[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           LIFTING THE ARMS EMBARGO ON BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, we have before us, I believe, one of 
the more profound problems facing the Government of the United States 
and perhaps the world. We have the Dole-Lieberman amendment relating to 
Bosnia to unilaterally lift by law, by an act of Congress, the arms 
embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  On the other hand, I know the majority leader--who has been an 
outspoken opponent and perhaps the first or second or third, but, 
anyway, one of the first people to come on the floor and publicly 
suggest the lifting of the arms embargo--is negotiating and attempting 
to put together a resolution that would approach it in a different 
manner, let me say. I hope he can do that.
  Having heard his resolution this noontime, I compliment the majority 
leader for his genuine effort to see that the arms embargo is lifted. 
The only quarrel we have is whether or not it should be unilateral or 
totally left to the multilateral United Nations effort. Perhaps the 
majority leader can negotiate and add to the resolution he is 
considering something that would indicate that, in the event there was 
a failure, after the United States did in fact table or support a vote 
on lifting the arms embargo, that the United States or the 
administration would come back to Congress and support a unilateral 
lifting, even if it is vague as to the time, but obviously this year. 
We cannot wait.
  In the meantime, Mr. President I have agonized over this for some 
time. As I say, sometimes a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, 
because I have been there four times. I have been to Bosnia, inside 
Bosnia on a couple of occasions and Belgrade and Zagreb and Macedonia 
and into Kosova several times. I have had an opportunity to visit and 
actually interview some Bosnian Moslems who were released or were able 
to get out of a camp that the Serbians set up. And it is devastating. 
It is genocide. It is murder. There are no two ways about it.
  It is not all just on the Serbs. There has been atrocities by the 
Croats and even by the Moslems. But there is no question, when you 
weigh it all, there is no justification of killing somebody for the 
sake of you do not agree with them or like them or you want them to 
move, so you kill them. There can be no justification. And those who 
are guilty of doing it, as Moslems, as Bosnian Moslems or Croats or 
Croatian Moslems or Serbs, or Serb Moslems, should be brought to the 
proper court.
  But what is going on and has gone on has been primarily perpetrated 
by the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and by Belgrade, by Serbia, by 
supporting them.
  Now, the arguments against lifting the arms embargo are really 
fascinating to me and I want to discuss them a little bit this 
afternoon.
  The first one is that it will be a bad example for other countries, 
such as some which want to lift embargoes against Iraq. That is one of 
the arguments that has been used. Second, would we need to give our 
negotiators more time to work out something? Third, that this violates 
international law by going against U.N. Resolution 713. And, fourth is 
that it is going to compound and increase the killings.
  Well, the imposition of sanctions against renegade states like Iraq 
or Libya or Serbia and others is a direct consequence of the illegal, 
aggressive behavior of those states.
  Bosnia and Herzegovina is a victim of outside armed aggression and 
has done nothing to warrant the continued imposition of an embargo 
which was instituted before it became an independent nation. So, at 
issue is the very existence of a U.N. member state which is recognized 
by the United States, parts of the CSCE.
  This question touches on a fundamental point, the ability of a nation 
to defend itself in the face of a well-armed aggressor--they have done 
nothing wrong, Bosnia and Herzegovina; it is somebody who has done 
something wrong to them--given the unwillingness of the international 
community to come to the collective defense in a meaningful way. This 
is the issue before us today.
  The United Nations General Assembly has, on at least two occasions, 
called for the lifting of the embargo against Bosnia, but we have not 
been able to lift it because of the Security Council. So the majority 
in the United Nations wants it lifted.
  Right here, the vast majority of the Senators in this body have voted 
for it. Some say they support lifting. Well, yes, they show they 
supported lifting. And they supported unilaterally lifting. And now 
there is a big debate. We had a vote on the floor of the Senate, 87 to 
9, Mr. President, supporting a call for exactly that, unilateral action 
to lift the embargo.
  Now, I know it was a sense of the Senate, it was not legislation, 
but, you know, when you say you are for something, it seems to me that 
you are called to be for something, or you have to say, ``I was not for 
it the first time and so I just made a mistake, so I am not going to do 
it.''
  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that rollcall vote be printed 
in the Record at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the rollcall vote was ordered to be printed 
in the Record, as follows:

