Rattled Sabers, Redrawn Maps

By Bruce W. Nelan

This time it might really happen. The vicious 16-month war among hate-filled neighbors that has soaked Bosnia and Herzegovina in blood -- and seared the conscience of the rest of the world -- might be coming to an end. But not because the combatants have seen the horror of their ways or the Western democracies have made justice prevail. If the killing does grind to a stop in the coming weeks, it will be more out of collective exhaustion than the result of any agreements or pressures the politicians are trying to impose.

The hardest fact, the one that matters most, is that the outnumbered, outgunned, predominantly Muslim Bosnian government has lost the war. Rebel Serbs and Croats, with overwhelming support from their kinsmen in the former republics of Yugoslavia, have together swallowed 90% of Bosnia's territory. The Serb militia is pounding on the gates of Sarajevo, and they are about to fly open. If nothing is done to police the Serb triumph and Muslim defeat, a final, horrifying bloodbath could sweep over the Bosnian capital and other Muslim enclaves. That fear spurred negotiators in Geneva and the Clinton Administration in Washington last week to try -- again -- to do something.

The Bosnian government sat down with its domestic foes and their godfathers, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, for another round of peace talks. Everyone felt the mood of deja vu, but this time the Muslims had to choose between taking what little they might get in a settlement now, or holding out for more -- and losing everything. Washington debated whether it could use a flash of air power to warn the Serbs away from Sarajevo without encouraging the Muslims to balk at signing an agreement. That was as much a sop to conscience as a calibrated military action, and, as usual, America and its allies could not agree on how much would be just right.

At the session in the huge U.N. palace in Geneva, once the home of the impotent League of Nations, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic effectively surrendered. He had fought long and hard for the principle that Bosnia should remain a single, multiethnic state. He had held out against U.N. demands that he sign on to a plan partitioning Bosnia into 10 ethnic provinces. Now, under heavy pressure from the U.N., and from U.S. special envoy Reginald Bartholomew, who promised him substantial financial aid for his new mini- state, he could resist no longer. He accepted a plan to cut his country apart along ethnic lines. "We have achieved preliminary agreement," he told his people, "on the transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into a union of three republics."

The Serb and Croat leaders could hardly stop smiling at the confirmation of their triumph. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, a man the U.S. holds responsible for war crimes, emerged from the Geneva talks to declare portentously, "We should all be satisfied. No one else need die in Bosnia and Herzegovina." In fact, that kind of talk is premature, since most of the important details have yet to be settled. And as Lord Owen, the European Community's negotiator, noted, "There are all sorts of people out there who want to continue the war, on all three sides."

Some of them were still at it despite another Bosnian cease-fire that took effect Friday night. The hilltops around Sarajevo went quiet, and the tempo of fighting slowed in most places, though Muslim units in central Bosnia overran two Croatian towns. Still, a U.N. spokesman confirmed that "fighting has abated considerably," quickly adding, "I say that very cautiously."

Caution is the correct approach. The negotiators in Geneva have agreed only on constitutional principles -- a nation of three self-governing republics without an effective central parliament. Only on Saturday did they face the crucial issue -- drawing a final map to divide the territory. "Everything we have achieved," said Izetbegovic, "will be worthless if there is no agreement on the maps."

Lord Owen and his fellow mediators argue that the Muslim republic should inherit 30% of Bosnia. Since it controls only 10% today, that is a big order. Similarly, the Muslims would have to give up hard-won enclaves in Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde. The negotiators did not agree on the map's details Saturday, but intend to keep at it this week. If and when they do settle on a formal division, it will have to be approved by the three parliamentary assemblies. Everyone remembers how the earlier Vance-Owen plan collapsed at that stage after weeks of negotiation.

Even this much agreement among the warring parties was enough to cool the debate among the U.S., its NATO allies and the U.N. about using air strikes to protect Sarajevo and other Muslim "safe havens." They had agreed in May when the enclaves were announced that NATO planes would be used to protect U.N. peacekeepers if they came under fire. Since then, French, British and Spanish blue helmets have been attacked, and the Serbs' pressure on Muslim areas has tightened. Now Washington was talking up something broader: air strikes to help protect the Muslims as well as the peacekeepers.

If a settlement, or even a solid cease-fire, is in prospect, military intervention would seem inappropriate. Since the process is not that far along, allied consultations and war planning are still under way. Bill Clinton has tried before to get Paris and London to sign on for strikes against the Serbs, but they always refused, arguing that bombing would put the blue helmets in danger. They began to relent after the Serbs got rougher on the peacekeepers, but backed off again when the U.S. hinted it had more in mind than simply defending embattled U.N. soldiers. Senator Joseph Biden, long a hawk on Bosnia, called for air attacks to lift the siege of Sarajevo, but the Pentagon continued to oppose anything but the most minimal action. The debate in Washington, said a senior Defense Department official, "is a tug-of-war for the soul of Bill Clinton."

In public, Clinton was ambiguous, noting that while air strikes might be used to protect peacekeepers, there should be some "confusion" on the part of the Serbs about "what the nature of our response would be." Some of this could be shadow play, efforts to look tough and bluff the Serbs, since senior Administration officials were advising privately, "Don't assume automatically that we're going to war." If air attacks are mounted, an official said, some bombs and missiles might find their way to targets like supply dumps. But with only 80 U.N. attack planes in the region, no one suggested they were thinking about clearing Serbian artillery off the hills around Sarajevo.

In London a Foreign Office spokesman indicated Britain was still not convinced air attacks made sense. "Our objection," he said, "has always been, Air strikes to achieve what?" However eager to attack he might be in his heart, Clinton remains committed to the proposition that military action will be taken only in concert with the allies. So the answer to the British question is likely to be, Air strikes only if U.N. peacekeepers come under heavy attack. Knowing those rules, how likely are the Serbs to provide a provocation? Military intervention from the West, the deus ex machina the Muslims have been hoping for, still looks unlikely. If the war in Bosnia is going to end at last, it is up to the bloodstained Bosnians to end it themselves.

With reporting by James L. Graff/Vienna, William Mader/London and Bruce van Voorst/Washington