TO GAUGE THE WEST'S NEW DETERMINATION ON BOSNIA

How are the western countries going to redifine their role in the Bosnian crises? Do they wont to eraze their shame?

by Anthony Lewis

(The Herald Tribune, 07/06/95)

BOSTON - What are the Europeans and the United States actually going to do about the latest criminal outrages by the Bosnian Serbs, the intensified shelling of civilians and the holding of hostages? The likely answer, stripped of wishful thinking, is: nothing.

Western defense ministers sounded tough when they decided to set up a rapid reaction force for Bosnia. But will it do anything more than come to the aid of UN peacekeepers menaced by the Serbs? Will it take effective action to stop the aggressors from killing and starving Bosnians who want to live in a multi-ethnic state?

The sordid history of Western leadership in the Bosnian conflict should lead any realist to expect little now. British and French politicians are truly angry at the taking of their soldiers as hostages. But that may be because the hostage pictures on television anger voters, and their toughness may well be limited to that issue.

We can easily tell whether there is a meaningful new Western policy. The test is whether the United Nations and any other international force in Bosnia forthrightly oppose the aggressors, the Bossnian Serbs.

The United Nations Protection Force has so far operated on the extraordinary premise that it must not distinguish between genocidal aggressors and their victims. Thus it was supposed to stop Serbian attacks on civilians - but without annoying the Serbs. That mission was hopeless, the results a bitter mockery.

Radovan Karadzic and the other Bosnian Serbian leaders respond only to force. They will stop shelling Sarajevo when someone - Unprofor, NATO or a Bosnian government that has acquired heavy weapons - tells them: "One more shell on Sarajevo and we will level your headquarters at Pale. Immediately."

What chance is there that Western politicians will take a stand against the aggressors? The British government has been so feckless in the Bosnian conflict that one has to be skeptical about its present bristling. President Bill Clinton has just broken his own record for raising and then dashing Bosnian hopes; his concern evidently focuses on doing nothing that might worry American voters. new French president, Jacques Chirac, just might be a source of genuine firmness. His government proposed the rapid reaction force. The French have floated the idea of opening a land supply corridor from Split on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia to Sarajevo. But that would undoubtedly mean ground warfare with the Serbs.

The corridor is a fine idea that I wish I could believe the West had the commitment to carry out.

If the Europeans and the United States are not themselves willing to oppose the most murderous aggression in Europe since the Nazis, it is clear now that they - and the United Nations - should get out of Bosnia.

To continue hiding behind a hopeless UN mission is no longer possible.

Instead, the West should move rapidly and massively to arm and train the Bosnian government forces - and support them from the air. When there is no worry about possible Serbian retaliation against peacekeepers, air attacks would be devastating. And Mr. Karadzic knows it: That is why he says he will not release his

hostages until NATO promises that there will be no more air strikes.The time has come for all of us, hawks and doves on Bosnia, to face the fact that Unprofor cannot stop the slaughter. Those with an abiding interest in the peace of Europe and its freedom from religious murder - NATO members above all then have an obligation either to intervene more effectively or to get out of the way and help Bosnia fight the aggressors.

There is one more thing the United States and its allies can do: stop truckling to Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia proper. The Clinton administration has been offering him sweeter and sweeter deals to suspend sanctions on Serbia if he will recognize Bosnia's borders, on the theory that that will put pressure on Mr. Karadzic. He keeps asking for more.

Mr. Milosevic aroused the passions of Serbian nationalism in the first place. He is himself a suspected war criminal. He cannot in any event control Mr. Karadzic. If the United States wants to look convincingly tough, it should stop trying to sweeten Mr. Milosevic.

The New York Times.