Word: sarajevos
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...nation NATO alliance responded with yet another warning, only this one was not so vague. It took the form of a flat ultimatum to the Serbs: Stop shelling Sarajevo. Pull back all big guns, heavy mortars and tanks 12.4 miles $ from the Bosnian capital or put them under U.N. control. And do it in 10 days, by 1 a.m. Feb. 21, Sarajevo time. After that, NATO warplanes will bomb or strafe any heavy weapons still in the exclusion zone, or any artillery pieces still firing into Sarajevo from beyond...
Strong language, and carrying something of the conviction born of despair. A long series of earlier warnings -- most recently a NATO resolution last August authorizing air strikes to prevent the "strangulation" of Sarajevo -- had sputtered to nothing. For that very reason, argued a NATO official, if the Serbs defy the new ultimatum "we have to attack. If we didn't, NATO's credibility would suffer a fatal blow...
...shot down and killed, or captured and paraded on TV as hostages, a la Iran or Somalia. The air strikes could be ineffective: finding and destroying well-hidden artillery pieces, especially mortars that can be moved quickly, is no cinch. The Serbs could step up their offensives far from Sarajevo, intensifying the killing in other vulnerable towns like Srebrenica and Tuzla. The Serbs could take prisoner or even kill civilian aid workers who distribute food and other humanitarian assistance. Result: whipsawing pressures on Clinton either to cut and run, wrecking U.S. credibility for good, or to apply more force drip...
...case, the ultimatum is narrowly drawn. It does not authorize air strikes outside the Sarajevo region. The Serbs will not even be required to lift the city's siege. NATO hopes that will happen if the Serbs can no longer use their big guns to offset the Bosnian government's advantage in manpower. But if the Serbs withdraw their artillery while keeping up the sniper fire that has killed many Sarajevans, that would not trigger air strikes. How come? Says U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter: "We did not want to create any illusions that this will...
...whether they will provoke air strikes or not. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic makes the absurd claim that the Muslims faked the whole market carnage, using mannequins, professional actors to portray the wounded and old corpses provided by obliging Croat forces, who would have had to smuggle them into Sarajevo through Serb lines. Jovan Zametica, spokesman for the self-described Bosnian Serb government, remarks, "If NATO aircraft attack, we'll take them out." Drunken Serb soldiers on a hillside south of the capital mock the NATO threat. Bosnian troops are just down the hill, they say, and "if they...