Word: bihac
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...suffering Bosnia, the first test case of cohesion following the Soviet Union's collapse, the great powers have certifiably failed. Western impotence last week in the face of the Serb assault on Bihac was the culmination of more than two years of ineffectual wrangling among Washington, its European partners and the U.N. over how the horrible ethnic conflict could be stopped. Now, as the fighting worsens again, none of the peacemaking institutions so grandly charged with keeping the post-cold war world order has the vision or unity to impose a policy...
That did not stop the Serbs either. So U.N. military and civilian officials pleaded in rapid succession with Serb and Muslim leaders in Bosnia and with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. NATO officials in Brussels interrupted Thanksgiving Day to discuss a new U.S. proposal to defend Bihac, while U.N. officials claimed -- then unclaimed -- that they had mediated a cease-fire. When the Serbian artillery continued to pound Bihac on Friday in defiance of more U.N. warnings, NATO jets flew again, but darkness fell and the planes did not drop their bombs...
None of those frenzied maneuvers did anything to stop the war. The Serbs hardly broke stride on their march to Bihac, and the battle went very much according to their plan. They hit Sarajevo with artillery and sniper fire and confined more than 275 blue helmets to their barracks around Sarajevo, turning them into virtual hostages. Determined to crush the Fifth Corps of the Muslim- led Bosnian army based at Bihac, the Serbs bombarded the town for days, driving most of its army defenders and 70,000 civilians into basements and shelters. Ground troops then pressed into the zone...
Some European officials believe the recurrent spasms of U.S. sympathy encourage the Bosnian Muslims to keep fighting in hopes America will come to the rescue. They point out that the Serbian drive on Bihac began as a counteroffensive against the Bosnian Fifth Corps, which had attacked the Serbs from Bihac in October and scored major gains. To some Europeans, the Bosnian Muslims are only getting what they deserve for upsetting the status quo. An Administration official in Washington snaps back at the Europeans, "The boat is sinking, but they don't want to rock...
...NATO meeting in Brussels, the U.S. proposed creating a weapons- exclusion zone around Bihac from which all artillery and tanks would have to be withdrawn, like the one around Sarajevo. For the French and British, it was typical American naivete. Exclusion zones need ground troops to monitor the terrain, take weaponry into holding areas and report violations. The U.S. suggested policing the proposed zone with aircraft. The allies again said no. The task "requires more than rhetoric," said British Defense Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, and "if I may say, more than air power." Bosnia, says a worried NATO official, "has done...