A GREEN LIGHT FOR SERBIAN KILLERS, A SHRUG FOR CROAT VICTIMS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 30, 1993                   TAG: 9302010242
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FRANO JELINCIC
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
A GREEN LIGHT FOR SERBIAN KILLERS, A SHRUG FOR CROAT VICTIMS
FOR MORE THAN a year, Serbia has been involved in torture, rape, plundering, and murder in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
The policy of "ethnic cleansing" is indisputably genocide. It is clear that the systematic extermination of the population and the destruction of the cultural heritage of these areas are aimed at eliminating the non-Serbian peoples of the Balkan peninsula.
Surely the Serbs must be held accountable for their actions, but we also need to ask: Who has given them the green light to pursue their barbaric policies?
As uncomfortable as it might make us in the United States, the answer to that question is that President Bush, James Baker, Cyrus Vance, and the United Nations may have unintentionally given Serbia the nod.
I was visiting Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, in June of 1991, when Secretary of State James Baker was sent by President Bush to the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Baker appeared on Yugoslavian television and said that "we in Washington would like to see Yugoslavia remain united." Officials in much of the European community and even Moscow lined up behind Washington.
Nothing Baker could have said would have been worse. This was like giving Serbia a blank check for aggression.
It took Serbia very little time to cash this check. Using its control of the vast resources of the Yugoslavian armed forces, Serbia moved with increasing ferocity and brutality on Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
What did America do? President Bush said that he feared persecution of the Serb minority in Croatia! To limit conflict in the Balkans, he engineered an international arms embargo with U.N. support.
All this has done is limit the ability of non-Serbs to defend themselves. For more than a year President Bush held fast to this policy of supposed noninterference, while Serbia overpowered its victims.
Only after months of the most perverse brutality seen in Europe since Hitler, did world opinion start to shift against the Serbians. But as this happened, attention shifted to the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Croatia was all but forgotten. Croatia was old news.
Croatia, a recognized sovereign nation, had been invaded and much of its territory occupied by Serbia, but the world treated this as a done deal and looked elsewhere.
However, recently Croatia has worked its way back into the news. In what can only be described with a sense of pathetic irony, Croatia has become newsworthy because it had the gumption to try to retake a bridge from Serbian occupation forces.
By holding this bridge near the city of Zadar, Serbia has severed Croatia into distinct northern and southern zones. This bridge is the only physical link between the two segments of Croatia. Not only does Serbian possession of the bridge and the territory around it divide Croatia, but it also gives evidence of the Serbian intention to annex a corridor through Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to provide Serbian access to the Adriatic Sea.
So what happens when Croatia tries to get its bridge back? Suddenly the world remembers that Croatia exists. Last Saturday, CNN gave air time to the Serbian war criminals Milosevic and Karadic to condemn Crotians for attacking Croatian territory.
Our own Cyrus Vance said he was indignant and ordered the Croatian army to withdraw immediately. Even the sleeping Russian bear has roused itself to decry Croatia's actions.
It seems that Croatia gets noticed not when it is abused, but only when it fights back. And while this happens, the French commander of the United Nations' forces admits his impotence to affect events. As we have seen for some time in Bosnia-Herzegovina, U.N. troops are afraid to act in the face of the overwhelming strength and open hostility of the Serbian army.
Recently on "Face the Nation," Secretary of Defense Les Aspin said of the Balkan situation that "we have to have a deep talk." I am sorry, but the dead of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are unable to talk, and the living have had enough talking.
Recently on CNN, a camera broadcasting from a Sarajevo street came across a sign proclaiming "UNPROFOR" . . . go home! This sign was aimed at the U.N. forces, but it expresses a widely held feeling about the type of foreign intervention that has been going on in the Balkans. If Secretary Aspin's remarks reflect President Clinton's intention to continue Bush's failed policies, then go home.
The old leadership of the United States contributed mightily to the problems in the Balkans. If the new leadership is not going to do something positive, then it should get out and stop interfering.
While much of the world has tried not to admit it, the Balkans have been at war for almost two years. But largely because of decisions made by outsiders, Serbia has rampaged almost unchecked. As harsh as it sounds, by this time the best solution may be to let all of the people of the Balkans re-arm and settle this themselves.

Frano Jelincic, a native Croat and U.S. citizen, is artist-in-residence at Radford University.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB