Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 22, 1994 TAG: 9411220114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JULIJANA MOJSILOVIC ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BELGRADE, YOGOSLAVIA LENGTH: Medium
The Western alliance's raid clearly was meant as punishment after a string of increasingly audacious attacks by the Serbs on U.N.-protected targets.
Its long-term effects are unclear, however.
Croatian and Bosnian Serbs have lost the backing of Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic, at whose behest they went to war 21/2 years ago. They now are attacking Bosnian territory jointly because they know they must stick together to survive.
Battling a Bosnian government army that appears to be gaining strength, they seem intent on trying to finish the job now, gaining recognition of their claims to separate statehood. They may be trying to provoke such a big cross-border conflict that Milosevic would have to come to their aid. In doing so, they increase the risk of renewed war with Croatia and more NATO airstrikes.
A few more than 20 U.S. warplanes participated in the mission of about 30 aircraft, a Pentagon official said. The planes bombed Serb antiaircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites first, and then the airfield.
NATO has ``ample authority'' to defend U.N. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and will not hesitate to use it, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Monday. Republicans, however, were highly critical of U.N. control over NATO actions in Bosnia.
At a State Department news conference with Christopher, NATO Secretary General Willy Claes said repeatedly that the only way to end the fighting was through negotiations. Both Claes and Christopher said the airstrike had accomplished its purpose.
Claes also said the raid demonstrated that ``we are doing better in our cooperation with U.N.''
At the White House, President Clinton called the attack ``a good step in the right direction.''
But Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., the incoming House speaker, questioned the effectiveness of the raid.
``I think if we've learned any lesson from the Vietnam War, it's that occasional tactical airstrikes are ineffective in intimidating,'' said Gingrich. ``If we want to break the Serbians, then there should be a major campaign to break the Serbians. ... This kind of four-, five-, six-day effort is not very effective.''
Monday's attack not only was NATO's largest military operation ever, but it also expanded international involvement in the conflict in former Yugoslavia. In attacking the air base at Udbina, NATO planes took action in Croatia for the first time.
Serbs, who have held one-third of Croatia since their 1991 war, sent warplanes Friday and Saturday to attack two government-held towns in embattled northwest Bosnia, and joined Bosnian Serbs and renegade Muslim forces in their attacks. These raids launched from Udbina appeared primarily to terrorize the population and antagonize the international community.
Lord David Owen, the European Union mediator on former Yugoslavia, said he believed the actions of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs were intended to prod Milosevic back into the conflict.
``I think that's behind a lot of the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb intentions,'' Owen said. ``It is to provoke NATO and then to think that Milosevic must change his mind and must come in their support. I hope he doesn't.''
Whether the airstrikes lead U.N. troops and NATO itself into a quagmire depends partly on the defiant Serb leadership in Croatia and Bosnia, partly on NATO's appetite for confrontation.
Sources close to the Yugoslav army say Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander, orchestrated a shift to all-out warfare hoping to engulf both Croatia and Serbia eventually. That way, they believe, Milosevic would have to commit the still-formidable Yugoslav army to protect them.
Bosnian Serb leaders know well that the Muslim-led Bosnian army is better than it used to be; that NATO is pressing a harder line against them; and that their foes are likely to get more, better weapons with the U.S. decision to stop enforcing an international arms embargo against the Sarajevo government.
They are in a race against time. Bosnian Serbs announced Sunday that they had recaptured all the territory taken by the Bosnian army's 5th Corps in a surprise offensive out of Bihac last month.
That could have satisfied them, but Monday they kept attacking.
A Bosnian Serb military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia knew they had to stick together or they would ``cease to exist.''
Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic described the NATO airstrike as a ``pivotal event'' that showed that the international community now understands that Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia are working together.
by CNB