[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 106 (Thursday, August 4, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       MORE TEMPORIZING ON BOSNIA

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to decry the inaction of our 
Government, and of our allies, in the face of brazen provocations by 
the Bosnian Serbs and to repeat my call for lifting of the arms embargo 
against the Bosnian Government and for use of air strikes to protect 
U.N.-designated safe havens.
  This painful subject may strike my colleagues as repetitive. Indeed 
it is: It is nothing short of scandalous that 2\1/2\ years into the 
Bosnian horrors our policy remains all bark, no bite--grave threats, no 
action--pious statements, but no relief for the beaten, raped, and 
tortured.
  One would think that there was nothing new to say about the vicious 
aggression that has left a once-thriving, beautiful, southern European 
country a desolate landscape of burned-out villages, shell-scarred 
cities, and destitute and demoralized refugees.
  But, Mr. President, there have been new developments in this tragedy, 
to which, I regret to report, we have not reacted. In recent days the 
Bosnian Serbs have not only rejected the peace proposal put forward in 
Geneva by the contact group of the United States, France, Britain, 
Germany, and Russia--but have also demonstrated their contempt for the 
world community by engaging in a series of provocative acts on the 
ground in Bosnia.
  At the same time, detailed, credible, corroborated reports have 
surfaced of a Serbian death camp for Moslems in eastern Bosnia--an 
unspeakable genocide factory not seen in Europe since Buchenwald and 
Bergen-Belsen.
  What in heaven's name is going on? What are we--the United States of 
America--going to do about it?
  The Bosnian Serbs' rejection of the contact group's plan for carving 
up Bosnia was not surprising in light of their insatiable greed and 
pathological hatred of their Moslem and Croatian fellow citizens.
  My colleagues know of my own opposition to the contact group's plan, 
since the very hatred of which I speak guarantees the plan's failure in 
practice. The Bosnian Serbs may have spared us from the misguided 
sending of American troops to Bosnia as so-called peacekeepers of a 
nonexistent peace, of playing apartheid cops in a war zone.
  It is not the Bosnian Serbs' rejection per se to which I object--
although they are rejecting the plan for indefensible reasons. No, Mr. 
President, it is their accompanying actions that I deplore. These 
actions, while they follow a script the Bosnian Serbs have refined 
since they began their aggression in 1992, have in the last 10 days set 
a new standard for insolence.
  The Bosnian Serbs have begun a rollback of the measures imposed by 
Western threats of force last winter that brought a semblance of 
normality to the life of Sarajevo. They have blockaded the land routes 
into the Bosnian capital, even going as far as to ambush a clearly 
marked U.N. convoy, killing a British peacekeeper and wounding others.
  Furthermore, they have forced the suspension of international relief 
flights into the city by firing on aid planes trying to land at 
Sarajevo Airport. I might also add, Mr. President, that Secretary of 
Defense Perry and his party had to abandon a planned visit to Sarajevo 
last month because of Serbian shooting.
  In the past 2 weeks the Bosnian Serbs have continued to violate last 
February's agreement by moving heavy weaponry back into exclusion zones 
around Sarajevo and Gorazde.
  Not content with military aggression, the Bosnian Serbs have, as part 
and parcel of their policy, consistently made war on innocent 
civilians. They have now resumed their sniping at civilians in 
Sarajevo, hitting, among others, passengers in the streetcars whose 
resumption of service has been a morale boost to the long-suffering 
populace.
  Even more ominously, since mid-July the Bosnian Serbs have stepped up 
their vile policy of ethnic cleansing by expelling hundreds of Moslem 
civlians--including women and children--from the eastern Bosnian town 
of Bijeljina and from the northwestern city of Banja Luka.
  There has also been a report from Tuzla that armed Serbs have taken a 
group of Moslem men to a nearby labor camp.
  Mr. President, these continued despicable acts of ethnic cleansing 
have been put into a ghastly context by Roger Cohen's meticulously 
researched articles in this week's New York Times on a Serbian death 
camp called Susica.
  Mr. Cohen documents in grisly detail how in the spring and summer of 
1992 Bosnian Serbs, under the direction of units of the former Yugoslav 
National Army from Serbia proper, systematically arrested, interned, 
tortured, and murdered thousands of their Moslem neighbors.
  The killings stopped, Mr. President, not because of any moral 
compunction, but because the murderers had simply run out of available 
Moslems to victimize.
  As Mr. Cohen points out, the Bosnian Moslems--and to a greater 
extent, the Bosnian Croats--have also run detention camps where 
atrocities have been committed. They are inexcusable, and I condemn 
them in the strongest possible terms.
  What distinguishes the Susica death camp and Serbian killings 
elsewhere in Bosnia from the Moslem and Croat outrages, however, is the 
systematic coordination and widespread scope of the Bosnia Serbs' 
policy of genocide. They aim to purge non-Serbs from the territory they 
control--usual by deporting the women and children, and by slaughtering 
the men.
