Word: nato
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Even as some hostages were being freed, 19 others were seized. About 250 U.N. peacekeepers, many of them soldiers from NATO countries, were still captives of the Bosnian Serbs, taken in retaliation for NATO air strikes on Serb ammunition dumps two weeks ago. Fighting was under way in several parts of Bosnia; Sarajevo remained without water and electricity. Relief deliveries through Serb-held territories were halted. Atop the rubble, the unpredictable Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was proclaiming that all U.N. resolutions and nato mandates were void. He was, in effect, declaring war on the world...
...bloody denouement at best, and at worst a prelude to a wider Balkan war. A withdrawal would also require a large number of troops and lots of money, and it would dishonor every country and organization involved, particularly if they left hostages behind. A second option would involve NATO's getting tougher with the genocidal, hostage-taking Serbs, but that might lead down a path of commitment for which no Western government has the stomach. Or NATO and the U.N. could simply soldier on, hoping for a diplomatic settlement but perhaps only buying some time until the next crisis...
...congressional Republicans and Democratsworried about creeping U.S. involvement in Bosnia, Defense Secretary William Perry warned lawmakers that withdrawing U.N. peacekeepers from the region could lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe" and draw NATO allies Greece and Turkey into the conflict. In House and Senate hearings, Perry said the military would require 22 weeks toevacuate U.N. peacekeepersusing 1,500 U.S. soldiers stationed nearby. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said he would offer a binding resolution to limit U.S. troops to that objective, and Perry assured him that the U.S. would refrain from taking sides in the war. ButMark Thompson, TIME Defense correspondent...
...then -- the moment of truth. In the past, when the Serbs have responded to a NATO air strike by shelling civilians and taking hostages, NATO has made threats but backed down. This time, would the strikes continue, hostages or no? Following the Serbian bridge attack and French counterattack, there were hints of more bombing, notably from U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, who cut short a visit to Italy to meet with his British and German counterparts at London's Gatwick airport on Saturday. At a news conference, Perry declared that the credibility of the international community was at stake...
Bosnian Serbs detained more than 200 U.N. peacekeepers and chained a number of them to probable nato targets as human shields to protect against further attack by NATO warplanes. Two days of air strikes by Western allies had damaged Serbian munitions dumps, located little more than a mile outside the Bosnian Serb mountaintop headquarters at Pale. The Bosnian Serbs also bombarded five out of six U.N.- declared "safe haven" cities in Bosnia, killing 71 people in the northern town of Tuzla alone. The air strikes, the first since November, were ordered after Bosnian Serbs ignored an ultimatum to return heavy...