[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 57 (Wednesday, May 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 BOSNIA

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, yesterday, and in days preceding it, there 
has been an ongoing debate about Bosnia. I would like to take a few 
moments, if I may, to discuss the amendment which is pending on the 
floor and to add some thoughts to this debate. This is an important 
debate for the U.S. Senate to have, and one which will have very far-
reaching ramifications for the people of Bosnia, for the diplomatic 
efforts of the international community and, particularly, for U.N. 
peacekeepers on the ground.
  I think it is fair to say that there is not one of us in the U.S. 
Senate, in this country, or among civilized people around the world, 
who has not been distressed or horrified by the atrocities that have 
been perpetrated by the Serbs against the Bosnian people: the wholesale 
violation of the rules of war, the emptying of whole villages through 
ethnic cleansing, the orphanization of children, and the rape of 
countless young women and girls as a systematic strategy of war. Many 
people had hoped the civilized world had put these things behind, or 
failing that, that the international community would be able to do more 
about them or prevent them entirely.
  We also are outraged by the defiance of the Bosnian Serbs in 
attacking civilians as well as international peacekeepers in the U.N.-
declared ``safe havens.'' They have demonstrated a reckless disregard 
for the norms of international law and warfare by shelling hospitals, 
holding relief workers hostage, and attacking peacekeepers who are 
trying to protect innocent civilians.
  We are angered by the violations of cease-fires by Bosnian Serb 
commanders and by the intransigence of those who represent the Bosnian 
Serbs at the negotiating table. We are frustrated by the collective 
failure of the international community to bring an end to this 
conflict, which has the potential of spreading to Kosovo, Albania, 
Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, or Turkey. In light of that potential, we 
need to think very carefully about the idea of unilateral lifting.
  The transgressions of the Bosnian Serbs are so heinous that the 
international community, long ago, should have summoned a greater 
response for its outrage. Had we done this, the situation might be 
different today. But we did not, and that is why we suddenly find 
ourselves discussing the possibility of unilaterally lifting the arms 
embargo.
  In the wake of our frustration, outrage, and anger, we want to take 
some action that will make a difference. That is the American 
instinct--to want to respond to this kind of problem and to make it 
clear to the world that we have a different standard of behavior. It is 
not just an American standard; it is a universal standard embodied in 
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
  We want to level the playing field. We want to give the Bosnian 
Moslems a fair chance to ``defend'' themselves against this enemy that 
is more powerful and better equipped.
  We know that there is an inequity in the embargo that was put into 
effect by the United Nations because it has allowed the Bosnian Serbs 
to be supplied while denying the Bosnian Moslems the weapons that they 
need. That is why so many of us pressed more than a year ago for the 
lifting of the embargo, to give the Bosnian Moslems a chance to defend 
themselves. The problem is that you cannot take the response that was 
appropriate a year or more ago and transfer it to the situation you 
have today and necessarily have the same result, or even the result 
that you want to achieve, which is to minimize the fighting and end the 
killing.
  I would respectfully submit to my colleagues, whom I know feel as 
passionately as I about this situation, that to move at this particular 
moment to lift the embargo unilaterally will work counter to their 
intentions and may indeed have the far more dangerous effect of 
escalating the violence, increasing the killing, prolonging the war, 
and involving the United States in ways which we have assiduously tried 
to avoid.
  The pending amendment mandates that the President terminate the 
United States arms embargo against the Government of Bosnia upon 
receipt of a request from that Government for assistance in exercising 
its right of self-defense.
  The right of self-defense, which has been used to justify this 
particular step, is in article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. 
The first part of that article suggests that every nation has a right 
of self-defense and that the United Nations cannot take that away from 
them. However, the article also suggests that where the United Nations 
is involved in an international peacekeeping effort, a state cannot 
invoke the right of self-defense in contravention of those efforts.
  We have conflict in Bosnia but we also have an international effort 
to restore the peace. The troops on the ground are not our troops, but 
they are troops of some of our key NATO allies, and they are at risk. 
Our allies do not want to lift this embargo at this moment. By voting 
for the pending amendment, we are telling the very nations that have 
their troops on the ground that we, who have no troops on the ground, 
are willing to lift the embargo and put their troops at risk.
  Moreover, like it or not, we have been, and are viewed as, a neutral 
party vis-a-vis the current conflict. We are not viewed as having 
chosen a side, except the side of the United Nations. We are viewed as 
neutrally trying to press for peace. Given our role in the negotiations 
and our position over the last year and a half, lifting the embargo 
unilaterally will wipe away the neutrality and send the message to the 
Bosnian Serbs that all of a sudden the United States has decided we are 
coming in on the side of the Bosnian Moslems. The effect of that, as 
Senator Glenn has well pointed out, is to pave the way for the delivery 
of military assistance.
  If you are a Bosnian Serb and all of a sudden you see a lot of 
weapons coming in from the United States, which has suddenly decided to 
help the Bosnian Moslems, your response is going to be: ``We better 
take them out fast before they learn how to use those weapons. We 
better start augmenting our campaign. And since the United States is 
willing to alter the balance of power and to abandon its neutrality, to 
hell with the safe havens and the exclusion zones. We are now going to 
have to fight this to the bitter end.''
