Word: airlift
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Part of the diplomacy involves keeping Russia on the West's team. President Boris Yeltsin is under heavy pressure from parliament to join forces with Russia's traditional Slav allies, the Serbs. A way to strengthen the existing bond, Washington has decided, is to bring the Russians into the airlift. Moscow has agreed, and five U.S. Air Force officers are to fly there this week to plan Russian participation, which will include flying cargo missions to Bosnia from NATO bases in Germany and Italy -- the first U.S.-Russian joint operations since World...
...religious affiliation." By week's end, with the drops set to begin, the operation had support from U.S. congressional leaders, allied officials such as Britain's John Major, and the U.N. Security Council. Even General Ratko Mladic, commander of Serb forces in Bosnia, indicated his troops would "tolerate" the airlift...
...suffering Bosnians? Or back away from responsibility? Initially wary of a venture he feared might jeopardize the safety of peacekeepers on the ground, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali eventually endorsed the plan, but some members of the Security Council continued to fret privately about the wisdom of the airlift. European allies suspected Clinton's initiative might have resulted from the need to be seen as doing something more active -- a public relations ploy designed to display American leadership. But the airlift also signaled a degree of U.S. engagement that the Europeans have encouraged...
...officials admit that the airlift is mostly a symbolic gesture, but they hope it will pressure all parties to return to the negotiating table. Washington has, in effect, told Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic that if the U.S. is willing to risk its aircrews and planes, he can show up at the peace talks scheduled to begin this week in New York City, which he has refused to attend as long as Serb forces are shelling Bosnian cities. "The airdrops were taken in response to our view that there are Muslim towns in eastern Bosnia where you have very serious humanitarian...
...deliver supplies to Serbian and Croat enclaves as well will convince those factions that the U.S. will be an honest broker in the negotiations. At a minimum, the Serbs might be persuaded that the holdup of truck convoys to starve out the Muslims is now futile. But the airlift might just as easily give the Serbs an additional excuse to halt ground deliveries...