What's the least bad solution for Bosnia?

by KEN SIMONS

<*> "Better ethnic cleansing than ethnic killing". This was Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic's response to questions about whether the government would abandon the enclaves of Zepa and Gorazde if they, too, were overrun by Bosnian Serb forces as Srebrenica had been.

This conflict has reached a point where every option is unpalatable. The near future is likely to bring either the conquest of the remaining enclaves ("safe areas") and Sarajevo, with or without UN troops standing in the way; or an escalation of outside intervention, through air strikes and land operations. This could include the Croatian reconquest of the Serbian Krajina, widely expected since Croatia's military walkover in the Western Slavonia region in May this year; as the Krajina is both more fully militarised and more strategically important than Slavonia, such a military adventure will necessarily be bloodier, with greater consequences for Bosnia-Hercegovina.

The military interventions most widely debated in the media and the peace movement, however, are those which involve UN or NATO forces in enforcing--or moving beyond--the UN mandate for the region. We have to recognise that UNPROFOR and the Bosnia Contact Group have become implicated both in the war and in its possible resolution, and cannot simply be wished away by those people who argue "Let the people of Bosnia sort it out among themselves" (how, when one side--the Bosnian Serbs--have most of the land, most of the firepower, and none of the scruples?).

On the other hand, it has been painfully clear for four years now that the European Union and NATO member states haven't a clue over their policy objectives in the Balkans. If these states are seeking merely to contain the fighting, it hardly seems logical or sensible to add more firepower to an already deeply militarised conflict.

>>> Rapid reaction

As we go to press, an Anglo-French rapid reaction force has been fortifying the land route to Sarajevo, deploying NATO troops around Mount Igman in what is effectively a combat role. If they fail, the UN peacekeeping operation may come to a hasty end. If they "succeed", we can also see little comfort for the Bosnians. The best that such a military strategy can promise is to impose a political solution--cantonisation again--on the Bosnian Serb side.

Indeed, it has been suggested by people sympathetic to Bosnia-Hercegovina's multi-national government that surrender may be the most prudent move. Among other things, a victorious Serbian regime would have to come to terms with the continued presence of Muslim Bosnians and Croatian Bosnians in their territory. A political settlement would, inevitably, have to emerge.

One objection to such a strategy would be that general Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serb forces have shown no inclination to live with a non-Serb population in the lands it has conquered so far. But the alternative which the outside world seems to think will placate the ethnically purifying Bosnian Serb armies-- cantonisation--has routinely been rejected by the Pale regime.

>>> Constructive resistance

What are the alternatives? Attempts to apply classic nonviolent resistance theory to the conflicts in former-Yugoslavia have run into difficulties around one key question: how to resist an oppressor who does not seek your compliance and cooperation, but who simply wants you out of the way. Could Srebrenica, Zepa, Mostar, Tuzla resist in such a way as to lessen rather than raise the level of violence?

Some of these questions were addressed in a recent statement by the German Federation for Social Defence (Bund fuer Soziale Verteidigung; BSV), which has been involved in initiatives in former-Yugoslavia since the beginning of the current cycle of conflicts. The BSV's paper contains echoes of many of our own arguments about the logic driving the war; the lack of constructive international engagement; and the limitations built into the UN's military-driven approach over the past three years.

They argue against a sudden withdrawal of UN troops, as UNPROFOR's functions in the area of humanitarian aid and as intermediaries cannot be taken over by civilian forces overnight. " ... We demand ´only' the return to classical peace-keeping; that is, to dispense with enforcement of the flight ban and armed escorts for the convoys.

"Even when the latter may sound hazardous, we still believe that in the medium term, the security of the relief organisations' workers can be guaranteed better through negotiations with the warring parties than through often purely symbolic military ´protection', which has also made the convoys into legitimate targets of attack in the eyes of many soldiers as well."

>>> Confidence-building

While it is important to understand the conflict at the macro-level, and to recommend ways that the Bosnia Contact Group's draft peace plan be altered to ensure both cooperation and compliance, the BSV proposes a series of confidence-building measures which would work at the micro-level as well as forming part of a general conflict reduction plan:

• guaranteeing the right to remain of people who do not belong to the dominant ethnic group in an area and who have not fled so far
• monitoring and protection by civilian observers, who would be recruited through non-governmental organisations
• a visitation program for refugees for establishing contact with their relatives; establishment of local round tables for planning the future of the region.

In a second phase, consideration could then be given to:

• a limited and voluntary return of refugees to their home areas
• an insistence that each state begin to put its own war criminals on trial.

All these measures should be flanked internationally by initiatives which serve the construction of democracy and the diversity of media:

• the financing of comprehensive peace education programmes in schools (as already conducted by NGOs in pilot programmes elsewhere)
• promotion of local democracy through city partnership schemes
• financing of social-psychological care of all refugees and displaced persons
• development cooperation funding for other NGO projects
• financing of independent media projects--which should be conducted exclusively by journalists who were expelled from the countries themselves.

Recommendations such as these acknowledge that the war will not exhaust itself, but grievances continually refuel it. To make peace and to build programmes for social reconciliation--to restore hope--there must be incentives, incentives which (realistically) the international community must be prepared to provide and support.