B3-0728, 0750, 0783 and 0786/93

Resolution on Bosnia-Herzegovina

The European Parliament,

A.deeply disturbed by the agreement on Bosnia-Herzegovina reached in Washington on 22 May 1993 between the Member States which are members of the Security Council, Russia and the USA, which appears to concede victory to the aggressors,

B.aware that the Vance-Owen peace plan has not been accepted and implemented, and that the occupation and ethnic partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the two major neighbouring nations, Serbia and Croatia, is advancing step by step,

C.noting that each day, under such conditions, the position of the legally and internationally recognized authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, of inter-ethnic civic groups and of the Muslim community, who are the first victims of all kinds of atrocities, is weakening, that further aggressions are encouraged, and that nobody is defending the victims against mass murders aimed at driving out the population,

D.considering that the new proposals made by five UN Security Council member states do not respect the integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, nor provide realistic conditions for survival and development of inter-ethnic civic life and that the safety of Muslim communities is not guaranteed, while aggression against UN member states and ethnic homogenization by terror and war seem to be rewarded by international support,

E.believes that the proposed 'safe havens', which, as planned, offer no adequate guarantee to the people who seek refuge in them, will become ghettoes for the Muslims and cannot provide the basis for a lasting peace and reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

F.having regard to the shocking report of its ad hoc mission back from Sarajevo about the horrible ongoing ethnic cleansing by war and the violent destruction of a long history of multicultural and multiethnic peaceful coexistence,

G.having regard to the recommendations arising from the recent visit of the ad hoc delegation of Parliament to Bosnia-Herzegovina,

1.Calls on the UN Security Council - and particularly on its EC member states - not to ratify the results of aggression by taking the status quo on the ground as the basis for peace agreements;

2.Calls on the UN Security Council - and particularly on its EC member states - to take urgent measures to stop the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina by enlarging the mandate and increasing the number of UN forces, in order to stop the aggression against besieged towns, the expulsion of people from their homes and the obstruction of humanitarian aid;

3.Warns of the disastrous consequences to Europe as a whole of allowing aggression and the abominable practices of ethnic cleansing to succeed, and points out that the authority of the EC and its Member States, of the CSCE process and of the UN are all undermined by the failure to stop the war and its accompanying atrocities in former Yugoslavia;

4.Calls on the UN Security Council - and particularly on its EC member states - to promote a peace plan, with the necessary military backing, to disarm the aggressive forces, to protect endangered populations regardless of their ethnic origin and to rebuild confidence and the rule of law, as preconditions for a political settlement and the restoration of the rights of all citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina;

5.Calls on the UN Security Council and NATO to undertake all necessary measures to avoid the involvement of Balkan countries' military forces in any operation undertaken by the UN and NATO on the territory of the former Yugoslavia;

6.Calls on the UN Security Council - and particularly on its EC member states - to ensure that regular Serb and Croat forces are immediately withdrawn from Bosnia-Herzegovina and that paramilitary Serb and Croat forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina are effectively cut off from any Serbian and Croatian backing, and to prevent and sanction Serbian and Croatian encouragement of war;

7.Calls on the UN Security Council - and particularly on its EC member states - to activate without further delay the International War Crimes Court, in order to identify and punish individuals clearly responsible for such crimes;

8.Calls on the European Community to demonstrate its strong support for the legal government and the legal parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina, without any concession to the warlords and political leaders of Serbian or Croatian nationalists in Bosnia-Herzegovina;

9.Calls on the Commission and Council to develop and submit to it an immediate action plan for providing generous and effective support to the democratic civic organizations and media in all parts of the former Yugoslavia, in order to show clearly European support for democracy and respect for human rights which excludes any form of racism;

10.Calls on the European Community to guarantee that paper will be included in the list of humanitarian articles whose supply and transport can be guaranteed by the UNHCR in order that the only remaining daily newspaper of a multi-ethnic nature, Oslobodenje, can continue its operation in Sarajevo;

11.Stresses, in this connection, the proposals set out in the reports of its ad hoc delegation which visited Bosnia-Herzegovina from 9 to 12 May 1993;

12.Emphasizes that a great coordination effort between the UNHCR, the ICRC, the WFP and other agencies responsible for humanitarian aid in the region, and with the authorities of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is necessary in order better to meet the needs of the people concerned; calls for a high- level meeting between the President of the European Parliament, the EC Commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs OGATA, to be held in order to resolve coordination problems hampering humanitarian aid operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina;

13.Insists that the European Community contribution to humanitarian aid programmes be increased; requests that regular reports be made to the European Parliament on the Community's contributions to humanitarian aid programmes and on the operations of the European Community Task Force for former Yugoslavia;

14.Calls on the European Community, its Task Force for former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian authorities to coordinate their activities in assisting women and children who have been the victims of assault and rape;

15.Calls on the European Community and humanitarian relief organizations to take the necessary action to evacuate immediately the most serious cases of the 500 persons, including children, who have had limbs amputated, and to transport to Sarajevo the orthopaedic equipment which they need to make a proper recovery;

16.Decides, following the visit of an ad hoc delegation of the European Parliament to the Parliament of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to invite a delegation from the Parliament of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to meet with the European Parliament in Strasbourg or Brussels; invites its President to bring pressure to bear on UNPROFOR and UNHCR officials to do the necessary to allow this delegation to undertake such a mission; invites its President furthermore to press similarly for other official missions by members of the Government and the Parliament of the Republic to be allowed;

17.Insists on the need to avoid the repetition of the blunders made about Bosnia-Herzegovina in other parts of former Yugoslavia, and therefore demands that it should be made clear that aggression against the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the Sandjak and Vojvodina will provoke appropriate reactions in all Member States;

18.Calls on the Commission and the Council to take immediate steps to ensure that the damage to the Greek economy due to the sanctions against Serbia (export undertakings, particularly those exporting fresh produce, railways and undertakings involved in tourism) is dealt with, aid is provided for transport from Greece to European markets, additional transit permits are obtained from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, cooperation takes place with the United Nations Security Council with a view to sharing out the cost of the damage suffered by Greece following the additional sanctions imposed against Serbia by the United Nations;

19.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the members of the UN Security Council and the Governments of all the states of the former Yugoslavia.