June 12, 1996

Analysis: Bosnia Brouhaha -- Why U.S. Pushes for Early Vote

By STEVEN ERLANGER

he United States and other outside powers that sponsored the Dayton peace accords, as well as those engaged in the four-year war in Bosnia -- Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia itself -- will all meet Thursday in Florence to assess how the peace plan is faring after its first six months.

Peace reigns, so far, on the ground. But hanging over the meeting will be a sharp dispute over whether the necessary conditions exist for elections by Sept. 14, as called for in the accords, and whether the United States, for its own political reasons, is manipulating the process it designed to insure a free and fair vote.

The Dayton accords are full of artful ambiguities and disguised contradictions, trying to create a unitary, multiethnic state in Bosnia while preserving strong sub-states based on largely ethnic lines.

These elections crystallize the ambiguities, holding the potential, according to different viewpoints, either to help reunify Bosnia or promote its permanent division.

The Clinton administration, mindful of its own election in November, is pushing hard to keep to the Dayton timetable, which calls for American troops to leave Bosnia by the end of the year along with NATO forces.

Its political motives seem plain. But the administration also argues that its approach is the most sensible one, given the choices, that the September vote is the next crucial step in the effort to rebuild a peaceful, multi-ethnic Bosnia under a new Constitution and that any delay risks unraveling the entire peace plan.

By pressing ahead so hard, the administration is riding roughshod over some of its allies and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an independent multinational grouping charged, in the Dayton accords, with certifying that conditions exist for a fair vote and then with organizing and supervising it.

In the last three weeks, the Clinton administration has put relentless private and public pressure on the organization to declare conditions ripe for elections, despite serious opposition from its human rights monitors in Bosnia. Secretary of State Warren Christopher has announced that the elections will go ahead almost no matter what.

The Americans, critics say, are willfully ignoring the fact that basic freedoms necessary to form free opinions do not yet exist in a country where infamous Bosnian Serb leaders like Dr. Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, indicted for war crimes, still hold office and exert power.

The Americans are dissembling or fooling themselves, these critics say, by arguing that elections can go ahead without the arrest of Karadzic or Mladic, so long as they withdraw from the public eye. The United States and NATO are also criticized for failing to have their commanders in Bosnia -- who are heavily armed but fear casualties and hostage-taking -- arrest the two men.

Most of the two million refugees have been unable to return to their homes or even visit them. Newspapers and radio stations are closed if they are too daring, and all Bosnian political authorities, but especially that of the Serbs, are using local policemen to intimidate voters.

"If elections go forward under these conditions," Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday, "the international community will became an accomplice to a lie." Such elections, the critics say, will solidify the ethnic cleansing and division of the country.

But U.S. officials insist on the opposite. Delay will "risk widening the divisions that continue to exist in Bosnia," Christopher argued June 2 in Geneva. One official said it would hand Karadzic and all those who wanted an ethnically divided Bosnia "a grand victory," and "could begin to unstitch everything."

In testimony Tuesday in Washington, William Montgomery, a special U.S. adviser on Bosnia, told the House International Relations Committee the elections should go ahead. "They will enable the country to move forward in a number of areas that without the elections will be impossible," he said.

One official said, "Elections are the crucial dividing line." The elections, if not "pristine," will begin a joint presidency and a new parliament for a unified, federal Bosnia.

Those indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague cannot run. Even if Karadzic succeeds in electing a slate of proxies, they will perform within new institutions.

"Day to day," a U.S. official argued, "normal citizens of Bosnia, the majority of whom want to live in peace, will be able to work within these new institutions, which will force ethnic groups to work together and help insure the war doesn't start again." The Americans want to hold the elections while NATO troops are still there in force, to keep the peace.

Those who want to put off the elections, a White House official said, either do so as a pretext because they want to extend the mandate of NATO troops or "do it out of wishful thinking that the results would be different six months from now."

The fact is that many Bosnian Serbs believe that the United States and the Muslim world are against them and will vote for the Karadzic line in any case, the official said. And there is little sign that Muslim and Croatian leaders are much less authoritarian in their views, or less popular for holding them.

The Dayton document does not require the replacement of Karadzic as political leader of the Bosnian Serbs before elections, though it was expected. U.S. officials say they continue to press Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, "to live up to his responsibilities and get Karadzic out of power and to trial."

Milosevic has promised only that Karadzic will no longer appear in the news media or wield influence. The Americans insist that such promises are not enough, but seem prepared to go ahead anyway.

"While Milosevic has no incentive to see Karadzic in The Hague," another official said, implying that Karadzic could testify against Milosevic, "Milosevic has every incentive to get Karadzic out of power," to eliminate a rival and to gain favor, and investment, from the West.

U.S. officials also note that Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., the NATO commander in Bosnia, will be replaced soon. A new commander, reportedly Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, a deputy chief of naval operations, will work "alongside" him before the elections.

Smith, whose tour is up this summer, has been slow to respond in Bosnia. Some have criticized him for timidity with the Serbs, though his fear of "mission creep" and American casualties is certainly shared by the White House.

NATO has promised to engage in more "proactive patrols," to make it hard for Karadzic and Mladic to travel. "We're going to put them in 'the box,' " one official said confidently. But patrolling roads is a far cry from pinning down or arresting suspects, and some critics wonder whether the Americans are, yet again, fooling themselves.