JOHN MAJOR has won cross-party Commons support for his pledge to dispatch 6,000 more British troops to Bosnia: but far from being a policy for peace, this is a recipe for escalating violence.
The new forces to be sent, as part of a new 'rapid response' unit under joint UN/NATO control, will not be unarmed peace-keepers or deliverers of humanitarian aid: they will be heavily-armed troops ready and willing to kill people.
They will go in part to retaliate for the humiliation of seeing hundreds of British, French and other UN forces being taken hostage by Bosnian Serbs.
But the British troops will be almost as impotent to shape events as were their blue-helmeted colleagues. Short of the deployment of truly massive military force - far bigger than any force that could be assembled by NATO or the UN - any troops on the ground will be vufnerable to the Bosnian Serbs -and potentially to the Croatians and Bosnians.
In the worst case scenario they might have to fight their way in - and then eventually fight their way out again. The NATO plan to withdraw even the existing troops from the area involves the deployment of a massive 50,000 troops.
There are wide divisions between the key governments on precisely what the troops should do when they arrive, and how long they are supposed to stay.
The US is urging on the Europeans, and offering to loan them aircraft, but wisely rejecting any involvement in what could be a prolonged, costly and hugely unpopular war. France vacillates between gung-ho calls to 'punch a corridor through to Sarajevo' and threatening to withdraw altogether.
All eyes are on the ambiguous tactics of Russia, which wants western loans but supports the Serbians. But if the others pull out, there is a lingering danger of a Turkish intervention on the Bosnian side, triggering a possible Greek alliance with Serbia. Even as the British prepare to step in, Douglas Hurd UN intervention was no solution for masses in the Gulf, and is no solution in Bosnia could end in failure. strike only against the Serbs. as a lesser evil. guarantee the existence and has warned that the whole exercise Of course those who have urged more drastic NATO air-strikes and military retaliation, especially against the brutality of the Bosnian Serb army, will hope that this external force will For some, like those Bosnians trapped in the beleagured enclaves, it people is understandable that any intervention allegedly on their behalf could be seen But this is an illusion. Only the Bosnian people themselves can democracy of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nobody else can or will do it for them. embargo!
The Bosnian army has already begun to show that it is able to defend itself. Its early successes after the end of the winter cease-fire created a degree of panic among the Bosnian Serbs -leading to their new tactic of hostage-taking and pressure It is vital for Bosnia that the embargo on arms supplies, which has hit them much harder than Serbia or Croatia, is immediately lifted.
External force
No democratic or just solution can be imposed through the external force of NATO guns: the UN line-up is more against the Bosnian people than it is against Bosnian Serbs Indeed any new UN/NATO ground forces would be committed to uphold the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina -and this means defending existing battle lines against any attempt by the Bosnians to roll back the Serbian and Croatian forces and recapture their own lost territory.
The military build-up favoured by John Major, Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown threatens to trigger new disasters for Bosnia's long-suffering It will not bring self-determination, but will seek to consolidate a brutal carve-up of the most multi-ethnic and secular of the republics of ex-Yugoslavia, bringing the danger of a new wave of ethnic cleansing.
No troops to Bosnia. Lift the arms
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 85, June 10 1995, Page 2 Helsinki Citizens recent shelling of Tuzla