Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993 TAG: 9305020178
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From Newsday and The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Administration officials said Clinton also would ask the United Nations to lift the international arms embargo on the embattled Bosnian Muslims.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew to Europe Saturday night for consultations with NATO allies and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, with a public announcement of his decision tentatively scheduled for midweek. White House aides said Clinton was likely to address the nation from the Oval Office.
"The president decided on the direction that he believes the United States and the international community should now take in this situation," Christopher told reporters. "This direction involves a number of specific recommendations, including military steps."
Christopher flatly ruled out use of American ground troops, as Clinton has done before.
Christopher outlined two primary motives for moving against the Serbs. "There are, of course, issues of conscience and humanitarian concerns at stake. . . . But fundamentally, our actions are also based upon the strategic interests of the United States. All of us seek to limit the risk of a widening instability that could lead to a greater Balkan war."
Officials at the State Department and White House, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military steps included air strikes. But they refused to answer specific questions - what sites would be targeted, for instance, and whether "safe havens" for Bosnians would be established - until Christopher's consultations were completed.
The officials left open the possibility that the air strikes might include targets in Serbia, which has been a sponsor and supplier for the Bosnian Serbs and their campaign of "ethnic cleansing."
They said Clinton also would move to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnians, badly outgunned by the Serbs, a step that would fulfill a pledge he made to them when peace negotiations seemed to hold some promise. He had said he would lift the embargo if they signed a peace plan but the Serbians refused.
White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers cautioned that the consultations with Europe might prompt Clinton to revise his plans. Christopher expressed "some confidence" that they would agree.
Clinton also began calling foreign leaders including British Prime Minister John Major and French President Francois Mitterand to notify them of his decision, an administration official said.
Sen. Minority leader Robert J. Dole, R-Kan., offered Clinton support for lifting the arms embargo to aid the Bosnian Muslims and for air strikes against Serbian targets if the president recommends those actions.
Dole said the urgent task for the president is to "tell the American people as much as we abhor the pictures [of Bosnian suffering] why it is in our national interest to intervene." Second, he said, Clinton "must rally our European allies" to support whatever action the United States takes.
Clinton also has sent U.S. special envoy Reginald Bartholomew to Athens, Greece, to monitor last-chance peace talks convened there by former secretary of state Cyrus Vance and European Community mediator Lord David Owen. A White House official said one possible trigger for the United States to move ahead could come Wednesday, when the Bosnian Serbs' self-proclaimed parliament is scheduled to vote on whatever peace plan results from the weekend meeting.
There were growing indications that Bosnia's Serbs were on the verge of buckling to intense pressure brought by Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, and the international community and endorse a peace plan that would divide Bosnia into a loose federation of 10 semiautonomous provinces.
Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for the mediators, said the "changed political atmosphere in Belgrade" was responsible for salvaging a controversial peace plan that, on several occasions, has appeared on the verge of extinction.
The Bosnian Muslim-led government and Bosnia's Croats have endorsed all of the key documents, but the Serbs have balked at signing two - the territorial map of the 10 provinces and the plan for interim rule until elections can be held within two years.
The sudden change of mind by Yugoslavia, now composed of Serbia and Montenegro, in seeking to persuade their Bosnian Serb allies to approve the plan appeared to derive from the tighter sanctions and the mounting threat of outside military intervention, including American air strikes.
But Christopher downplayed the importance of the Athens meeting, saying it would not be enough for the Serbs to "give us a signature on a peace plan." He said the Serbs would have to honor a cease-fire and permit humanitarian aid to go forward.
"What we're tired of is simply their words and actions and manipulation," he said, using unusually blunt language. "We're proceeding on our own track here," he said. "We're not going to be diverted from that track."
Clinton's decision could prove to be one of the most fateful of his presidency. He may face a difficult selling job to the American public. A CNN-Time poll released Saturday showed that 52 percent of those surveyed thought the United States has done enough on Bosnia; 36 percent said the United States should do more. The prospect of launching bombing raids was opposed 52 to 36 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
by CNB