[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 15, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 BOSNIA

                                 ______


                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 15, 1994

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, last week we in the House did ourselves 
proud by voting to lift the arms embargo against the beleaguered people 
of Bosnia. I would first like to extend my thanks and congratulations 
to the 242 Members who voted to do the right thing. The Western 
response to the Serb onslaught in the Balkans has been cowardly and 
myopic and I am proud to be a part of this body which chose to rise 
above the level of the bureaucrats who have scripted this shameful 
disgrace.
  Mr. Speaker, George Melloan of the Wall Street Journal has written a 
magnificent article on the Bosnian situation, and I would like to 
submit it for the Record.
  Mr. Melloan reveals what the true stakes in Bosnia are, eloquently 
weaving in the lessons we learned from WW II and D-day. The author also 
caustically, but accurately, describes the intellectual and moral 
poverty of the United Nations, European Community, and United States 
response to this 3-year-old crisis.
  Basically, says Mr. Melloan, the issue in Bosnia is not peace, but 
peace with freedom and justice. Just as it was during WW II. If the 
logic of the peace-at-any-price bureaucrats running our Bosnia policy 
were applied to WW II, D-day would have never happened. We and the 
British would have just rolled over, all in the name of peace. Well, 
Mr. Speaker, fortunately we had some moral leadership during WW II, as 
well as during the cold war. But today we have no moral leadership. We 
have only bureaucrats. As Mr. Melloan aptly states, ``Only real leaders 
deal in values. Bureaucrats just do arrangements.'' I share Mr. 
Melloan's contempt for these bureaucrats and I am sure the majority of 
those who voted to lift the embargo do too.
  The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that the Clinton administration still 
does not appear to have gotten the message. As we read in the article, 
Secretary Christopher, on the day we voted to lift the Bosnian embargo, 
was busy doing an arrangement of his own, telling Serbs that we will 
lift the embargo against them if they accede to a plan to divide 
Bosnia. But asked whether we would resurrect our discarded plan to arm 
the Bosnians in the event that the Serbs blocked the partition plan, 
Secretary Christopher wasn't talking. In other words, a carrot for the 
aggressor Serbs, and a stick for the Bosnian victims. In other words, 
an arrangement, not justice.
  This is why I have dubbed this administration the ``appeasement'' 
administration, Mr. Speaker, and it is why the conferees on the defense 
bill should include the House language on Bosnia. For without 
congressional leadership, there won't be any leadership.
  I thank the Speaker and submit the article by Mr. Melloan for the 
Record.

             [From the Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1994]

           Not Just Peace, But Justice, Is What Bosnia Wants

                          (By George Melloan)

