OPINION_ Syrian Talks: A Precedent From the Bosnian War

Syrian Talks: A Precedent From the Bosnian War
JAN. 30, 2014
The New York Times

To the Editor: Re “Bosnia’s Lesson for Syria” (Op-Ed, Jan. 22):

Philippe Leroux-Martin seems to prefer a hands-off policy in seeking any peace settlement in Syria. He takes this lesson from the “unsuccessful” Vance-Owen peace plan in the Bosnian war of the 1990s, which he says was a “fruitless” idea that increased the intensity of violent ethnic cleansing.

This view of the historical record may distort sound policy prescriptions for Syria and does a disservice to former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance.

Mr. Vance — serving as the representative of the United Nations secretary general — proposed that the Bosnian fighting could be quelled by decentralizing power to 10 newly drawn provinces, with mixed ethnicities and guarantees for the rights of minorities in each area. Serbia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic, agreed to the plan.

Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, initially demurred. But what precipitously doomed the plan was the unwillingness of the Clinton White House to consider any method of enforcement. The new Democratic president preferred to begin his presidential term with health care reform, rather than putting international troops or police on the ground.

As The Times reported on May 21, 1993, the White House preferred a strategy “that accepts, at least for the moment, the territorial gains made by the Serbs in Bosnia.”

The war continued for an additional 30 months. The only palliative was the creation of isolated “safe zones” such as Srebrenica, which proved to be anything but safe. It was an unfortunate instance of health care isolationism, costing some 100,000 Bosnian lives.

RUTH WEDGWOOD
Washington, Jan. 25, 2014

The writer is a professor of international law and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University.



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