ACCESSION NUMBER:383418
FILE ID:PO1308
DATE:03/15/95
TITLE:U.S. TO MARK FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF BOSNIAN FEDERATION (03/15/95)
TEXT:*95031508.PO1
U.S. TO MARK FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF BOSNIAN FEDERATION
(To show commitment at highest levels) (800)
By Russ Dybvik and Robert Fullerton
USIA Staff Writers
Washington -- In a move aimed to show "public commitment at the highest
levels" to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Secretary of State
Christopher will host a ceremony March 16 formally commemorating the first
anniversary of the Washington Accords which established the federation.
The ceremony will mark the inaugural session of the "Friends of the
Federation," an informal support group of nations led by the United States
and the European Union, and also will serve as a six-month review of the
Federation Accords, acting spokesman David Johnson said at the State
Department's March 15 briefing. Richard Holbrooke, assistant secretary of
state for European and Canadian affairs, will chair that session.
The federation will be represented by President Kresimir Zubak. President
Franjo Tudjman will lead a group of Croatian representatives and the
Bosnian Republic will be represented by Ejup Ganic, a member of the
collective presidency and vice president of the federation, and Tatjana
Ljujic-Mijatovic, a member of the collective presidency representing the
Serb community.
The United States hopes the events, including the founding of the "Friends
of the Federation," will start a process which "will put us on a track to
further establishing an entity in Bosnia that can support what we hope will
eventually be an end to the conflict there and begin to foster a process of
peace," the acting spokesman said.
"In concert with that, we're pursuing at the U.N. the adoption of a
resolution which will permit the installation of a force in Croatia which
will help, we hope, avoid the further outbreak of hostilities," he said.
There is the possibility that a few U.S. individual soldiers will have a
communications role in that new force, but they would be only associated
with NATO's potential plans to assist in withdrawal of UNPROFOR, should
that become necessary," he explained.
1
Johnson said the United States is "quite gratified" that it was possible to
come up with an agreement which Tudjman could support that will deal with
the issue of an international presence in Croatia after March 31. "We have
made a good start on solving this...but there are other areas that are
crying out for attention as well," he said, referring to the need for a
settlement of the conflict in Bosnia.
A senior State Department official later described the purpose of the
upcoming ceremony as threefold: at the political- strategic level "to put
new energy and new momentum into the federation by public commitment at the
highest levels, with the secretary of state leading the effort to make the
federation more viable;" at the assistance level, the "Friends of the
Federation," to get more money earmarked for projects to strengthen the
federation; and finally, "to actually get down in our private sessions
tomorrow to discussing some of the root problems on the ground."
The March 16 ceremony, the official stressed, is "not just for show. All of
you...know that if we neglect the federation everything else in turn will
fall apart. Its success is a prior condition to dealing with the other
problems we're facing there."
Regarding the agreement reached with Tudjman, the official said it resolved
a crisis facing the United States that was as "serious a threat to peace
and stability in Europe as we have seen not only since the end of the Cold
War, but in my view, a much longer period of time."
The agreement, signed in the presence of Vice President Gore, he said, "in
our view averted an almost certain war in Krajina which would certainly
have led back to war in Bosnia, and perhaps brought Milosevic back into the
war with Serb forces from Serbia itself."
Asked if Tudjman might have been bluffing about his threat to eject U.N.
troops in Croatia, the U.S. official said "if he was bluffing, we didn't
think so....He had a legitimate grievance."
Intelligence reports, he added, confirmed that Croatian troops were
preparing to punish Krajina Serbs who "were ethnically cleansing Croatians,
hundreds of thousands of refugees. He (Tudjman) had repeatedly said he
could not stand for this. He had to retake his land by force if
necessary....We could not afford to risk (that) he was bluffing."
Asked if the move to bolster the federation might be viewed as a threat by
the Serbs and perhaps nudge them back into fighting, the U.S. official made
plain that "if the federation doesn't hold together, it's all over for the
Bosnians and the Croatians in Bosnia."
"The only way to deal with the Serbs," he declared, "is to show solidarity
and opposition to their behavior."
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