town of Gorazde, designated as a safe area by the United Nations, has killed 300 people and wounded hundreds more, reports on the Muslim-controlled Bosnian radio said today. . .Serbian militia members were looting villages inside the safe area, near the village of Ustipraca, the reports said, loading plunder into trucks and driving off in the direction of Visegrad, which the Serbs occupied and purged of its Muslim population last year." —Correspondent Chuck Sudetic, New York Times, June 4,1993

"Many believe that Serbian nationalism is not appeased by the gains in Bosnia, but is feeding on them. They predict more war ahead, not less. The extremists who command pillaging armies of irregulars in Bosnia are not likely to stop with the ground they have won so far. The temptation to press ahead to create a 'greater Serbia, ' uniting the two million Serbs living outside the borders of Serbia proper with the six million inside Serbia, seems more irresistible than ever." —Correspondent John Darnton, New York Times, June 4, 1993

"The United Nations Security Council voted overwhelmingly today to authorize the United States and its allies to use air strikes against Serbian forces besieging six Muslim enclaves in Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . The Security Council measure was passed by a vote of 13 to 0, with Pakistan and Venezuela abstaining. It was the first time since the civil war in the former Yugoslavia started two years ago that air strikes were authorized against Serbian forces . . . The total number of people displaced from their homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina is estimated at 2.2 million, up from 1.6 million in December. The total number of refugees in the whole of the former Yugoslavia now stands at 3.8 million, not counting an estimated 600,000 who have fled to Western Europe, settling mainly in Austria and Germany." —Correspondent Paul Lewis, New York Times, June 4, 1993

"The United States representative, Madeleine K. Albright, made clear that the Clinton administration only supported the resolution reluctantly and as a stop-gap measure. 'The United States voted for this resolution with no illusions. It is an intermediate step—no more no less.' If the Serbs do not respect it, she asserted that the United States would press again for its preferred solution, which is to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia's Muslims so they can rearm and recapture lost territory by force. 'My government's view of what those tougher measures should be has not changed,' she said. " —Correspondent Paul Lewis, New York Times, June 4, 1993

" 'Ethnic cleansing' was first practiced by Bosnian Serbs. More recently, Bosnian Croats copied them. The Muslims now show signs of following suit . . . In the era of what seemingly only yesterday was being hailed as the new world order, the conflict in former Yugoslavia has shown the international community unwilling or unable to formulate, much less carry out, a coherent policy. " —Urs Boegli, International Red Cross operations coordinator for Yugoslavia, New York Times, June 4, 1993

"Bosnia's U.N. ambassador, Muhamed Sacirbey, indicating frustration that the allies had not moved against the Serbs with direct military action, accused the United States of signing on to a 'joint avoidance program' and said the Security Council had 'at least implicitly declared an open season on the unfortunate majority of our citizens who do not happen to fall in safe areas. " —Correspondent Julia Preston, Washington Post, June4,1993

"Instead of safe areas, what we have is the implicit surrender of a vulnerable population. " —Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.N. Diego Arria, June 4,1993

"Last week Undersecretary General Chinmaya Gharekhan warned American, British, French, Spanish and Russian representatives that the world organization feared that it would never be able to carry out the new resolution. The lone country to offer troops is Pakistan, but the soldiers whom it wants to send do not even have armored personnel carriers. Turkey has much of the sophisticated equipment that the planners say they need. But United Nations officials say it would be politically unwise to send Turkish troops into a region that was once part of the Turkish empire." —Correspondent Paul Lewis, New York Times, June 5, 1993

"Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Europe on Tuesday hoping to persuade Washington's NATO allies to share in the air defense of safe areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Despite the focus on the havens, the senior official aboard Christopher's plane said the United States has not yet given up on its plan to level the battlefield by sending arms to the Bosnian Muslims and bombing the Serbs. 'Tougher measures are very much still on the table, ' he said. 'Nothing is excluded. Nothing is prejudged."' —Correspondent Norman Kempster, Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1993

"'The Muslims are surrounded and the Croats put a knife into their backs,' said Stjepan Kljuic, who led the Croats in Bosnia until he was ousted last year by Mr. Boban. 'The Serbs have succeeded in doing a fantastic thing, to get the Muslims and Croats to turn against each other."' —Correspondent Chuck Sudetic, New York Times, June 9, 1993

