Hell in a Small place

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Rarely has a truth si brutally demonstrated been so assiduously avoided. International sanctions, threats, peace negotiations — none are having the slightest effect on the horror being played out in eastern Bosnia. Serb forces are shooting what Muslim Bosnians they can and deliberately starving out the rest. Serb leaders perceive, correctly so far, each new mediating maneuver as evidence that they can continue to act with impunity. Only military action — the lifting of the U.N.-imposed arms embargo on the beleaguered Bosnian government or the bombing of Serb positions — is likely to change the equation. Despite Western outrage over the carnage, that is not on.

The grim reality came into sharper focus than ever last week in the besieged Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, 10 km from the Serbian border. Courageously encamped among its residents, French Lieut. General Philippe Morillon, the commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia, watched ragged and desperate refugees fight over inadequate supplies of food aid dropped by U.S. aircraft. Some were knifed in the scramble; the least assertive got nothing and lived on bread made of corn husks and berries. All the while, 175 tons of food bound for Srebrenica via truck convoy was held up at the Serbian-Bosnian border, as Serb planes bombed Bosnian civilians and advancing Serb forces slammed tank and mortar shells into Srebrenica.

By Friday, Morillon had had enough: he drove from Srebrenica to a border crossing 40 km to the north to pry loose the stalled convoy. Bowing to Serb demands that he leave behind his U.N. escort — two Canadian armored personnel carriers — he drove back to Srebrenica in his command vehicle, leading 16 trucks stuffed with supplies. By then the town had become a little more like hell. Serb forces had launched an all-out attack, with rocket-launcher salvos from the south and tank and mortar fire from the north. "It's a pincer movement," said a U.N. official in Belgrade, "and it appears to be the final assault on Srebrenica." The lightly armed Bosnian defenders were not considered likely to withstand the onslaught for more than a few days. Said one U.N. official: "It's not a matter of whether Srebrenica will fall, but when."

While the Srebrenica tragedy unfolded, the futile dance of diplomacy continued. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic flew to New York City for further negotiations on the mired peace plan of U.N. envoy Cyrus Vance and Europe's representative Lord Owen. Karadzic disingenuously promised to "negotiate without preconditions" even as his minions were holding up the convoys bound for Srebrenica and other Muslim enclaves. The same day, Serbia's President, Slobodan Milosevic, promised Sadako Ogata, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, that he would use his good offices to get the trucks through, but some remained stuck for up to eight days. Said a senior British diplomat of the Serb strategy: "They jaw, jaw and war, war."

The pattern is now acknowledged even by those diplomats who in the past managed to dredge hope from repeated Serb assurances of goodwill. The only aspect that changed last week: Morillon's stand at Srebrenica put a chink in the U.N.'s carefully upheld notion of neutrality. "The main message from here is that someone has to stop the Serbs from advancing," said the UNHCR's Larry Hollingworth, speaking from Srebrenica by ham radio. "Like some evil jabberwocky, they must be stopped."

By week's end, the U.N. Security Council had condemned the aerial bombings and had begun grappling with stronger measures. After confirmed reports that Serb aircraft had bombed three Muslim villages near Srebrenica in violation of the no-fly zone imposed by the council, France launched a new initiative to provide armed enforcement of the ban, which Washington has long backed. Previously, France and Britain had balked at enforcing the ban out of fear that their peacekeeping troops in Sarajevo and elsewhere could be endangered. The blatant attacks of the past 10 days have ended that reticence, and the resolution is likely to pass the Security Council this week. But diplomats acknowledge that the air attacks are negligible compared to the powerful Serb artillery attacks.

None of this boded well for the Vance-Owen peace plan, which would break Bosnia into 10 autonomous provinces based on ethnic makeup. Said Bosnia's President, Alija Izetbegovic: "Under such conditions, we cannot continue to negotiate. We are waiting for the Serbs to stop the killing of the people."

Izetbegovic can stall for now, but sooner or later he will have to either negotiate while the Serbs continue to march to victory, or break off talks — and thus play further into Serb hands. The Serbs dislike the Vance-Owen plan because its implementation would leave them with unconnected swatches of Bosnia that are significantly smaller than areas they have already conquered. "The Serbs don't want a settlement. They want victory," says Michael Dewar, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "They are well within reach of it."

"The one thing that might screw things up for the Serbs," says a U.S. analyst, "is Western military intervention. Milosevic doesn't want it, his generals don't want it because they know that they will lose their toys if they have to fight a real army." As matters stand, neither Milosevic nor his generals appear to have much to worry about.