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

DATE: TUESDAY, May 4, 1993                   TAG: 9305040167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DONALD M. ROTHBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SERBS USING PEACE AS A WEAPON?

"So long as there is an active possibility for peace, the case for military action is weakened," said Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The sudden shift in Serbian strategy pointed up how complicated a task it is to put together the domestic and international support needed for military action. At home, Clinton has yet to spell out for the American people why U.S. troops should be placed at risk in the Balkans. A CNN-USA Today poll in late April found that 62 percent of Americans opposed air strikes.

"He has to make out the case for it, and he hasn't done that yet," Hamilton said of the president.

And now an already skeptical American public hears that Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has signed a peace plan that provides for an end to the fighting in Bosnia and division of the former Yugoslav republic into 10 cantons.

Karadzic's timing appeared designed to undermine Secretary of State Warren Christopher's mission to win allied support for using military force, in all likelihood limited to air strikes.

Christopher's first stop was London, and the reception from Prime Minister John Major and his government was distinctly cool.

Clinton and Christopher voiced skepticism about Karadzic's sudden support for a peaceful solution to the civil war.

As Hamilton put it, the signing of a peace agreement "clearly complicates Christopher's mission."

The NATO alliance is already reluctant to become involved militarily in Bosnia.

That reluctance has made it difficult for Clinton to get the attention of combatants in Bosnia when he talked about the need to take stronger action.

"For a long period of time, the threat of military force has not been credible," said Hamilton.

Perhaps the past week has changed that. Clinton may finally have convinced the Serbs that he is prepared to commit U.S. air power and political influence to ending the fighting.

They also may have realized that by talking peace they encourage the obvious Western reluctance to intervene.