"By yielding to the claims that America cannot relieve Bosnia's agony without the cooperation of the United Nations, or England and France, or Russia, we are binding ourselves with myriad Lilliputian strands that may hold us back in future crises. What is politically possible, or legal under international law, rests heavily on practice and precedent. Failure to act in Bosnia will make it that much harder to act elsewhere in the future. " —American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Joshua Muravchik, June 10, 1993

"The Serbs have refused to allow United Nations military observers to enter Gorazde, where 60,000 people have been trapped by a year of fighting and where supplies of food and medicine are reported to be critically low, despite an international airdrop. Asked if the Serbs were testing last week's Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of thousands of United Nations troops to protect the six 'safe areas,' Commander Frewer said: 'I can't rule out that possibility. "' —Correspondent Chuck Sudetic, New York Times, June 11, 1993

"In a step he called 'both symbolic and tangible,' Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced Thursday that the United States will send a reinforced infantry company of 300 troops to Macedonia to join a U.N. observer force intended to prevent the Balkan war from spilling over into another former Yugoslav republic. . .The 2Ol) combat troops and 100 support personnel most likely will be drawn from forces stationed in Germany or Italy . . . U. S. officials said that U. S. military personnel already in the region includes 186 in a field hospital in Zagreb, 12 at UNPROFOR headquarters near Sarajevo, 14 military engineers deployed around the former federation, 26 attached to U.N. refugee programs, 12 assigned to a NATO liaison office and 79 support personnel such as clerks and communicators. Twenty of the troops are in Bosnia. "—Correspondent Norman Kempster,Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1993

"During Mr. Christopher's first official visit here as secretary of state. . tone subject was Turkey's frustrations with what its leaders perceive as the inaction of NATO in stopping the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. . . The Turks have offered to join the United States and other NATO countries in the air rescue of peacekeepers guarding the 'safe havens' designated by the United Nations, and would be willing to provide troops as peacekeepers in Bosnia. But Mr. Christopher said the United Nations does not want any Balkan country to take part for historical reasons. As for Turkish participation in providing air cover, he called it a 'NATO decision."' —Correspondent Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, June 12, 1993

" More than 50 people were reported killed at an improvised first aid center when Bosnian Serb forces unleashed heavy artillery barrages on Gorazde, which the United Nations designated a safe area less than two weeks ago . . . 'No one survived, ' said Fahrudin Becic, a ham-radio operator reporting from Gorazde. 'The place is now a mixture of body parts, bricks and plaster.'" —Correspondent Chuck Sudetic, New York Times, June 13, 1993

"Confronted by European allies unable to act to preserve the peace in one of the first post-Cold War tests of European order Washington is slipping into a practice of drift. Secretary of State Warren Christopher's characterization of the Bosnia conflict is a humanitarian crisis a long way from home, in the middle of another continent' is hauntingly reminiscent of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's description of Czechoslovakia in 1938." —World Policy Journal editor James Chace, New York Times, June 14, 1993

"The delays in sending the troops mean the allies will not be in a position to use the air power they pledged until August or September. 'In the best of times, it takes three months to deploy troops into the field,' said Kofi Amman, undersecretary general for peace-keeping operations . . . Several Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Tunisia, have offered troops. But they need additional training for the mission, as well as transportation equipment and other supplies that the United Nations will have to get from the stocks of other countries. " —Correspondent Julia Preston, Washington Post, June 15, 1993

"The military leaders of Bosnia's three warring factions signed an agreement today to stop fighting at noon Friday. The accord was one of the broadest the United Nations has brokered in Bosnia's 14 months of warfare, but there was no sign it will hold any better than the dozens of previous truces and agreements. " —Correspondent James Rupert, Washington Post, June 15, 1993

"Muslim militia forces rampaged through a number of Bosnian Croat villages northwest of Sarajevo today, looting and forcing as many as 10,000 people from their homes. Muslim and Croat forces—long allies in the war against the most powerful Serbs—have clashed repeatedly in Central Bosnia over the last few months in an effort to secure territory they hope will be apportioned them as part of any postwar peace settlement. And much of the violence appears to be retaliatory: As Croat militiamen make a ghost town of a Muslim village, the Muslims do the same to a Croat village. " —Correspondent James Rupert, Washington Post, June 16, 1993

"Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic stunned delegates to a world human rights conference meeting here Tuesday with an emotional plea for the international community to do something to save his war-torn nation from more bloodshed. . . The delegates present in the main auditorium of the sprawling Vienna Conference Center gave Silajdzic a standing ovation...Moments later, delegates passed a resolution cobbled together by a group of Islamic countries demanding that the U.N. Security Council take what it called 'the necessary measures to put an end to the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina."' —Correspondent Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1993

"The United States will provide air transport for U.N. peacekeeping troops volunteering for duty in Bosnia-Herzegovina but will not ferry them to all the safe areas being established for Muslims, State Department officials said yesterday. The offer of transportation was designed to make it easier for other countries to donate troops to the effort, which has yet to get very far . . . Only Sweden, Tunisia, Pakistan and Malaysia have offered troops for safe haven duty, Western diplomats said." —Correspondent Daniel Williams, Washington Post, June 17, 1993

"The leaders of Serbia and Croatia, the two most powerful republics in the old Yugoslav federation, today proposed scrapping the international plan for ending the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . President Franjo Tudiman of Croatia said the plan would preserve the nominal unity of the country. But in other respects the proposal described by Mr. Tudiman resembled the situation on the ground: three separate ethnic areas, with Muslims confined to two separate landlocked pockets of territory, one around Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla and the other in the northwest around Bihac. " —Correspondent Paul Lewis, New York Times, June 16, 1993

"We're approaching a settlement that will equally respect the interests of all three nations." —Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, June 16, 1993

"Drawing the map of Bosnia and Herzegovina was yesterday handed over to the perpetrators of one of the most horrible crimes in history. . . Maps are now being drawn by people who killed 200,000 people." . —Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, June 17, 1993

"More than two years ago, Tudjman and Milosevic jointly proposed a partition of Bosnia, but the Muslims rejected it, and U.S. diplomacy until now has been centered on preventing such an outcome. In pursuit of this aim, Washington recognized the independence of Bosnia and supported the Vance-Owen plan despite some misgivings. State Department of ficials said they are unsure if the partition proposal would mean formal dismemberment of Bosnia or some form of federation among three autonomous states. Without international support, the Muslim-led government, based in the Serb-besieged capital of Sarajevo, seems threatened with extinction together with the concept of a unified Bosnian state. . . The more likely outcome now seems either independent Bosnian Serb and Croat states alongside a small Muslim one situated on roughly the 10 percent of territory the Muslims now control in the republic, or the attachment of Serb and Croat-held territory in Bosnia to their patron states to form a 'greater Serbia' and a 'greater Croatia."' —Correspondent David B. Ottaway, Washington Post, June 17, 1993

" Lord Owen pointed out that Bosnia's seven-member collective presidency, which includes two Serbs, Croats and Muslims and a single representative of smaller minorities like Gypsies and Jews, is to meet in Zagreb on Sunday to examine the proposal . . . All three presidents [said] yesterday they would accept ethnic minorities in their states. But the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, said that while he did not object in principle, he thought it better that non-Serbs leave a Serbian state." —Correspondent Paul Lewis, New York Times, June 17, 1993

"My preference was for a multi-ethnic state in Bosnia, but if the parties, including the Bosnian government, agree, genuinely and honestly agree, to a different solution, the United States would have to look at it very seriously." —U.S. President Bill Clinton, June 17, 1993

"Mr. Clinton's comments . . . reflect the latest—and most dramatic—shift in his thinking on Bosnia and raise doubts about his administration's commitments to recognized territorial borders. . . That passive response was in sharp contrast to Mr. Christopher's remarks on Feb .10 when he unveiled the Clinton administration's Bosnia policy. At the time, he said, 'The continuing destruction of a new United Nations member challenges the principle that internationally recognized borders should not be altered by force. "' —Correspondent Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, June 18, 1993

"A cease-fire halted the shelling around Sarajevo today, but residents of the Bosnian capital expressed shock at what they described as abandonment by the West and particularly by President Clinton. Many Sarajevo residents—who are predominantly Muslim but include Serbs and Croats—regarded Western mediation and the threat of military intervention to back it up as the best chance to preserve their dream of maintaining Bosnia as a unified, multi-communal state. . . Muslims, and many urban non-Muslims who share the vision. . . regard Sarajevo as the capital of such a state . . . If the Serbs claim Sarajevo . . . 'they will face a different kind of fighting,' said a Western observer of the conflict here. 'To actually take the city, they will have to fight the Muslims house by house and block by block' . . . Such a conflict also would bring civilian casualties 'that the West probably could not ignore' and raise anew the question of Western intervention, he said. " —Correspondent Janes Rupert, Washington Post, June 18,1993

