Word: srebrenicas
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...Boris Yeltsin, who faces Russian nationalists generally sympathetic to the Serb cause in a referendum April 25. The U.N. looked set to content itself with its early decision to assign NATO to enforce a long-declared no- fly zone over Bosnia, but the relentless shelling by the Serbs around Srebrenica on Saturday advanced the vote on the new sanctions, from which Russia and China abstained. Putting the best face on a week rife with diplomatic hesitancy, French U.N. ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee called the action "the proper response coming at the right time...
...after the carnage of the week and the Serbs' relentless assault on Srebrenica, hopes had begun to rise that the U.N. would show itself to be made of still sterner stuff. In Britain, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, public sympathy was running in favor of more determined action, led by an impassioned plea from Lady Margaret Thatcher to exempt Bosnian Muslims from the arms embargo and allow them to acquire the means to defend themselves. "There is nothing moral or right about leaving a people defenseless," she fumed. "We cannot just let things...
...event, the consensus once again was for something less than militant action. The Serb assault on Srebrenica forced nothing more than what had been all but agreed upon -- and pushed off -- earlier in the week. The Council did what it has done so often to such poor effect: it drew a line in the blood- soaked soil of the Balkans and defied the Serbs to step over it. They lost no time in obliging. On Saturday a vanguard of 60 Canadian blue helmets en route to Srebrenica from Tuzla and an aid convoy from Belgrade failed to cross Serb lines...
...dilemma confronting the U.N. was acute. Although Srebrenica had been declared a safe haven by the Security Council, the propensity of the Serbs to pour artillery fire onto civilians spoke in favor of a speedy evacuation. But with an important Muslim foothold at stake, there was also the risk of abetting, albeit unwittingly, the Serb goal of ethnic cleansing. The Bosnian authorities themselves were not pressing for a mass exodus, save for 500 badly wounded soldiers in need of hospital treatment. Said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Sylvana Foa: "They are very frightened, because they know...
...moment, relief officials on the ground were treating evacuation "as a last resort," said Foa. If U.N. troops do reach Srebrenica, the hope is that they will help quell panic among the population and thus make a massive evacuation unnecessary. They will also serve as what a U.N. spokesman called "the eyes and ears" of the world, and overseers of any laying down of arms. "People don't do dirty things in the night when international observers are walking around," said Foa. "I don't think the Serbs will risk the wrath of the world by moving...