               Rollcall Vote No. 8 Leg., January 27, 1994


                                yeas--87

       Akaka, Bennett, Biden, Bingaman, Bond, Boren, Boxer, 
     Bradley, Breaux, Brown, Bryan, Bumpers, Byrd, Campbell, 
     Chafee, Cochran, Cohen, Conrad, Coverdell, Craig, D'Amato, 
     Daschle.
       DeConcini, Dodd, Dole, Domenici, Dorgan, Exon, Feingold, 
     Feinstein, Ford, Glenn, Gorton, Graham, Gramm, Grassley, 
     Harkin, Hatch, Heflin, Helms, Hollings, Hutchinson.
       Inouye, Jeffords, Johnston, Kempthorne, Kennedy, Kerrey, 
     Kerry, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lott, 
     Lugar, Mack, Mathews, McCain, McConnell, Metzenbaum, 
     Mikulski, Mitchell, Moseley-Braun.
       Moynihan, Murkowski, Nickles, Nunn, Packwood, Pryor, Reid, 
     Riegle, Robb, Rockefeller, Roth, Sarbanes, Sasser, Shelby, 
     Simon, Simpson, Smith, Stevens, Thurmond, Wallop, Warner, 
     Wellstone, Wofford.


                                nays--9

       Burns, Coats, Danforth, Durenberger, Faircloth, Gregg, 
     Hatfield, Pell, Specter.


                             not voting--4

       Baucus, Kassebaum, Murray, Pressler.

  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, others will insist here and have 
insisted that, ``Just give us a little more time to get NATO or the 
United Nations on board.'' While this may have some appeal, we have to 
look at the realities. Neither NATO nor the Security Council are going 
to endorse the lifting of the embargo. It is not going to happen, 
because it has not happened. NATO allies, with troops on the ground, 
will never agree as long as their forces are deployed in Bosnia. I 
understand that. I understand the risks.
  And what happens if the Senate passes this? Does that mean there is 
going to be an attack? Nobody can guarantee or even surmise that that 
may happen. It may be that those forces that are on the ground, those 
countries will reassess keeping them there. But that is their judgment. 
At the same time, the unwillingness to take a necessary step to 
withdraw these troops is up to them, not up to us.
  And an attempt in the Security Council would face a vote on this to 
make a decision, and my guess is they are going to vote no. And if they 
do, the United States not only should, as the majority leader's 
proposal will do, should be out front on it--and we have been out 
front--but there comes a time when you just cannot sit back and say it 
is OK. The international community said, ``We are not going to do it; 
we are going to let the killing go on.''
  Postponing action only plays into the hands of the Bosnian Serbs and 
their sponsors in Belgrade by giving them more time to pursue their 
genocidal policies in Bosnia.
  This leads to my next point. Some say we have to give negotiations 
more time. Well, Mr. President, the Serbs have been making a mockery at 
the negotiating table of the United States and of the United Nations 
for the past 2 years.
  I quote from an article by John Pomfret, which appeared in the May 8 
edition of the Washington Post. Mr. Pomfret's conscientious coverage of 
this conflict has been outstanding and recognized as such. He writes, 
in part:

       The story in which U.N. forces essentially ``lost'' a Serb 
     tank in a zone around Sarajevo * * * is yet another case of 
     the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia finding that its 
     penchant for negotiating everything--including violation of 
     NATO ultimatums--has created more problems than it solves.
       Furthermore, the United Nations' insistence on negotiating 
     and renegotiating has sent out a signal that the organization 
     is waffling--and that has led to a hardening of position 
     among the Bosnian Serbs, widely considered the main 
     aggressors in this two-year old Bosnia war.

  Mr. President, the so-called ``lost tank'' episode this past weekend 
is only one more humiliating example of how ineffective the United 
Nations has been in trying to broker a meaningful cease-fire in this 
conflict.
  How long will the United States continue to allow itself to be 
associated with a so-called negotiating effort which has degenerated 
even lower, if that is possible, into the keystone cop nonsense of this 
past weekend of the lost tank?
  Now our leadership is in question and NATO's credibility has been 
severely undermined. Unbelievably, we are allowing its ultimatums to 
simply be dismissed by a U.N. representative in the name, once again, 
of negotiations.
  Then we have the legal argument that a unilateral lifting of the arms 
embargo would violate U.N. Resolution 713. This does not, in my view 
hold up, for two principal reasons. First, the embargo, which has been 
maintained after Bosnia was recognized and accepted as a member of the 
United Nations and other international organizations, contravenes 
article 51 of the U.N. charter. This article clearly states that a 
country has the right to defend itself.

