Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993 TAG: 9304270175
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The new steps implement a U.N. resolution, adopted Sunday, that calls for U.N. members to freeze Serbian assets abroad and move even further to cut off trade between Serbia and the world.
"It is now, I think, clear that the United States and our allies need to move forward with a stronger policy in Bosnia," Clinton said.
"I think the time has come to focus on that problem and what it means for the United States and for the rest of the world, as well as for the people that are suffering there."
One option under consideration, according to State Department and congressional sources, is the use of American air power to help protect U.N.-sponsored "safe havens" within Bosnia.
Under the plan, other nations - including Britain, France and Canada - would provide the ground troops required.
While the action would be portrayed as humanitarian assistance already authorized by the United Nations, it would be a significant expansion of the U.S. military commitment to the conflict.
Earlier in the day, the first cracks appeared in the alliance between Bosnian Serbs and their patrons in Yugoslavia when Bosnian Serb leaders rejected a peace plan - despite a sharply worded appeal from Serbia's president.
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had urged the ad hoc Bosnian Serb assembly to accept the U.N.-sponsored plan to end more than a year of fighting in Bosnia - and head off the sanctions.
Nevertheless, the 77-member assembly voted unanimously against the plan.
Besides prompting sanctions, the Bosnian Serbs' intransigence may bolster the arguments of those in the West and the Islamic world who say only through force will the Serbs stop fighting.
Clinton said he hoped to announce a new policy within several days after "serious consultation" with congressional leaders. He also made plans to call French President Francois Mitterrand, spokesman George Stephanopoulos said.
If President Boris Yeltsin had been rebuffed in Sunday's referendum, Clinton said, Russia might have opposed multilateral action.
"This is a very, very good day not only for the people of Russia but for all the people of the world," Clinton declared.
Key members of Congress pressed for action to protect Bosnians from slaughter. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate subcommittee on European affairs, endorsed U.S. air strikes against Serbian artillery positions, and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas dismissed sanctions as "just a way to buy time."
"Sanctions have never worked anywhere else," Dole said. "I don't know why they'll work in Bosnia."
"The Serbs have made suckers out of the U.N.," complained former Secretary of State George Shultz. He called for large-scale air strikes against Serbian military targets.
Clinton has flatly ruled out sending U.S. ground troops, and European allies have resisted backing air strikes, but that resistance may be changing, Vice President Al Gore said. "I think the world's reached a turning point on Bosnia."
by CNB