[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 107 (Wednesday, June 28, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9232-S9234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    LIFTING THE BOSNIAN ARMS EMBARGO

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to argue again for lifting the 
illegal and what I believe to be immoral arms embargo against the 
Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Actually, Mr. President, we 
should not even be in a position today of having to lift an embargo. In 
April 1992, when the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognized 
internationally and granted admission to the United Nations, it 
automatically became covered by article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which 
grants every State the elemental right of self-defense.
  Inexplicably, however, the Bush administration was asleep at the 
switch 

[[Page S9233]]
and failed to act to abrogate the illegal embargo.
  For 3 years, Mr. President, I have repeatedly advocated lifting this 
unfair and illegal embargo. I would prefer that the timing of the lift 
be responsive to the wishes of the Bosnian Government which, after all, 
is the aggrieved party. The aggrieved party is literally fighting for 
its life.
  Not only am I frustrated and angry at the current situation, I am 
also disturbed that our country, which has been the beacon of hope to 
freedom-loving people around the world, should even be contemplating 
refusing to give the Bosnians the tools with which to defend 
themselves.
  How much more, Mr. President, do the Bosnians have to suffer? They 
have been invaded across an international border by troops equipped and 
assisted by the fourth largest army in Europe. Against the Bosnian 
Serbs with sophisticated, modern weapons including planes, tanks, 
rocket launchers, and heavy artillery, the Bosnian Government forces 
have fought with small arms and dogged determination. Although recently 
they have been able to capture a few heavy weapons, and reportedly have 
been covertly supplied with modest defense weaponry, the Bosnian 
Government forces are still vastly underarmed compared to the Serbian 
aggressors.
  Mr. President, let me repeat the phrase that I just used: Serbian 
aggressors. There is no moral equivalence in this conflict. The 
Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the 
successor states of the former Yugoslavia, gave absolutely no 
provocation to the Bosnian Serbs, who have torn this small country 
apart.
  On the contrary, in 1991 and early 1992, while Serbs and Croats were 
fighting in neighboring Croatia, the Bosnian Government strove to 
retain the multireligious and multiethnic fabric of its own State. But 
unscrupulous demagogic politicians like Milosevic in Serbia and 
Karadzic in Bosnia, in order to implement their vicious racist 
ideology, exploited fears and successfully widened existing religious 
and socioeconomic divisions. From this incitement came the centrally 
planned murder, rape, and vile ethnic cleansing that have so revolted 
the civilized world.
  Mr. President, let us not tolerate criminals cynically wrapping 
themselves in religious garb. The Bosnian Serbs' behavior has 
absolutely nothing to do with Orthodox Christianity. French President 
Jacques Chirac forcefully made this point at a dinner of European Union 
leaders when he reportedly rebuked the President of Greece, an 
apologist for the Bosnian Serbs. He said, ``Don't speak to me about any 
religious war,'' Chirac said. ``These are people without any faith, 
without any sense of law. They are terrorists.''
  Yet somehow Western European statesmen have criticized the Bosnian 
Government forces and chastised them for trying to break the blockades 
of Sarajevo and Bihac. Imagine the impertinence, Mr. President. 
Sarajevo has been blockaded for 38 months, more than 3 years. Its long-
suffering population has been shelled and sniped at, and denied water, 
food, medicine, electricity, and gas. Mr. President, they literally 
string blankets and sheets across the narrow streets of the old parts 
of Sarajevo. When I was first there, I thought it was an unusual way of 
drying their laundry. I asked, ``why are they hanging sheets and 
blankets there?'' I was told that they are hanging there for only one 
reason--to thwart the Bosnian Serbs from sniping at Moslem, Croatian, 
and Bosnian Serb children. That is why they are there. No one denies 
this. Sniping at children is the Bosnian Serbs' calculated plan, which 
they carry out nearly every day.
  Senator Dole and I went to visit a hospital in Sarajevo. The only 
people there were children from ages 6 to 20 who were the victims of 
sniper fire--not random fire, not what they are doing with random 
shelling--sniper fire. So there is, in fact, a campaign of terror going 
on. And so here you have Sarajevo and Bihac, Sarajevo blockaded for 38 
months, shelled and sniped at, the target of terrorist activities.
  And so now, when outgunned Bosnian Government forces try to break the 
siege, which contravenes the U.N. resolution, not to mention basic 
human rights, what is the reaction of the most advanced industrialized 
democracies?
  Well, Mr. President, in mid-June, we got a taste of their reaction at 
the G-7 summit in Halifax. The world's wealthiest nations, the United 
States included, called upon all parties, even those who have been 
under siege for 38 months, to display the greatest restraint. Is that 
not nice? This callous declaration surely set a new standard for 
arrogance, for blaming the victim.
