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

DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995                   TAG: 9508250014
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BOSNIA, KEEP PUSHING FOR PEACE

THE CLINTON administration's peace initiative in the Balkans was set back by the deaths of three U.S. diplomats in Bosnia Saturday, but the effort must continue. The hope is to find crawling room through a window of opportunity opened by Croatia's recent military victories over the Serbs.

The plan Clinton is pushing hasn't been revealed in detail. But, according to the Economist magazine, it is essentially a partition. Bosnia would remain intact and independent in theory alone. There would be some territorial adjustments, but Serbs would end up with 49 percent of the land. A federation of Muslims and Croats would get 51 percent. The Serb area would be free to confederate with Serbia. The rest could confederate with Croatia.

The pluses of the plan itself - for example, that Bosnian Serbs would have to give back some of their territory gained by fighting and ethnic cleansing - seem minor in comparison with the negatives. Among these: The ideal of a multi-ethnic Bosnia is practically abandoned, and Serb aggression is rewarded - with Serb gains granted international sanction and permanent status.

However appalling these negatives are, it is still hard to see how further warfare - ensuring yet more death and suffering - would produce a better result. The Croatian blitz, while altering the balance of power, did so via another exercise in ethnic cleansing. If the Croats' provisional allies, the Bosnian Muslims, appear to be winning, Serbia will likely send in the Yugoslavia Army to help its Serb brothers. Kosovo and Macedonia are poised to be drawn into the fighting and the orgy of ethnic dispersal. NATO nations fear a heavy commitment of ground troops caught in an ambiguous mission.

This is how tragedy works, especially when allowed to spin out of control for so long: None of the available options is pleasant. The focus now ought to be on ending the fighting - while salvaging the best deal possible for the primary victims, Bosnian Muslims, and fighting to protect what germs of future democratic pluralism may remain amid the rubble.

But that doesn't mean any deal is acceptable. Even leaving moral qualms aside, imposing a stark division of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia is unlikely to deter the Muslims from fighting on or from gradually abandoning pluralistic ideals. And lingering resentment could destabilize neighboring states and fuel militancy in the Islamic world, prolonging and spreading the violence.

The Clinton administration and allies must seek not just an end to the war, but a settlement with reasonable odds of lasting. That means leaving Bosnia as something more than an ethnic ghetto or refugee camp, and promoting a power-sharing arrangement that would hold out some hope of respect for minority rights.

At the same time, and with equal urgency, the administration needs to show more leadership in helping to develop an international capacity to reduce violence and avoid future Bosnias. This means better United Nations early-warning systems, to signal when conflicts are about to turn violent; better international preventive diplomacy; a standing U.N. volunteer force for quick deployment before conflicts become full-fledged wars; and an effective, international criminal court to prosecute individuals who commit crimes against humanity.

The global community owes this much to the people who have died in Bosnia and other unnecessary wars.

by CNB