
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 18, 1993                   TAG: 9308180118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: TULSA                                LENGTH: Medium

DOLE SAYS U.S. ABDICATING ROLE

Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., Tuesday strongly criticized what he said was U.S. acquiescence in U.N. inaction in Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying the United Nations "does not stand for the same values and principles" as the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Dole said in an unusual attack on the head of the world body, is "obsessed about being in charge, rather than getting things done," and the Clinton administration should not abdicate its foreign policy to such a leader.

"Now that the Cold War is over, there are those who would like to give up America's leadership role around the globe," Dole said. The term "multilateralism," he said, is being used by the administration "as an excuse for abdicating U.S. leadership."

Dole added, "While the United States hesitates from afar, the United Nations and the European Community have been engaged in diplomatic hand-wringing as a member state of the United Nations is being gobbled up - defenseless because of an arms embargo which violates the very principles of the U.N. Charter."

Dole said that at a minimum, the arms embargo on Bosnia should be lifted so the Muslims there can defend themselves against Bosnian Serbs. Without lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia, he said, "we don't look very strong in the world."

The Republican leader did not say Tuesday that the Bush administration made the original policy decision to avoid American entanglement in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia - a decision he has been critical of on other occasions.

Dole said the United Nations performed well as a catalyst for the anti-Iraq coalition during the Persian Gulf War, but had since become "incapable of taking swift, efficient and effective action" when any nation is confronted by aggression.

Boutros-Ghali, Dole said, had demanded that the United States wait for his permission before taking any action on behalf of the besieged Muslims in Bosnia.

"Well, the last time I checked, the American people did not elect Boutros-Ghali to run U.S. foreign policy," Dole declared. "And while it may be tempting to toss things on Boutros-Ghali's lap in view of the many domestic problems and challenges we face, we need to remember that American strength is derived not only from our economic power and military muscle, but from our leadership abroad."

The Bosnians, Dole said, are on the verge of surrendering 70 percent of their country "while the United Nations bureaucracy and the European Community hail the new peace and pat themselves on the back."

Such a settlement, Dole said, will not only be an invitation to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to tighten his grip on the Serbian people and begin "full-scale ethnic cleansing" against Albanians in Kosovo, but it will be an "invitation to other dictators and would-be aggressors who are lurking in the shadows of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere."

by CNB