       President Clinton should take a few minutes this week to 
     listen to the tapes of his own D-Day speeches. What he said 
     about the war of a half century ago has application to a 
     bloody struggle on European soil today. The Bosnian war was 
     shoved off the front pages and airwaves by last week's 
     Normandy celebrations, but it hasn't gone away.
       The Allies of 50 years ago knew what they were doing. It 
     wasn't ``peacekeeping.'' It was war-making, against a tyranny 
     that had locked its iron grip on Europe. Generals and 
     privates alike believed in the Allied cause, which helps 
     explain why so many willingly faced death and why the Allies 
     ultimately prevailed.
       It has been argued by President Clinton, among others, that 
     things were ``simpler'' back then. Everyone knew that the 
     Nazis were the bad guys. But are things really so much more 
     complicated today? Only a little over a year ago, the West 
     was willing to call Serbia the aggressor against the Bosnian 
     government, something that seemed self-evident to everyone in 
     the world who owned a television set. ``Ethnic cleansing'' 
     and lobbing shells into crowded market places did not qualify 
     the top Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, to be 
     anyone's heroes or role models.
       Things only got complicated in May 1993, when the Clinton 
     administration decided that the U.S. should avoid ``taking 
     sides'' in Bosnia. In other words, the U.S. approach would be 
     purged of all considerations of values or ethics. While that 
     might be consistent with the way much public policy is made 
     these days, it's a shallow-minded way to approach a war. The 
     Bosnians want peace, but more than peace they want justice. 
     Because the thirst for justice is a powerful human impulse, 
     the Bosnians have fought on, even though outgunned by Serbia 
     and constantly advised to settle--and even threatened if they 
     don't--by the U.N. and U.S.
       If the United Nations had been conducting U.S. foreign 
     policy in 1940, as it appears to be today, it would have 
     advised England to accept Hitler's offers of peace. A 
     politically decadent France had been quickly vanquished and 
     Hitler's armies were poised to vault the channel. We'll send 
     some ``peacekeepers'' to protect you, the U.N. would have 
     said. There were no such seductive promises to Winston 
     Churchill, not that it would have mattered. He defied 
     Hitler and began preparing to defeat the evil Nazi empire.
       The relevance today of those long ago events has to do with 
     that word ``justice.'' The Bosnians don't think the U.N. is 
     interested in delivering justice. Why should they? Only real 
     leaders deal in values. Bureaucrats just do arrangements, 
     such as the proposal that Bosnia accept Serb control over 70% 
     of its territory. The communities and properties Bosnians had 
     lost to ethnic cleansing would go to Serbs. What kind of 
     justice is that?
       Since then, and particularly since the Bosnian army began 
     demonstrating greater effectiveness, the U.N. has sweetened 
     its offer. But if the Bosnians have strong suspicions that 
     the U.N. and the West have been merely following the path of 
     least resistance, they have ample justification. The U.N. 
     embargo crippled Bosnia's ability to obtain heavy weapons to 
     fight the well-armed Serbs. It put Bosnia at a great early 
     disadvantage it has not yet overcome.
       Moreover, Yasushi Akashi, the U.N.'s limp-wristed vicar in 
     Bosnia, even seems willing to spare the Serbs from embargo 
     hardships. An article in London's Daily Telegraph last month 
     said that quantities of imports, including oil and material 
     for armaments, are flowing into Serbia across its border with 
     Macedonia. An anonymous U.N. official was quoted as saying 
     that Mr. Akashi had termed this violation an ``external'' 
     matter having nothing to do with him.
       Mr. Akashi, as with most bureaucrats, keeps his finger to 
     the wind. He has no doubt noticed that the Russians are back 
     in business, as of February, and are siding with the Serbs. 
     The French, unabashed by the fact that they have lost three 
     wars and caused untold hardship for their allies in this 
     century, are applying their vaunted realisme to trying to 
     stage-manage this war. Mr. Clinton, apparently, would just 
     like to forget the whole thing.
       Bosnians and Serbs agreed to yet another ``ceasefire'' last 
     week. For the moment, the horrors of Rwanda, the Yemens and 
     Haiti and a bellicose North Korea dominate TV screens. But 
     nothing is settled. Just before last week's agreement to 
     suspend hostilities for a month--a deal that has at least 
     reduced the level of violence--the war had reached a crucial 
     strategic juncture. The Serbs were beginning to feel that 
     their gains were threatened.
       Two things have happened. The Croats, who were the first 
     victims of Serbian aggression, are aligning themselves when 
     it suits their interests with the Bosnian army. That's 
     because a few local beatings have persuaded them that the 
     Bosnians are becoming a more effective military force. The 
     second development is that the focus of the war has shifted 
     to a town called Brcko, which controls the route through 
     which supplies from Serbia move to Serb forces in Bosnia and 
     Croatia. Should the Bosnian and Croatian forces retake 
     Brcko--a Bosnian Muslim enclave before the Serbs ``cleansed'' 
     it early in the war--it could swing the military advantage 
     away from Serbia and toward the Bosnians.
       The U.N.'s reaction to this possibility was to try to make 
     Brcko a safe haven--for the Serbs who now occupy it. Then Mr. 
     Akashi pushed for a ceasefire, which the Serbs badly wanted, 
     no doubt to enable them to strengthen their grip on the 
     strategic corridor that runs through Brcko. Standing up to 
     heavy pressure from the U.N. for a long cessation of 
     hostilities, the Bosnians last week agreed to stop fighting, 
     but only for a month.
       So what is the U.S. position now? At a NATO gathering in 
     Istanbul last week, Secretary of State Warren Christopher 
     offered a clue. He said that the Clinton administration would 
     consider lifting the sanctions against Serbia if the Bosnians 
     didn't accept a settlement the U.S. will soon devise. That's 
     a rather idle threat when you consider that the U.N. isn't 
     stopping much materiel from getting into Serbia now. But it 
     was symbolic. It meant that the U.S. has turned over world 
     leadership to France.
       From having branded Serbia the aggressor, the U.S. has 
     swung 180 degrees and is now putting the heat on the victims, 
     just when the Bosnians are beginning to fight back with some 
     effectiveness. Realisme indeed. No wonder the Bosnians, and 
     much of the world, wonder whatever happened to that sense of 
     justice that motivated the heroics of D-Day.

                          ____________________