  I would ask the well-fed gentlemen of the G-7 if they could look into 
the face of an undernourished, weakened Sarajevo mother who gets shot 
at, literally shot at, while running to fetch a plastic jug of water 
for her children, and tell her that her government's army should 
display the greatest restraint.
  Mr. Akashi, a great world citizen, a top U.N. diplomat in the 
Balkans, in deliberate violation of his own organization's declaration, 
announced on June 9 that UNPROFOR, the U.N. protective forces, 
henceforth would act only if the Bosnian Serbs agreed. Keep in mind 
that the Bosnian Serbs have Sarajevo, Bihac, and other cities under 
siege.
  Mothers literally cannot go to get water because all the water has 
been cut off. The gas and electricity has been cut off. So they go to a 
public fountain, a spring, and are shot at, murdered cold-bloodedly--in 
cold blood. And Akashi says on June 9, that by the way, we, the U.N. 
forces, will take no action on any matter unless we first check with 
the snipers, the Bosnian Serbs.
  Now, is that not wonderful? Is that not wonderful? But if the Bosnian 
Serbs do not agree, then the United Nations will not act. What is the 
Bosnian Government, having been criticized for trying to break the 
siege, supposed to do? They are under siege--no water, no food, no 
electricity, in a campaign to kill their children. And their government 
is told not to act unless the United Nations first talks to the Bosnian 
Serbs.
  Well, Mr. President, the criticism of the Bosnian army for attacking 
to break the siege would be laughable if it were not so utterly 
grotesque. Nonetheless, some West European governments have criticized 
the United States for our advocacy of the victimized Bosnian Moslems.
  Perhaps the following piece of counterfactual analysis might be 
helpful to our friends in London and Paris.
  What if, Mr. President, a Moslem-dominated Bosnia and Herzegovina had 
attacked a peaceful, Orthodox Christian Serbia, carried out barbaric 
atrocities against Orthodox Serbian civilians, and then proudly 
announced that its policy of so-called ethnic cleansing had been 
successful--would Christian Europe then be sitting idly by, conjuring 
up excuse after excuse for not halting the cruel and cowardly 
aggression? I think the answer is self-evident.
  Bigotry, sad to say, spreads more easily than tolerance. So we must 
not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of labeling all Serbs--in 
Bosnia, Serbia, or elsewhere--as racists. Nearly 200,000 Serbs, 
sometimes referred to as the forgotten Serbs, continue to live in the 
territory under the control of the Bosnian Government.
  When I first visited Bosnia several years ago, I met with the Council 
of Leadership of the Bosnian Government, four of whom were Serbs. The 
army was 28-percent Serbian. It was a multiethnic country--the army and 
the Bosnian Government made up of Serbs, Croats, and Moslems, all of 
whom were Bosnians.
  So I want to make it clear that not all the Serbs, by any stretch of 
the imagination, in fact, are like the aggressors.
  I might add that when I visited Belgrade over 2 years ago and met 
with a group of about 75 leaders from business, academia, and other 
walks of life, including the press, two things were clear: First, the 
vast majority of the people living in Serbia did not know the truth. 
Second, if they did they would not support either the ethnic cleansing 
by the Bosnian Serbs or the actions taken by their own government. I 
felt they did not support what Karadzic was suggesting. But all they 
had was a totally government-controlled television outlet, like the old 
Communist days in Yugoslavia. So all they saw on the news were Bosnian 
Serb children being slaughtered and even hung up on racks like 
chickens. All pure propaganda, not true. The world acknowledges this 
now. 

[[Page S9234]]
Milosevic did it to enrage his population, to play on centuries-old 
fears and divisions, and it worked. But the vast majority of the 
Serbian people are good, honorable, and decent, but they do not know 
the truth.
  In the Government-controlled portion of Bosnia, there is an organized 
Bosnian Serb political opposition to Mr. Karadzic and his fellow thugs 
in Pale. There are many Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats serving in the 
army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Government army's deputy 
chief of staff who is a Bosnian Serb.
  Indeed, there are thousands of decent, moral Serbs in Sarajevo, 
Belgrade, and elsewhere whose personal values rise above the primitive, 
provincial racism of Karadzic, Milosevic, and company.
  Despite the almost unbelievable privations endured by Sarajevans, the 
Bosnian capital's Moslem, Orthodox, Catholic, and Jewish citizens are 
still living together, hoping against hope that their sophisticated 
city can receive the basics--food, water, and medicine--currently 
denied them by the Serbian bullies in the hills who cowardly snipe at 
their children and indiscriminately lob shells at innocent civilians.
