What is the U.S. doing in Bosnia?

By Gary Wilson, Workers World, 11 September 1997

The U.S. military and U.S.-led NATO forces in Bosnia have increased their repression against the Serbian population. This includes arresting Serb officials and seizing and occupying police stations as well as radio and TV stations.

These acts are justified, U.S. officials claim, because they say the Bosnian Serb president, Biljana Plavsic, asked them to do them.

The official explanation, however, is a deception. The U.S. government is calling the shots.

The decision to increase repression against the Serbs was made in Washington, at the Pentagon and the State Department, not in Serbia.

Following, in question-and-answer format, is the background to these developments.

WHO IS BILJANA PLAVSIC?

Biljana Plavsic is the appointed president of the Republika Srpska, the Serbian sector of Bosnia. The U.S. government defined Bosnia as it currently exists in the Dayton accords of 1995.

Washington determined the boundaries and who would be in charge of the Muslim, Croatian and Serbian sectors. Plavsic was appointed as part of the accords.

A report in the Aug. 18 New Yorker magazine characterized Plavsic as “an unmitigated wacko.” One report in the New York Times made a similar characterization. She is a religious extremist who contends that Muslims are “genetically inferior.”

IF PLAVSIC IS SO BAD, WHY HAVE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND NATO INSISTED THAT SHE MUST HAVE ABSOLUTE POWER OVER SERBIAN BOSNIA?

Plavsic has shown her willingness to do whatever the U.S. government demands.

Plavsic calls herself a pragmatic nationalist. She thinks that by making a deal with the devil—in this case the U.S. government—she will end the hardship the Serbs have been suffering since the beginning of the civil war.

Washington has virtually declared the entire Serb people to be criminals. U.S.-imposed sanctions have stopped all legal imports to Serbs in Bosnia. Hunger is rampant.

Medical supplies are hard if not impossible to find. There are many refugees. Thousands remain homeless.

While Muslims, Croats and Serbs have all suffered great losses in the Yugoslav civil war and all have been implicated in various brutal aspects of the war, Washington has singled out only the Serbs for sanctions.

In early June, Plavsic had a long private meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. (New Yorker, Aug. 18) Four weeks later, on July 2, Plavsic—alluding to her meeting with Albright—announced that she was suspending the parliament and its head, Momcilo Krajisnik.

BUT PLAVSIC IS THE PRESIDENT. DOESN’T THAT MAKE WHAT SHE'S DOING LEGAL?

The Republika Srpska high court overruled Plavsic's dismissals. NATO and the U.S. government overruled the court and have imposed the dismissals.

Washington and NATO have declared that an election for parliament will take place in October. Only U.S.- and NATO- approved candidates will be eligible to run.

Legality is defined by the occupation armies. The Serbian people have been denied all rights.

On July 10, NATO troops arrested several Bosnian Serb officials, killing one. The arrests were based on secret indictments made by a closed-chamber court. The court was not in Bosnia, but in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

Since then, NATO forces have seized Bosnian Serb police stations as well as radio and TV stations. It is an attempt to suppress all opposition to NATO occupation.

Demonstrations of resistance by the local population are dismissed by the U.S. media. But they are brave shows in the face of the armed NATO occupation.

BUT DON’T THE BOSNIAN SERBS SUPPORT THEIR PRESIDENT? DON’T THEY WANT NATO?

Under the U.S.-instituted dictatorship over Bosnia, the Serbian people have been denied all basic rights, including the right to self-determination.

The Dayton accords were imposed after a two-week-long bombing campaign by the U.S. military that destroyed large parts of Bosnia. Both civilian and military targets were hit.

At Dayton, the U.S. government told all present that unless they agreed to U.S. terms a terror-bombing campaign like the one the U.S. waged against Iraq during the Gulf War would be unleashed on Bosnia. This would include bombing civilian population areas.

The Sept. 1 New York Times acknowledged that “the devastating 1995 NATO bombing campaign” was behind the Dayton agreement.

The same New York Times report alluded to the fields where nothing now grows because of the uranium-coated bombs dropped by U.S. bombers. The bomb craters are miles from any possible military targets.

The Times reporter also quoted a Serbian farmer:

“There is a feeling among most Serbs that foreigners should not be here telling us how to live our lives. I take my horses up the mountain and pass the NATO soldiers.

“I always wave and say hello, but I don’t like them. I wish they would leave.”