[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 91 (Thursday, July 14, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  2050
 
                             BOSNIAN UPDATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Frost). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McCloskey] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McCLOSKEY. Mr. Speaker, I have just returned from Bosnia where I 
traveled with the United States Ambassador and the Bosnian Vice 
President to some of the towns that have suffered most in this war. 
Right now is a critical time as to hopes for peace in the Bosnian 
conflict.
  The beleaguered Bosnian Government has just announced its approval of 
the 51-to-49 percent partition plan to carve up this sovereign country 
between the Bosnian-Croatian alliance and Serb irredentist thugs.
  President Izetbegovic said that he did not want to sign the document, 
but that other alternatives were worse. These worse alternatives 
include ongoing war, with the British and French pulling out of the 
U.N. peacekeeping operation. This would be without Western military 
support for Bosnia or a lifting of the arms embargo.
  President Izetbegovic and Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic are 
insistent that the borders of a sovereign Bosnia remain intact.
  To this end, and for the peace and security of the Bosnian people, it 
is obvious that peacekeeping troops will need to be placed not only 
where populations intersect, but also on the borders between Bosnia and 
Serbia and Montenegro.
  Most Bosnian Serb statements indicate opposition to returning ill-
gotten lands. And the irredentist Bosnian Serbs seem adamantly opposed 
to a sovereign Bosnia.
  Despite the urging of President Slobodan Milosevic--a war criminal 
posturing as a peacemaker--the Bosnian Serb parliament may very well 
refuse the plan this Monday.
  If and when they do refuse the plan, should there by any question but 
that the arms embargo crippling Bosnia's self-defense be lifted with 
significant aerial support committed from the West to avert an ongoing, 
one-sided bloodbath?
  Think of the splendid basic logic of the British mandate to the 
warring parties. Britain tells all parties to agree to the plan, or it 
will pull out with no lifting of the arms embargo or other increased 
support for the Bosnians. Why should the Bosnian Serbs disagree with a 
British green light to gear up their killing machine?
  If the Serbs do not sign on, the feckless West would only become more 
craven by doing a Pontius Pilate hand wash and then getting out.
  It continues to startle me that the West has approached blithe 
acceptance of the right of the Bosnian Serbs to rain down shells on an 
innocent population--as the Serbs rape, maim and loot as well. For the 
United Nations to tell the people of Goradze that the siege was not all 
that bad is an abomination.
  And while brutal ethnic cleansing--and we may say the word genocide--
continues in the Serb-held areas such as Banja Luka and Prijedor--we 
blithely expedite the parties to the signing table. Let us hope for 
peace but this particular peace will be with Serb gains and even 
rewards from the West.
  What can we expect from the tender mercies of the Serbs in Kosovo 
where daily life for millions of Albanians is a dismal existence in 
prison-like conditions? What can we expect in the Sandjak region in 
Serbia and Montenegro where all the democratic Moslem leadership has 
been jailed? What can we predict for little isolated Macedonia? When 
will exiled Croatians be permitted to return to their UNPROFOR Serb 
controlled communities in the Krajina?
  Having just returned from Mostar, Vitez, and Sarajevo, I reluctantly 
report the Bosinan-Croatian alliance, a singular achievement of the 
Clinton administration, is in peril.
  When I was Mostar several months ago immediately after the Horrible 
Croatian siege of Moslem east Mostar, its people had just emerged 
stunned, ravaged and maimed after months of shelling and various 
atrocities.
  That breakdown of the previous Bosnian-Croatian alliance can be 
significantly attributed to the West's dismal stupidity in allowing 
Serb invasion and land grabs in no way detracts from the guilt of 
various Croats in and out of Bosnia for perpetrating that siege, the 
concentration camps, the atrocities, and ethnic cleansing.
  But in April, the poor people of east Mostar were drinking untreated, 
chemically contaminated water from the Neretva River. They in essence 
has no electricity, and their medical treatment--what little they had, 
despite the efforts of a few valiant doctors--bordered on medieval.
  This last week when I visited Mostar again, things had not gotten 
much better. In those 3 months since April, the E.C. Administrator Hans 
Koschnik still had not arrived. He did show up last Sunday to meet with 
leaders in both communities.
  Other than the regular U.N. food aid and a few basic humanitarian 
supplies, progress in Mostar has been at a near standstill.
  Given the fact that forced expulsions of Moslems by gangsters in west 
Mostar still are going on with little or no law enforcement followup 
from west Mostar Croatian authorities makes this all the more tragic.
  Five Moslem families in east Mostar told me they were forcibly 
expelled from their homes in the last month. Some were beaten. Some 
were witness to murder.
  But still it goes on with no investigatory followup to speak of. The 
victims and the east Mostar authorities told me that they have 
abounding evidence against these particular criminals. This cannot go 
on.
  President Zubak of the Bosnian-Croatian alliance and General Roso, 
Bosnian Croatian Defense Organization Commander, and perhaps most 
importantly, Croatian Defense Minister Susak told me that these crimes 
in Mostar would stop. If they do not, the Bosnian-Croatian alliance 
will be short-lived indeed.
  Another internal threat to the Bosnian-Croatian alliance and all our 
hopes for peace emerged last weekend when elections of the Bosnian 
branch of the Croatian Democratic Union Party resulted in the elevation 
of two Croatian leaders quite unacceptable to Moslems in the region.
  One of the men is said by the Moslems and others quite knowledgeable 
to be a war criminal, the other is reputed to be a radical Croatian 
ultra-nationalist.
  Without more enlightened leadership from Zagreb and a firmer grasp of 
the situation on the ground by the United States, our hopes for peace 
will be dashed with ongoing war beyond belief and reason.
  E.U. Administrator Koschnik said he will be operating by July 24 in 
Mostar. Some 80 million deutsche marks are said to be headed to Mostar 
and the immediate area. Every bit of that will be needed, and more.
  Similarly, the people of Vitez--Croats and Moslems--and Bosnians in 
other areas need help now. The United States must be more active and 
visible around Mostar and elsewhere immediately if it is to save the 
alliance that we fostered between Croatians and Moslems.
  Many Americans, including some of our highest officials, do not 
realize the almost transcendent effect of American participation and 
visibility in the midst of this continuing tragedy.

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