Former secretary of state James Baker “didn’t want to deal with an issue he was not personally involved in,” Kenney told NEWSWEEK. That he finally showed interest in Bosnia, says Kenney, was due largely to the efforts of his longtime aide and spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler, who was deeply moved by the suffering in Sarajevo. Even then, “the one policy direction seemed to be, ‘Do nothing, continue to negotiate, find a peaceful solution’,” he says. “It runs against the reality that the Serbs do not want to negotiate.” Few of Kenney’s policy papers survived the State Department bureaucracy intact; his daily reports sometimes passed through 10 senior officials and were often watered down or simply ignored. At best, Kenney had to rely on his own “subversive influence” for small triumphs. Among them: a line he inserted in a senior official’s testimony on Capitol Hill Aug. 4 that the United States is “deeply concerned” about the suffering in Bosnia, and the popularizing of the chilling euphemism “ethnic cleansing,” discovered in a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade. Words alone, he warns, won’t resolve the conflict. Kenney urges a lifting of the arms embargo to help Bosnians defend themselves. Negotiators, he says, “will spend weeks setting up a structure for talks while people are dying and winter is upon us. They just don’t get it.”
The London conference concluded with high-minded rhetoric, but it was backed by little more than talk. The participants decided to tighten sanctions against Serbia that have been in place since late May. They called on Bosnian Serbs for the third time to place their artillery under U.N. supervision. And, threatening further diplomatic isolation, they extracted promises by Serbian leaders to close detention camps, trade land for peace and call off the bombardment of Sarajevo and other cities. Were the Serbs moved by such warnings? Within hours, their mortars and rockets began pounding the Bosnian capital again, leaving at least 10 dead and 67 wounded.
The United States and EC countries will begin another round of negotiations in early September. By the time they finish, there may be no Bosnia. The main obstacle to peace is still Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who has no reason yet to give up the spoils of a war he launched and nurtured. The economic sanctions imposed by the European Community have caused some unrest among his people, but the hold of the Serbian strongman still seems strong. Meanwhile, the Bosnians are completely on their own-with Sarajevo their last stand.
As Serb and Croat forces have forcibly grabbed huge swaths of his republic, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic bitterly complains that he has received little besides moral support from Western leaders. The European Community is “not a very warm friend,” he told NEWSWEEK at the close of the peace conference. What puzzles him most is the EC’s refusal to regard the crisis as a homegrown calamity. “The evil,” he says, “is an unhappy mixture of fascism and socialism born in Europe.” America, he thinks, missed an opportunity two years ago to take a leadership role in a country it knew was headed for disastrous breakup. “The problem is that our region is not a priority for the United States,” Izetbegovic explains. “That is one of the reasons for the tragedy that is unfolding. It might have been prevented if the United States had got involved earlier.” Blame, of course, is open to debate. But at the very least, the State Department held on much too long to the idea of Yugoslavian unity. And it was slow to read the true intentions of Milosevic. Still, U.S. policy–or the lack of it-didn’t by itself cause the catastrophe. The EC, which muddled through one failed approach to the crisis after another, also is culpable.
Such distinctions probably mean little to Izetbegovic at this juncture. As hopes for Western military intervention dim to the spectral region of miracles, Bosnia may be looking east. Individuals and private charities from Saudi Arabia have reportedly sent cash and arms through Croatia. “We would accept help from anybody,” says Izetbegovic, but dismisses as “rumors” reports of military assistance from Islamic countries. “We have today 100,000 people in Bosnia, armed, who are ready to defend themselves … with light weapons,” he says, in “a fight for life or death.” Still vastly outgunned by the Serbs, the best he may be able to hope for is a moral victory.