  There was a time when the Western democracies, led by the United 
States, saw fit to put a halt to aggression and to punish war 
criminals. I regret that we seem to have abandoned the idealism which 
distinguished us from other nations and won the admiration and respect 
of millions around the world, in favor of misguided alliance solidarity 
and a new friendship with the Russians.
  Simply put, the response to the Bosnian Serbs' thumbing of their 
noses at the contact group has been a lame communique of vaguely worded 
threats that will frighten no one. This lowest common denominator was 
drafted so as not to offend the Russians and not to endanger further 
the British and French peacekeepers who are virtual hostages of the 
Bosnian Serbs.
  What does the contact group recommend? Well, economic sanctions 
against Serbia and Montenegro are to be tightened. I won't even 
speculate as to how soon that will have a decisive effect.
  How about the U.N.-mandated exclusion zones? In vintage diplo-speak 
the document only requests the ``finalization of planning to permit 
strict enforcement and extension of exclusion zones.''
  Nothing is said about enforcing existing no-fly zones against the 
Bosnian Serb crop duster air force. Nothing is even mentioned about air 
strikes to break the newly imposed Serbian siege of Sarajevo, even 
though air strikes have already long been authorized by the U.N. and 
NATO. Perhaps as a rhetorical sop to this Congress, a murky statement 
is included that the unilateral lifting of the arms embargo against the 
Moslems could possible become unavoidable.
  Mr. President, I call upon this House to put this glacial process 
into fast-forward and make it unavoidable. For 2 years I have called 
for a ``lift and strike'' policy--lifting the unjust arms embargo 
against the Bosnian Government and striking from the air against any 
aggressor who dares violate U.N.-designated safe havens. History will 
not forgive us if we dither any longer.
  But, Mr. President, precisely at this pivotal moment, I am chagrined 
that the administration plans to temporize further. Despite a strong 
vote in the House for unilaterally lifting the arms embargo against the 
Bosnian Government and only a razor-thin defeat in the Senate, it is my 
understanding that in the ongoing conference on the Defense 
authorization bill the White House remains opposed to any congressional 
language that would force the United States unilaterally to lift the 
embargo, even after we have failed to lift multilaterally. The 
administration is only prepared to consult with the Congress on the 
progress of the contact group's plan.
  This business-as-usual attitude will simply no longer suffice. The 
time to act is now, before we squander the last shred of credibility in 
American ideals and American foreign policy.
  We must not let aggression go unpunished, lest other would-be 
aggressors be encouraged in the future. The administration seems 
mesmerized by one-dimensional alliance considerations and erroneous 
historical analogies.
  Britain and France understandably worry about the safety of their 
peacekeepers in Bosnia if we should unilaterally lift the arms embargo 
against the Bosnian Government. Mr. President, alliance unity is a 
worthy goal, but at what price? If we do not lead NATO into policies 
that will stifle the emerging security threat to southeastern Europe, 
what is the alliance worth?
  Some in Europe warn that enforcement of a lift and strike policy 
would widen the Bosnian war and ultimately lead to a world war III. But 
Sarajevo 1994 is not Sarajevo 1914. There are no competing alliance 
systems with great powers committed to aid their Balkan proxies. Mr. 
President, there is, however, one superpower, and that superpower, 
thank God, has a tradition of crushing tyrants and rescuing the 
persecuted.
  And what about the Serbian death camp and other crimes against 
humanity? Here there is a ray of hope. An ``International Tribunal for 
the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of 
international humanitarian law in the territory of the former 
Yugoslavia'' has been created according to a May 25, 1993, U.N. 
Security Council resolution.
  The respected South African judge Richard Goldstone has been named 
prosecutor of the tribunal and will take over his duties on August 15. 
I am happy to say that 20 U.S. Government employees have been detailed 
in various capacities to the International Tribunal. Courtroom 
facilities in The Hague, The Netherlands, will be completed by October, 
and indictments are expected to be handed down later this fall.
  Of course, unlike Nuremberg where the accused war criminals were 
already in custody, the likely accused in former Yugoslavia must first 
be apprehended. But a good start has been made to hold genocidal 
murderers responsible for their actions.
  The administration has briefed the Committee on Foreign Relations 
that it will soon submit legislation to enable the United States to 
cooperate with the International Tribunal. I hope and trust that this 
will be speedily accomplished in the coming weeks.
  Mr. President, the war in the former Yugoslavia, Europe's bloodiest 
conflict since World War II, has already claimed more than 200,000 
lives, made more than a million persons homeless, and physically and 
psychologically disfigured countless others.
  Let us not forsake our heritage. Let us wake up to the horrors taking 
place in Bosnia. Let us do the only honorable--and the only efficacious 
thing: Lift the unconscionable embargo on the Bosnian Government and 
utilize our air power to strike against those who attack safe havens.

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