Word: rifkind
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...conference in London. Called in response to the Srebrenica and Zepa debacles, the conference seemed likely to be yet another windy session in which the U.S. and European diplomats would issue meaningless threats. The chairman of this conference, however, was to be Britain's newly appointed Foreign Minister Malcolm Rifkind, who had arrived in Washington on a regularly scheduled visit just as Srebrenica was falling...
Right. But what did they say? And what did they mean? At the end of eight hours of discussion among foreign and defense ministers, British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind emerged to deliver the official summary of the meeting. He issued the Serbs a warning, but an ambiguous one, declaring that any attack on Gorazde, the last remaining safe area in eastern Bosnia, "would be met with a substantial and decisive response." Precisely what that response would be was not spelled out. The U.S. had gone into the meeting calling for sweeping air attacks on the Serbs. France favored sending more...
...conference agreed to keep the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia as long as possible. The ministers also said they would use a new U.N. rapid-reaction force now taking shape to secure a land supply route into Sarajevo, where relief shipments have been cut off for weeks. But Rifkind warned that if the U.S. lifts the arms embargo against Bosnia, the situation would become too dangerous and "unprofor would have to withdraw...
British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind, whose country is contributing more than 6,000 troops to the new force, said flatly, "We are not going to wage war. That is not the role of the U.N." But even beyond that, he said, the kind of peacekeeping that is required can be carried out only when the combatants basically agree to it. "If the consent is not there, the U.N. will not remain," he said. Britain's Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd went further, saying the reinforcements were intended not to change the character of the U.N. force "but to increase its ability...
...French about-face, which was welcomed by the U.S. but received only a cool stare from British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind, reflects the schizophrenia at the core of the West's response to the Balkan war. Unable to choose between mounting a more muscular response and calling off the whole show, the allies' simultaneous pursuit of both alternatives leaves them hamstrung. On one hand they fear that a more assertive approach in Bosnia is likely to entangle them more deeply in the war. Yet admitting defeat and pulling out would not only humiliate NATO but also allow the conflict...