  So, unilateral lifting would not advance the negotiating process. 
Rather, it would have the unfortunate impact of putting the troops of 
our allies in jeopardy, forcing our allies to consider whether or not 
to withdraw their forces from UNPROFOR altogether, and ending the 
humanitarian relief efforts.

  It does not make sense. We are going to deny ourselves the very 
things we have been struggling, through the United Nations, to achieve 
over the course of the past months.
  I have heard my colleagues come to the floor and plead for lifting 
the embargo now in order to allow the Bosnian Moslems to defend 
themselves. I agree that they should have had that right long ago. But 
in May 1994, that plea has a different meaning. That plea does not 
really just mean ``Give us the right to defend ourselves.'' It really 
means ``We want the weapons to be able to fight, to roll back the gains 
made by the Bosnian Serbs.''
  The same intransigence that the Bosnian Serbs have demonstrated at 
the bargaining table would now grow within the Bosnian Moslems. They 
would not negotiate to a conclusion because they would suddenly say: 
``Now we've got the weapons; now we can fight back. We are going to get 
this corridor back, and we are going to get this town back, and we are 
not going to go to the negotiating table until we have achieved what we 
want in terms of a bargaining position.'' So the war will go on, not 
end.
  If we lift the embargo unilaterally, as the pending amendment 
contemplates, Bosnian Moslems, rightly so, will regard us as their 
patron and protector. They will see themselves as our client. The 
Bosnian Serbs, their supporters in Belgrade and Moscow, and others in 
the international community will see it this way too.
  The request from the Government of Bosnian will be coming across our 
fax machine within minutes if this amendment is approved. Who is going 
to deliver the weapons? The CIA or will they be sent through some back 
channel? And what happens to those weapons ultimately? Do we really 
want to start loading up this area with more weapons at this point in 
time?
  I believe that unilateral lifting of the embargo would sound the 
death knell for diplomacy, for the time being. It would send a message 
to the warring parties, to the United Nations, and to our NATO allies 
that we, the United States, have given up on the negotiations. It would 
send a message that we believe our collective strategy is falling apart 
at the very moment, incidentally, that the Croats and the Bosnians have 
signed an agreement and are moving to a confederation and at the very 
moment that we have achieved, through the threat of air strikes, the 
safety of Sarajevo, Gorazde, and Zepa.
  All of a sudden we would be saying, ``To hell with it. We are going 
to let them fight it out.'' The result would be that the negotiations 
would be deterred, not advanced.
  I would respectfully suggest that the approach of the Senator from 
Maine, the majority leader, is the sensible approach, because it asks 
that we go on record in favor of lifting the embargo in conjunction 
with others in the international community, particularly those with 
people at risk on the ground.
  It is no secret that our NATO allies are not in favor of lifting the 
arms embargo at this time. They would regard our doing so as a 
deliberate attempt to undermine the sanctions regime imposed by the 
United Nations--a regime which we supported and voted for.
  I would remind my colleagues again--and this is not a small matter--
that our allies are the ones with the peacekeepers on the ground. They 
are the ones whose soldiers are at risk. It is not America that has had 
the courage to come forward and say we will put people on the ground.
  If we lift the embargo and peacekeepers get killed because of 
intensified fighting, our allies will hold us accountable. If we lift 
the embargo and our allies have the perception that the danger to their 
forces has substantially increased, they may pull some or all of their 
forces out of UNPROFOR. That could lead to the collapse of the 
humanitarian relief effort in towns like Sarajevo, Goradze, Srebrenica 
and Zepa, where Bosnian civilians are surrounded by Serb forces. As a 
result, we would wind up in the totally contradictory position of 
trying to help the Moslems defend themselves while at the same time 
contributing to the demise of the international effort that is helping 
them to survive. Who, then, would bear the responsibility for 
protecting and feeding threatened civilians? Many would point to us!
  I might add there is another factor that our colleagues who want to 
move unilaterally have not considered--Russia. In recent weeks the 
Russians have played a very responsible role vis-a-vis the Serbs. If we 
act unilaterally at a time when our allies in Moscow oppose this 
lifting, we run the risk of alienating the Russians, putting enormous 
pressure on Boris Yeltsin, and encouraging them to dig in their heels 
in support of their ethnic kin, the Serbs. Zhirinovsky and others will 
have a field day pointing to the fickle United States of America, which 
operates unilaterally because of its own grand designs on the people of 
that region. He and his supporters will press Yeltsin to help the 
Bosnian Serbs.
  I think we should also recognize that lifting the arms embargo 
unilaterally would encourage many of our allies who have supported 
other embargos to say, ``Well, if the United States can unilaterally do 
this, we can unilaterally pull out of this other embargo,'' most 
particularly the embargo on Iraq. Unilateral termination of the United 
States embargo on Bosnia ultimately could undo our own policy with 
respect to Iraq.
