Word: mortaring
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sending food to the people of Sarajevo, we are merely fattening up the ducks in shooting gallery. As stale as the bread may be when it gets there, it's not going to stop a 60mm mortar shell...
...When a mortar shell killed 68 people in the Sarajevo marketplace three weeks ago, it shook the rest of the world as well. After 22 months of hand wringing and empty threats, NATO finally responded with an ultimatum. While the Serbs were finding it politic to negotiate a deal with the new U.N. ground commander, British Lieut. General Sir Michael Rose, the prospect of NATO action moved an anxious Russia -- caught between loyalty to fellow Orthodox Slavs and its interests in cooperating with the West -- to intervene. Air strikes would have forced Boris Yeltsin to risk the wrath of Russian...
What made the mortar shell that burst in Sarajevo's central market that Saturday morning different from the innumerable other rounds that have slammed into the Bosnian capital over the previous 22 months? "Strategically it meant nothing," says a senior U.S. diplomat. But the grisly footage broadcast round the globe showing 68 people blown to bits while peacefully shopping made for peculiarly revolting television. The timing of the attack, seemingly planned to kill the greatest possible number of innocent civilians, dramatized the brutality of the war all over again to a world populace that had grown benumbed to reports...
That prodded Christopher into asking his aides to review the options again. By the time they arrived home from the summit, they had drafted a plan to invigorate the Geneva talks backed by a threat of military action against the Serbs. But the emphasis was on diplomacy -- until the mortar shell struck the market. Then, says one official, "the use of force became a first priority...
Sarajevans think this business of pulling back the tanks, the mortar launchers and the other big guns is an absolute farce being carried out simply to show that, finally, something is being done. But the whole operation simply marks significant new gains for Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic. What can a distance of 12 miles mean for those who have missile-launching systems, aircraft and howitzers? What would the withdrawal of 50 or 100 tanks mean for those who can, with half an hour of maneuvering, bring in 100 more tanks and an additional 500 cannons? But the significance...