In retaliation for the NATO attacks, the Serbs went on a rampage. They shelled five of the six U.N.-declared safe havens in Bosnia, bringing carnage to Tuzla; ignored a U.N. demand to surrender heavy weapons around Sarajevo, and took U.N. military observers hostage, chaining them up at the damaged ammunition dump. That might have seemed provocation enough for a third attack. Instead, there was, says one NATO officer, a “decision to hold back a bit,” Though some U.N. officials sounded tough, others were making their customary noises about neutrality. “If you want to get on the side of the Bosnian government,” said one U.N. official, “then leave us out and go in like Desert Storm.” But that is the least likely of all scenarios for the future of Bosnia. The smoke above Pale seemed to signal the most common refrain of the three-year-old war: what now?
That question won’t be answered in Bosnia, but in comfortable capitals far from its carnage. The bombs fell because the Western powers had come to realize that they either had to stand up or to get out. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opened the debate this month by contemplating the withdrawal of U.N. forces. France, with the largest contingent of forces (and 36 dead in Bosnia), also said it might be time to go. Faced with a humiliating and dangerous withdrawal–plans call for a ground force of 40,000, half Americans–NATO’s members blinked.
In any place less a byword for irresolution than Bosnia, force would have been tried weeks earlier. Bosnian Serb attacks on Sarajevo have crept up to levels not seen for 15 months. The Serbs have prevented most humanitarian supplies from reaching the city by road, and, for almost two months, have stopped the airlift of humanitarian aid. On May 7, a Bosnian Serb shell killed 11 people in a Sarajevo suburb. At VE Day ceremonies the next day, Bill Clinton told Tony Lake, his national-security adviser, to persuade the allies to strike back. Soon after the attack Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, the U.N. commander in Bosnia, requested airstrikes, but was overruled by his civilian counterpart in the U.N. mission, Yasushi Akashi. The Americans, says one administration official, “went ballistic.” The British, too, were outraged and at some point in mid-May the French also determined that stronger action was needed. On May 19, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright and Secretary of Defense William Perry met Boutros-Ghali, telling him that the United Nations’ vacillation had endangered his troops. The secretary-general then appears to have told Akashi to grant Smith’s requests for airstrikes.
Why did the Bosnian Serbs’ decide to renew their offensive this spring? Partly because that is their style. Partly because they were provoked: Bosnian government forces have been shelling Serb positions. But there are other reasons, wrapped up in Bosnia’s complex diplomacy. The Bosnian Serbs may think that the United Nations is not about to withdraw its forces; but they know very well that a “redefinition” of the United Nations’ mission has been discussed at the highest levels. A senior European diplomat says that such a “redefinition”-Bosnia-speak for retreat–would mean abandoning at least some of the U.N.-protected enclaves in eastern Bosnia. The Serbs may have calculated that just a little bit more unpleasantness would give them some highly strategic land.
There may have been one other reason for the Bosnian Serbs’ aggression. Though they have often been disappointed in the past, U,S. diplomats have, once again, been playing the oldest card in the Balkan deck–the attempt to drive a wedge between the Bosnian Serbs and Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia “proper.” Earlier this month the Americans thought they were on the verge of a deal in which Milosevic would recognize Bosnia in return for the suspension of sanctions on Serbia. But Milosevic backed off; in any case, one diplomat counsels that such high-level talks do not necessarily affect what happens on the ground. Indeed, one of the givens of the war is that the Bosnian Serbs have their own agenda. Faced, in fact or in theory, with abandonment by Milosevic, they reminded the world of an ugly truth: they can shell Bosnia’s Muslims at will. So they did. And thus started the chain that led to the bombing of Pale.
The Bosnian Serbs are good at shelling. After the first NATO air-strike last week, they shelled a cafe-lined square in Tuzla, the second largest city in government-held Bosnia. On this warm night the sidewalk cafes were packed. U.N. observers counted 71 dead from the shelling, mostly youngsters. It was the single most deadly attack in the war–bigger than the 1994 Sarajevo marketplace bombing. “There were pieces of bodies all over the place,” said one witness.
The reaction was predictable. A U.N. spokesman called the Tuzla bombing “medieval barbarism”; “despicable,” said the State Department. But a NATO attack on the scale seen last week was new. “We’re now on the road a lot of people wanted to be on for a long time,” said one NATO official. “It’s a one-way street, and. . .there are some really big potholes.” U.S. officials told everyone that they would “stay the course.” Yet in the confused state of the Balkan s, the meaning of the smoke above Pale was still not clear. It might obscure business as usual, the one-step-forward-two-back fandango of Bosnia. Or it might signal the umpteenth round of the wars of the Yugoslav succession–NATO against the Bosnian Serbs.
