By Paul Walker
Two NATO air strikes on April 11 and 12 failed to halt the drive by Serb forces against the besieged Bosnian enclave of Gorazde. The two US-led air strikes did no more than destroy a few tanks and troop transports, and seemed more symbolic than a real attempt to push back the Serb forces which have been pounding the city. The raids were part of a complicated end game to the war being played out by all the warring forces and the UN.
The United Nations has shown itself incapable of defending the Gorazde "safe haven", which has been under siege for more than two years. Since the beginning of April, more than 200 people have been killed in the city, and thousands have fled. Neither was the UN willing to stop the wave of ethnic killings in early April in the northern Serb-held town of Prijedor, where dozens of Muslims and Croats were killed.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic, want to capture all or part of the Gorazde enclave as part of a "tidying up" operation to unify Serb-held territories. Possession of the south bank of the river Drina would enable them to build a by-pass and solve that problem, but full conquest of the city of Gorazde is not necessary for this.
Several leading news organisations reported on April 6 that the United States had reached a secret agreement with Russia on the fate of the Gorazde enclave. The agreement provided that there would be no serious resistance to an attempt by the Serb forces to seize a substantial part of the area, home to 100,000 people, thus allowing the link-up of Serb-held territories to take place. Under the terms of the alleged agreement, the centre of Gorazde would in effect become a prison camp, where refugees fleeing Serb ethnic cleansing in the surrounding area would congregate.
It is thus possible that the US-led air raids were part of a complicated bluff, in which the UN would appear to act "tough" while in fact allowing the Serb offensive to achieve its main objectives.
The battle of Gorazde is one of half a dozen relatively small Serb offensives launched since the end of March, when hundreds of Serbian guns were moved away from Sarajevo and towards other fronts. All these small offensives have the same objective of securing and tidying up territorial gains.
While Karadzic bombastically declared on April 13 that "all previous agreements between us and the UN are abrogated", in the last two months Bosnian Serbs have pushed for a general cease-fire as part of an overall settlement. Karadzic's plan is to talk and fight, maximising the extent and unity of territorial gains until the peace deal is finally done.
It seems certain that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Karadzic recognise that all major territorial gains that can be made have been. Serbia itself badly needs relief from the UN sanctions, and its soldiers and population are war-weary. The Bosnian army is better armed than at any time since the war began. Total Serb conquest of the territory which remains under Bosnian government control is an impossibility.
Moreover, the war between Bosnia and the Croatian fighters on their de facto western "border" has all but ceased. The plan drawn up by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman for a "federation" of Bosnia and Croatia legitimises the creation of "Herceg-Bosna" — the Croat mini-state on Bosnian territory which will in future be more and more integrated with Croatia proper.
With the deal between Bosnia and Croatia and the end of major new territorial gains by the Bosnian Serbs, the scene is now set for a gradual ending of the war. The Serb-held areas would be integrated into a "Greater Serbia"; the so-called "Herceg-Bona" territory would be integrated into a "Greater Croatia"; and a rump Bosnia would be left sandwiched between the two.
Such a settlement, dismembering multi-ethnic Bosnia, would be far from a just peace. Even before that is achieved there are important obstacles. Crucial to them is the fate of Serbs of the so-called "Krajina" — the Serb-dominated enclave within Croatia. The Krajina Serbs are the most cut off from Serbian territory, and they fear being abandoned by Milosevic in an overall settlement — and then overrun by Croatian forces. Although a sharp decline has been reported in fighting around the Krajina since March 26, it would erupt with a vengeance if the Krajina Serbs though they were being abandoned.
A peace deal which sanctions the break-up of Bosnia is certain to be fiercely contested by many Bosnians, especially if it gives no substantial concessions over the agreement proposed by Lord Owen last November, eventually rejected by the Bosnian government but favoured by Izetbegovic.
Indeed, any peace deal will be fiercely contested within all three warring sides. In Croatia the powerful fascist HOS militia announced at the beginning of March that it would oppose a peace deal and defend the "territorial integrity" of Bosnia — because it favoured the whole of Bosnia being integrated into Croatia! Right-wing Serbs will oppose any deal which leaves substantial Serb populations isolated.
Observers have noted that the lead in Western policy is now being taken by US secretary of state Warren Christopher, and less and less by France and Britain. Whoever is in charge, there is no doubt that the Western powers and the UN are pushing for a peace settlement, and they will seek the most pragmatic short-term solution.
In the end that means a deal which recognises that the strongest force in the Balkans is Serbia and that the West will do business with Milosevic. It means a deal that accepts that "might is right" and nothing can be done about the carve-up of multi-ethnic Bosnia. It means a deal which accepts the fruits of ethnic cleansing as legitimate.
The bombing raids against Serb positions around Gorazde have to be seen in that light. The West and the UN are telling the Serbs not to overstep the mark and go so far that the UN is publicly humiliated by having one of its "safe havens" obliterated. Beyond that, the Serb forces are free to get on with their "tidying up" operations in preparation for an unjust peace.