Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511240047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS LENGTH: Long
The council voted unanimously to suspend the 3-year-old economic embargo and voted 14-0 to ease the arms ban. Russia abstained from voting on the arms embargo.
``By lifting the arms embargo and suspending economic sanctions, we have kick-started that long journey,'' said U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright. ``And we have given the parties the support they need to sign this historic agreement and insure its effective implementation.''
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was instrumental in winning the Bosnian Serbs' agreement. He participated in the Dayton, Ohio, talks in hopes of winning an end to the sanctions that have crippled the Serbian economy.
Wednesday's vote was his reward.
``This is the first concrete way of translating what happened in Dayton,'' Albright said before the vote.
In other developments:
The U.S. Army's top general said Wednesday that American casualties are inevitable if U.S. troops are sent to help keep the Bosnian peace. But the White House, making the case for 20,000 or more U.S. ground troops, said there's no choice: ``It's literally peace vs. war.''
The White House said President Clinton would address the nation Monday night about sending forces to Bosnia. Clinton might add a stop in Germany to his European trip next week so he can visit U.S. troops who would take part.
In Bosnia, President Alija Izetbegovic warned that his government forces would return to battle if Serbs renege on the peace deal.
``In case they fully reject the plan, we will after some reasonable period of waiting consider it invalid,'' Izetbegovic told state radio. If the agreement fails, he said, ``it is left to us to solve this militarily.''
U.N. aid officials have urged other countries not to respond to the deal by rushing to expel hundreds of thousands of refugees as winter grips the Balkans.
Bosnian Serbs have defied Milosevic in the past. He accepted two previous international peace agreements, which were flatly rejected by the Bosnian Serbs' self-styled parliament.
Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was silent about the accord, and no date has been set for the Bosnian Serb body to vote. Karadzic's information minister, Miroslav Toholj, indicated Karadzic wanted adjustments, specifically citing the provision for Sarajevo. The agreement calls for the city to be part of the federation of Bosnia's Muslims and Croats - one of the two entities that will comprise an effectively partitioned Bosnia.
Karadzic was not expected to comment until today, after the negotiators who represented him in Dayton returned.
Indicted by an international war crimes tribunal for genocide, Karadzic did not attend the talks in the United States, where he could have faced arrest.
In Washington, Gen. Dennis Reimer, Army chief of staff, said, ``If we make a commitment to this, we've got to expect some type of casualties. We've got to be able to withstand those casualties.'' The four-star general made no estimate of how many might get killed.
The timing of U.S. troop movements remained fuzzy, and administration officials stressed that Clinton must first be briefed on the peace deal and NATO's plan for implementing it.
White House press secretary Mike McCurry said the choices for American participation in the planned 60,000-member NATO force are clear now that the three warring parties have signed a comprehensive peace plan. ``It's literally peace vs. war. You either want the United States to participate in helping keep the peace the parties have agreed to, or you want the war to continue. That's just bluntly the truth of the matter.''
Richard Holbrooke, an assistant secretary of state who helped mediate the peace pact, said on NBC's ``Today'' program that U.S. ground troops would not be sent to Bosnia ``until we're absolutely sure that the peace agreement ... will work, that it will hold. And we're not going to send people into a war.''
But he added, ``Once the troops are there, they are going to be top dog in the country. If anybody hits them, then they are going to hit back.''
If, as expected, Clinton approves U.S. military participation in the NATO force in the next few days, NATO's political arm, the North Atlantic Council, could give its blessing as early as Wednesday. That could trigger the deployment within days of an initial ``enabling force'' of about 1,500 U.S. and other NATO troops to Bosnia to clear the way for the arrival of the main NATO force.
Skeptical members of Congress raised more questions about U.S. military involvement, including: How could American forces there maintain the appearance of being neutral peacekeepers if Washington simultaneously supplies arms and military training to the outgunned Bosnian government side?
Reimer, speaking with reporters, said this was ``a major concern on my part.''
``Our soldiers will be out there trying to enforce a peace accord, and we have to be careful that we're not perceived as being on one side or the other,'' he said.
by CNB