"The Muslim side—the weakest side—has a Hobson's choice—either to accept division or to be ground down because the West is unwilling to help except through cheap rhetoric. " —Former U. S. A'nbas sador to Turkey Morton I. Abranowitz, June 18, 1993

"If the [Vance-Owen] plan has really failed, what follows is a forced recognition of ethnic cleansing and of borders which have been forcibly changed. That is something we never wanted." —German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, June 18, 1993

"Editorial comment throughout Europe strongly condemned the Serbian-Croatian plan. Le Monde said that the international community had capitulated to 'the tribal law of the jungle.' The Dusseldorf-based daily Westdeutsche Zeitung proclaimed that 'those who kill, banish and rape have won the day. "' —Correspondent John Darnton, New York* Times, June 18,1993

"Will not Bill Clinton, at least, hold back from endorsing this latest diplomatic perversity? By doing so, there's at least a chance he can shame Europe into similar restraint. And even if that fails, he will at least have preserved America's reputation as a country that believes the law of nations means more than the law of the jungle . . . The United States reasonably refused to proceed on its own in Bosnia, against European objections. But that's no reason to join Europe in pressuring a helpless victim to commit suicide. "—New York Times editorial, June 19, 1993

"It is indicative of how low the fortunes of the Vance-Owen effort had fallen that when Owen formally announced its demise on Thursday in Geneva, major Western governments, which had not been forewarned of Owen's announcement, nonetheless easily resigned themselves to it."— Correspondent Daniel Willians, Washington Post, June 19, 1993

"The whole world has said to the Muslims, 'Disintegrate.' Instead, the United States should now be moving to introduce at the United Nations a plan to lift the arms embargo and let the others veto it." —Sen. Joseph Biden (D DE) in New York Times interview, June 19, 1993

"Heavy fighting flared across Bosnia today despite a cease-fire among the republic's three warring factions, while Serb nationalists in neighboring Croatia apparently voted overwhelmingly in favor of a proposition declaring their wish to unite with Serbia and Serb held lands in Bosnia . . . The latest truce agreement, a republic-wide accord signed last week by top commanders of all three warring parties, seems barely to have slowed the killing. The agreement also provided for U.N. humanitarian aid convoys to enter the Serb besieged Muslim city of Gorazde in eastern Bosnia, but Serb militia forces today turned back a convoy carrying 80 tons of food and other supplies destined for the embattled enclave . . . As many as 70,000 desperate residents and refugees are jammed into the city, and hundreds are said to have been killed by relentless Serb shelling." —Correspondent David B. Ottaway, Washington Post, June 20,1993

"Western leaders cannot pretend their policy failure is a success. Nobody, especially President Clinton, should think that because the West has abandoned Bosnia to partition the war will go away . . . In Bosnia, no party has any incentive to stop fighting. The Muslims will never lay down their weapons in unconditional surrender: Serbs and Croats would only kill them more quickly. Serbian forces have not yet met all their territorial objectives . . . Over the summer, the Serbs and the Croats will pack the Muslims into a few ever-smaller areas . . . Neither Serbs nor Croats will allow supplies through; only the international community's pathetically inadequate aid may get in, via Sarajevo or Tuzla airport. The Muslims will continue to fight. The better armed Serbs and Croats will continue the slaughter. By the middle of winter, the Muslims' cumulative death toll may reach over half a million . . . In Croatia, it is highly likely the Croatians and Serbians will renew full-scale war over Serb-occupied Croatia this summer. For weeks, both sides have been mobilizing. . .What Western leaders consistently fail to understand is that President Milosevic must have a war; if he declared a real peace today . . . within months he would be out of power . . . A general Balkan war is brewing. For the West, it's still not too late to begin to bring the situation under control . . . As the crisis becomes more obviously the catastrophe that it is, President Clinton may yet decide to act. If he does nothing and a general war begins, however, he will clearly share responsibility for it." —Former State Department desk officer for Yugoslavia George Kenney, who resigned in August 1992 to protest U.S. policy, New York Times, June 20,1993