ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95082502.POL
DATE:08/25/95
TITLE:25-08-95 HOLBROOKE URGES BOSNIAN-SERB PARTICIPATION IN PEACE PROCESS
TEXT:
(Sees small "window of opportunity" for peace) (800)
By Jacquelyn S. Porth
USIA Security Affairs Correspondent
Washington -- The head of the U.S. peace mission to the former
Yugoslavia August 25 called on the Bosnian Serbs to participate in the
peace process "and not try to destroy it."
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Richard
Holbrooke, head of the U.S. delegation which departs August 27 to
continue the search for peace in the Balkans, cautioned that if the
Bosnian Serbs refuse to become part of the peace process, "there will
be consequences" that they would not "wish to see happen."
At a briefing at the State Department, he also said that although
there is a small "window of opportunity" to achieve peace in the
region, there is a larger "window of danger" that the peace effort
will fail.
Holbrooke noted that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian
President Franjo Tudjman, and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic have
all "accepted" the five-nation Contact Group's map as "the starting
point for negotiations."
However the Bosnian Serbs have demanded 64 percent of the land on the
map, he said.
Intensive consultations are underway, Holbrooke said, to exploit the
existing window of opportunity for progress in the peace process in
advance of his departure. He will travel to the region with a
"reconstituted team" of experts and negotiators in the wake of a
tragic accident in Bosnia on August 17 which killed three U.S.
officials whose contributions had been critically important to both
the peace effort and the evolving Partnership for Peace process.
The new members of the U.S. team of negotiators are: Roberts Owen,
senior adviser to Secretary of State Christopher on the former
Yugoslavia; Brigadier General Donald Kerrick, director of the Defense
Department's National Military Intelligence Center; James Pardew,
director of the Secretary of Defense's Balkan Task Force; and
Christopher Hill, office director of the State Department's
South-Central European Affairs Section.
The team will meet first in France with members of the Contact Group;
representatives from Spain, Canada, Italy; and Bosnian President
Izetbegovic. The mission will continue on to Belgrade around August
29.
Holbrooke said the United States, contrary to some press reports, is
not supporting partitioning or secession in Bosnia. "We are not going
into this negotiation" to participate in the carving up of Bosnia, he
said.
Citing key goals of the peace mission, he said:
-- Bosnia-Herzegovina should remain "a single,
internationally-recognized state.
-- There should be equal treatment for all ethnic groups "in all of
the countries."
-- The territorial integrity of Croatia, including eastern Slavonia,
should be maintained;
-- A regional economic reconstruction effort should be launched once a
peace settlement is achieved.
-- Humanitarian aid should continue to be provided to help people
survive.
Holbrooke acknowledged that the peace mission is "an uphill struggle,"
but he stressed the U.S. commitment to it. The "major obstacle" to
peace remains the Bosnian Serbs, he added.
Time is of the essence, he explained, because of the "tremendous
growth" in the level of violence across-the-board and the coming
winter weather which would impede any efforts to withdraw U.N.
peacekeepers from the region.
State Department acting spokesman John Dinger told reporters that as a
result of conflict in Gorazde "several Bosnian government forces were
killed." Holbrooke described the situation there as "somewhat murky,"
indicating that no one wants to see U.N. peacekeepers "firing on and
killing Bosnian soldiers."
On the subject of the war crimes tribunal, Holbrooke made a point of
saying that that process is separate and not affected by the peace
negotiations. He made it clear that a war crime of "historic
proportions" against humanity occurred this summer when the safe haven
of Srebrenica was overtaken.
Holbrooke stressed that the rights of all three ethnic groups in
Bosnia "should be respected," also noting that a distinction must be
made between expulsions and "mass exterminations."
In Srebrenica, Holbrooke said, an undetermined number of people -- in
the thousands -- "were massacred deliberately." The international
community, he said, must distinguish between "bad things and really
bad things: between acts which are a horrible consequence of war...and
war crimes against humanity."
Asked about the effect of congressional legislation calling for the
U.S. unilateral lifting of the Bosnian arms embargo, Holbrooke
stressed that it would "absolutely undermine whatever chance we have
for successful negotiations" and is "deleterious to the cause of
peace."
He also noted that he is trying to "work out" a trip to Athens for
consultations with Greek officials. He had been scheduled to travel to
Crete earlier in the month, but the plans were disrupted due to the
deaths of the U.S. diplomats in Bosnia.
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