[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 119 (Friday, July 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S10508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S10508]]


                          THE CRISIS IN BOSNIA

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and the majority 
leader for yielding the floor and for his statement on the latest 
developments from London with regard to the crisis in Bosnia.
  Mr. President, I share the sense of disappointment that the Senate 
majority leader has expressed about the developments in London today. 
The statement from the London conference is a threat, not a policy, and 
a limited threat at that, extending, as it does, to only one of the 
four remaining safe areas, so designated by the United Nations.
  Why the conferees would feel that it was critical enough to issue 
this threat with regard to Gorazde but not with regard to Tuzla, 
Sarajevo and Bihac, I do not know. Why the conferees did not speak 
clearly and in a united fashion about opening up the supply road for 
humanitarian aid to Sarajevo along the Mount Igman Road, I do not know. 
And why is there not clarity, at least, yet on the question of the 
dual-key arrangement which has done nothing but frustrate the rare 
occasions when there seemed to be some will to respond to Serbian 
aggression by subjecting the desire of military commanders to the 
control of political authorities from the United Nations? There is some 
suggestion that there is still a dual-key approach for implementing 
this threat that was issued today about what would happen to the Serbs 
if they attacked Gorazde.
  There is some indication, though not clarity, that perhaps the 
military commanders on the ground, the U.N. military commanders, will 
be the ones to have the final say and a decision will not be bounced up 
for a veto from the U.N. politicians at the top. But that is not clear 
to me, and therefore is also grounds for disappointment in the 
communique from the London conference. So I would call the communique 
from the London conference a threat, not a policy; and a limited threat 
at that.
  If, in fact, the threat is carried out, as so many threats against 
the Serbs before in this war have not been carried out--if this threat 
is carried out, if the Serbs take aggressive action, attack Gorazde, 
then at least it will be the beginning of an implementation of half of 
the policy that many of us--I am honored to say including the 
distinguished Senate majority leader and myself and many others from 
both parties in this Chamber--have been advocating, appealing for, 
crying out for, for now 3 years, which is the lift and strike policy.
  The communique does at last suggest that if the Serbs cross this 
line, which is a narrow line--it is not a broadly drawn line, it is a 
line of protection only around Gorazde--then they will finally be 
subjected to the substantial and decisive NATO air power which we have 
possessed throughout this conflict and refused to use. Even though 
going back 2 or 3 years, at hearings of the Armed Services Committee on 
which I am honored to serve, asking the Chief of Staff of the Air Force 
whether he felt that these raids could be carried out from the air with 
minimal risk to American personnel and maximal probability of success--
he said yes.
  So, from this communique from London, implementing, if the threat is 
carried through, at least the beginning of one-half of the lift and 
strike policy, I take some small hope and find some small reason for 
the Bosnian people, who are understandably cynical and unbelieving, to 
think that perhaps the international community will finally lift a 
finger, a hand, to protect them from aggression.
  But, this threat, even if carried through by the allied powers, does 
nothing to lessen the moral and strategic imperative to lift the arms 
embargo imposed on the nations of the former Yugoslavia. It is illegal 
because it denies the people of Bosnia the right they are given under 
international law, under the charter of the United Nations, to defend 
themselves, a basic right that we have as individuals and that nations 
have under the United Nations Charter. This right has been taken away 
from them, not by any great act of international law, but by a 
political act, by a decision of the U.N. Security Council in 1991.
  Looking back at it, a naive, in some sense a cynical decision, or 
motivated by cynical behavior; an embargo, requested by the Government 
of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, now the Serbian Government, understanding 
that when Yugoslavia broke apart, as it surely would, and Serbia began 
its aggression, as it clearly intended to, against its neighbors, then 
the effect of the embargo would leave everyone in that region but the 
Serbs without the arms with which to fight because the Serbs in Serbia, 
by an accident of history and of hate, ended up controlling the 
warmaking capacity of the former Yugoslavia.
  Immoral--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.
  I say the embargo was immoral because we have watched not only 
aggression and the frustration of the people to have the means with 
which to fight back, the victims, but we have watched genocidal acts. 
We have watched people singled out because of their religion, in this 
case Moslem; torn from their homes, herded into concentration camps, 
women raped systematically as an act of war--unheard of. Men--again, it 
is happening--between the ages of 18 and 55, herded off allegedly for 
investigations to determine whether they were criminals or terrorists, 
but tortured and then, and we saw this 3 years ago: Concentration 
camps, emaciated figures, Moslems tortured, unfed, slaughtered.
  So I say, Mr. President, to my colleagues here in the Senate that the 
moral and strategic imperative to lift the arms embargo remains 
undiminished by this limited threat and not a policy that was issued 
from London today.
  I hope and strongly believe that when we take up the proposal which 
Senator Dole and I, and many others of both parties, introduced on 
Tuesday to lift the arms embargo, that the result will be a resounding 
nonpolitical, nonpartisan, overwhelming majority in favor of lifting 
the embargo, giving the people of Bosnia the weapons with which to 
defend themselves, and creating finally the basis of a genuine policy 
that can impose upon the Serbs some pain for their aggression that will 
give them finally, and for the first time in this conflict, a reason to 
come to the peace table to negotiate a just end to this conflict.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. PRESSLER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  

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