  I have already outlined the legal basis and moral imperative for 
giving the Bosnian Government the means to defend itself. Now I would 
like to address the tactical arguments often given against lifting the 
arms embargo.
  Some critics assert that the Bosnian Serbs would react by overrunning 
the eastern enclaves of Srebrenica, Gorazde, and Zepa. I would remind 
those critics, first of all, that the Serbs have been attacking Gorazde 
for weeks without success. More importantly, the U.N. Security Council 
has called for defense of the safe areas with air power, if necessary, 
and with vigorous American leadership, NATO could do so.
  A second criticism is that lifting the arms embargo would induce 
UNPROFOR to pull out. But I regret to say, Mr. President, that UNPROFOR 
troops have become the world's most expensive hostages and have ceased 
to be able to carry out their mandate. UNPROFOR has publicly abandoned 
its attempt to protect Sarajevo from bombardment of heavy artillery. On 
June 17, a U.N. spokesman admitted: ``The policy of weapons-collection 
points has now been abandoned.''
  Moreover, the United Nations is manifestly unwilling to honor its 
commitment to use all necessary means--that is what the U.N. resolution 
says--all necessary means to bring supplies to the desperate civilian 
populations of Sarajevo, Bihac, and the eastern enclaves.
  Mr. President, UNPROFOR is now mainly in the business of protecting 
itself, which I do not blame it for doing, but that is all it does. It 
has outlived its usefulness and should be withdrawn, independent of 
whether or not we lift the arms embargo.
  Another frequently heard criticism of lifting the arms embargo 
unilaterally is that it would cause a rift in NATO. Mr. President, in 
case anyone is not looking, there is already a rift in NATO, and it is 
going to get bigger as the American people think over why we spend $110 
billion a year, every year, for NATO. For what purpose? For what 
purpose? If they cannot affect events in Bosnia, for what purpose are 
our American taxpayers spending $110 billion a year?
  Mr. President, I step back to no man or woman in this Senate in being 
a supporter of NATO. I respectfully suggest that I have been one of its 
strongest advocates for more than 20 years. But it seems to me that if 
we do not move and do something, NATO will be split and fractured more 
than by our unilaterally lifting an arms embargo.
  NATO will be signing its own death warrant by a continuation of its 
ineffectual response in Bosnia, hobbled as it is by incomprehensible 
U.N.-controlled rules of engagement.
  Some critics claim that lifting the arms embargo would automatically 
lead to spreading of the conflict to other parts of the Balkans. Mr. 
President, this assertion flies in the face of the facts by ignoring 
the example of the deterrence policy already employed by the United 
States on Serbia's southern border.
  There, an outstanding success story of the Clinton administration's 
Balkan policy has been the sending of several hundred American troops 
to join the Nordic U.N. contingent in the former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia. Combined with our warning to Milosevic not to even dream of 
attacking, this action--not the existence of the arms embargo--is what 
has kept Belgrade's hands off the fledgling Macedonian State.
  He knows we mean it there and he has not moved. We should extend the 
warning to Milosevic that any intervention of his army in the conflict 
in Bosnia, either to aid the Bosnian Serbs after the lifting of the 
embargo or to harass the evacuation of UNPROFOR troops, would result in 
massive, disproportionate retaliation against Serbia proper.
  Finally, some opponents of lifting the embargo foresee a dire 
precedent for unilateral embargo-breaking elsewhere, such as those 
currently in effect against Iraq and Libya.
  The line goes, ``If we unilaterally lift the arms embargo against 
Bosnia, won't our allies lift the arms embargo against Iraq and 
Libya?'' But surely, Mr. President, one can point out even to the most 
disingenuous foreign politician that there is a world of difference 
between sanctions against Bosnia, the victim of international 
aggression, on the one hand, and an embargo against Iraq, a notorious 
international aggressor, on the other hand. We can and should use our 
considerable leverage against countries who would threaten deliberately 
to ignore this obvious and fundamental distinction.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, in actuality, opponents of lifting the 
illegal arms embargo against Bosnia ignore a much more ominous 
precedent than breaking the U.N. sanctions.
  The geostrategic reality of the future is that the primary danger to 
peace will much more likely come, not from nuclear missiles, but from 
regional crises, often in the form of ethnic conflicts and oppression 
of minorities.
  In that context, therefore, the more dangerous precedent would be to 
reward an aggressor for his cold-blooded invasion, vile ethnic 
cleansing, murder, rape, pillage, and starvation by blockade. Europe, 
unfortunately, has other potential Milosevics and Karadzics. That is 
the sad reality to which we must adjust as we prepare to enter the 21st 
century. That, Mr. President, is not feel-good idealism. It is nuts-
and-bolts realpolitik, and we should begin to practice it.
  I yield the floor.
  

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