  Proponents of lifting the embargo now argue that it would bring an 
end to the conflict because the Bosnian Serbs would be deterred from 
fighting further once the Moslems have access to heavy weapons. Well, I 
respectfully suggest that the history of that war and the history of 
the Balkans defy that presumption.
  Heavy weapons in the hands of the Moslems would provide a strong 
incentive for Belgrade to decide that more people ought to become 
involved. Then, we will be asking ourselves what to do now? Do we 
commit NATO to this conflict in a whole-hog fashion to roll back 
territorial gains by the Serbs? I have no doubt about who would win, 
but I am just questioning whether that is the next step we want to 
take.
  Over the last 25 months, the Bosnian Serbs have proven their 
determination to fight and fight and fight in the face of extraordinary 
odds. They have won a lot of territory on the battlefield. I think most 
people agree, and the President has again and again said, that this is 
not going to be resolved ultimately on the battlefield; it is going to 
be resolved at the bargaining table. We are at that table and we should 
not give people an incentive to leave it.
  According to the State Department, the Bosnian Government would 
probably need very large, heavy-caliber weapons, including medium and 
heavy artillery, medium-tanks and long-range antitank weapons, 
including the TOW. No doubt these weapons would increase the firepower 
of the Bosnian Government forces, but be assured they would increase 
the level and the intensity of fighting as well.
  Mr. President, the distinguished leaders of this body have given us a 
choice. The minority leader's amendment offers us the opportunity to go 
on record in support of unilateral lifting of the embargo in the very 
near term, as soon as the request for assistance comes in from the 
Government of Bosnia. The majority leader's amendment allows us to 
support the air strike option and to recognize the desire of the Senate 
to move forward to lift the embargo as part of a multilateral effort. I 
think the latter is the better approach and the more responsible 
choice.
  Multilateral lifting would keep us in league with our allies. It 
would send a stronger signal of international disapproval of Bosnian 
Serb behavior because it would be a multilateral action not a 
unilateral action. It would enhance our ability to bring pressure to 
bear on the Bosnian Serbs.
  Mr. President, as I have said again and again, unilateral lifting 
might have been the right option at the outset of this conflict because 
it would have equalized the situation. The fighting and the victories 
on the battlefield would have occurred under a different balance of 
power. However, if we lift now, unilaterally, we run the risk of 
jeopardizing all of our efforts to resolve this conflict.
  Progress at the negotiating table has been slow and painstaking. 
Nevertheless in recent weeks diplomacy has paid off. Agreements have 
been reached between the Bosnian Moslems and Bosnian Croats. The 
Governments of Bosnia and Croatia have now concluded an agreement on 
confederation.
  The diplomatic process has been reinvigorated through the so-called 
contact group, that is Russia, the United States, and the European 
Community. With NATO poised to strike Bosnian Serb forces that attack 
safe havens or violate the exclusion zones, the contact group is now in 
a much stronger position to press for movement at the table than at any 
other time in the past.
  And since the establishment of an exclusion zone around Goradze, the 
fighting on the ground has almost calmed down. People said weeks ago, 
``How are we going to save Goradze? Lift the embargo.'' Lifting the 
embargo would not have saved Goradze. We did not lift the embargo but 
we did save Goradze. It proves that we have alternatives that are 
working at this moment in time.
  Although the Bosnian Serbs have failed to comply completely with the 
United Nations requirements for the removal of weapons from the 
exclusion zones around Sarajevo and Goradze, the establishment of the 
zones, coupled with the threat of NATO air power, has improved the 
situation for civilians trapped within those towns.
  The shelling has stopped, civilians are no longer being hurt or 
killed, and humanitarian aid is once again being delivered. Why one 
would want to make the move that undoes those accomplishments is beyond 
me.
  Undoubtedly the deterrent value of NATO air power depends on the 
willingness of the United Nations to use it. I believe we have to 
streamline the command and control and eliminate the reluctance of Mr. 
Akashi to support those commanders on the ground who ought to have the 
right to protect their troops when needed. We have a command and 
control problem and we ought to solve it. But it is important to 
recognize, this problem aside, that the international community does 
have a strategy today for penalizing the Bosnian Serbs for violations. 
That strategy ought to be given a chance to work.
  If it does not work, if our allies decide there is no other course, 
we have the leverage under the Mitchell amendment to empower the 
President and the allies to move on the embargo. I would support that. 
But I do not think that at this particular moment, alone, with the 
restoration of the safe havens and the progress on the diplomatic 
effort, that this unilateral move is sensible or advisable.
  For the United States, as the leader of the international community, 
to go its own way with an effort that has so many downsides measured 
against the upsides, is not only dangerous but it flies against our own 
efforts to encourage others to cooperate and to resolve disputes in 
multilateral fora. I hope my colleagues will agree and that we will 
adopt the position of the majority leader and reject a move that flies 
against our own diplomatic efforts, our own history in terms of 
multilateral approaches, the dictates of the situation on the ground, 
and the current diplomatic-military structure that we find ourselves 
in.
  I yield whatever time I have left.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SASSER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kohl). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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