Word: serbians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Instead of more vigorous action to stop Serbian aggression, as he promised during his presidential campaign, Clinton settled for a humanitarian airdrop to besieged civilians in eastern Bosnia. To avoid offending the aggressors, he said relief supplies would go to all parties--to the attacking Serbs as well as their victims. The Serbian aggressors replied to that deferential policy by using the airdrops as a cover for a major offensive against the Cerska enclave. They overran it, killing hundreds of civilians in what one United Nations official called a "massacre...
...Clinton team takes a painfully constricted position to the table. Without a threat of Western force, Serbia and Croatia will not accept a fair settlement. Yet the military options Clinton now flashes seem an unlikely check on further Serbian defiance. Christopher's pledge to remain "in the back-ground" while the parties reach their own agreement invites the aggressors to hold on to their claims...
...addition, advocates of the UN plan are reluctant to accept a plan that does not reward Serbian-Croatian aggression and dominance. The prospect of more killing is a powerful consideration in a country that knows of war and terror. But outsiders, who are doing much less than they can to reverse Serbian and Croatian aggression, are poorly placed to tell the Muslim victims that they should learn to live with their misfortune...
...would require Clinton to spend scarce political capital that he prefers to save for domestic economic renewal. Clinton may have adopted the airdrop plan as a minimal gesture, hoping to avoid more serious responsibility. Yet he will have to be serious, sooner or later, if he hopes to stop Serbian aggression--and address this widening danger to European security...
There can still be a just peace in the Balkans--not peace at any price--if Europe and the US agree to enforce such a peace together. Serbian President Milosevic must be squeezed until he squeezes the Bosnian Serbs into a bigger withdrawal. That means tightening sanctions on Serbia with a blockade at the mouth of Danube...