THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, September 15, 1995             TAG: 9509150015
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A22  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   46 lines

LOOK WHO'S TALKING ABOUT BOSNIAN BLOODSHED RUSSIAN RHETORIC

The endless tragedy in the former Yugoslavia is no laughing matter, but there's something laughable about the Russians verbally rushing to the defense of the Bosnian Serbs and taking NATO to task for ``genocide.''

There's no question NATO, the United Nations and Bosnia's European neighbors in particular have made a hash of this crisis from the beginning. There's no assurance that the belated attempt to use air power to prevent the Bosnian Serbs from completing their annihilation of the Bosnian Muslims will work. It's true that some innocents are likely to be injured in the attempt, though NATO is clearly bending over backward to restrict damage to military targets.

But if any party to the fray can be accused of genocide, it's surely the Bosnian Serbs who are the villains not the victims. They have engaged in ethnic cleansing, the use of rape as a tactic of war and the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. Their leaders stand accused of war crimes.

The goal of NATO isn't to kill the Bosnian Serbs but to persuade them to stop killing their neighbors. It has unfortunately been necessary to use the only language they seem to understand - force. For the Russians to accuse NATO of being the guilty party and the aggressor is to mistake black for white and night for day.

Furthermore, the Russians - fresh from their own bloody repression in Chechnya - are a little short of the moral authority needed if they hope to be taken seriously in the role of ethical scold and disinterested peacemaker.

In fact, from the beginning the Russians have favored the Serb side - their ``fellow Slavs'' as they put it - and have encouraged their aggression. As this latest complaint suggests, they are doing so still.

NATO may not succeed in persuading the Bosnian Serbs and their backers in Belgrade to stop their depredations and come to the bargaining table with the goal of living in peace, but NATO certainly can't allow the self-interested, wrongheaded rhetoric of the Russians to dictate its actions. Indeed, this whole episode is a reminder of why Russia's desire to gain NATO membership hasn't been gratified and won't be for a good long time - if ever. by CNB