  Some will say: But there is another part of article 51 which says if 
there are serious negotiations going on you could interpret it that 
they may not have the right.
  That is nonsense. That is in that charter for a specific reason, that 
no nation is expected to not be able to defend itself. To have an 
embargo placed on you as that nation when you were not even a nation, 
then become a nation, be recognized, and then not be granted full 
membership rights such as compliance with article 51, makes no sense. 
You cannot defend it on that ground.
  Second, the International Court of Justice has before it a case 
against Serbia brought by Bosnia alleging genocide.
  Unfortunately, the Court will probably not reach a decision for 
another year.
  But in the interim, one of the judges, Judge ad hoc Lauterpacht, in a 
concurring decision for the Court included in his analysis the 
following statement:

       [T]he inability of Bosnia Herzegovina to fight back against 
     the Serbs and effectively prevent the implementation of the 
     Serbian policy of ethnic cleansing is at least, in part 
     directly attributable to the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina's 
     access to weapons and equipment has been severely limited.
       Viewed in this light, the Security Council's Resolution 
     [establishing the arms embargo] can be seen as having in 
     effect called on members of the United Nations, . . ., to 
     become in some degree supporters of the genocidal activity of 
     the Serbs . . . and to that extent to act contrary to a rule 
     of jus cogens [the ``known law'' making genocide an 
     international crime].

  The bottom line, is that in addition to very strong arguments 
regarding the legality of the arms embargo is the moral argument.
  How long will the United States continue to be an accomplice in the 
Bosnian slaughter for the sake of a multilateral effort which has, on 
several levels, become seriously discredited and obviously is not 
working?
  Finally, the argument that lifting the embargo will increase the 
killing is one which really appalls me.
  The Bosnians have had no shortage of determination to fight 
aggression and genocide.
  The only thing they have lacked, thanks to the embargo, is the means 
to defend themselves.
  Remember that Bosnia had no army when the Serbs attacked.
  If the Serbs had faced a credible opponent earlier, it is reasonable 
to assume that they would have stopped fighting long ago and thousands 
of victims would have been spared.
  By keeping the arms embargo in place we can be certain of one thing--
that the well-armed aggressors, who have already killed over 200,000, 
and caused 2 million more refugees, will claim more victims--who 
continue to be denied a fighting chance to defend themselves and their 
country--the dignity to stand up and fight for your own land.

  Some will say it will take a long time if you did lift the embargo 
for them to be able to use these weapons. Again that is nonsense. 
People know, historically, when you are fighting for your country and 
you have that will and you are up against it you do not have any 
trouble learning how to use a howitzer or a tank or anything else. You 
learn quick because you have to and that is the reality, historically, 
when that has happened.
  And then the argument is there will be an effort to retake parts of 
Bosnia. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Bosnia has never accepted this 
so-called Vance-Owen or whatever you want to call it plan that has been 
on the table. And the United States, though we have pressured them to 
do it, wisely says no, we will not accept it either if you will not.
  So, sure it would cause negotiations and maybe more bloodshed. But 
the bloodshed would be in defense of one's country instead of the 
slaughter today that is going on in that country due to Serbian 
aggression.
  I hope, truly, the majority leader's effort can bring about a vote 
here that will ultimately commit the administration to unilateral 
lifting of the embargo in the event the United Nations does not vote to 
do so. I can accept some time to see that occur, as difficult as that 
is for me, because it is not an unreasonable way to go. But I cannot in 
conscience not vote for a lifting of the arms embargo. If that is the 
only alternative I have tomorrow, I will have to do so and I truly hope 
enough people here will have the courage to do what is right, not what 
is negotiable, not what is maybe termed appealing because it buys time, 
not because the President's prestige is on the line. His prestige is 
not on the line. He has done the best he can. It is an intolerable 
situation. Everybody knows President Clinton is opposed to this 
genocide. He has spoken out time and time again about it so he does not 
have to apologize. Nobody has to apologize for this President.
  The Vice President, when he was in this body less than 2 years ago, 
was one of the most outspoken in favor of efforts of lifting the 
embargo, imposing sanctions, and using air strikes. This administration 
has a clear position.
  So I, in ending, say the time has come to put the principle first 
here and not the politics, not the international concerns, but the 
lives of innocent people.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bryan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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