Ex-diplomat: U.S. avoiding Bosnian duty

Speaker resigned in protest from State Department

By Vivian Lo, Correspondent

CHAPEL-HILL-A former diplomat on Friday blasted U.S. policy toward Bosnia as a "facade" and an avoidance of responsibility.

"(The policy) was an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for what's happening to the Bosnians," Stephen W. Walker told about 40 people at an all-day forum on the Balkans conflict at University Presbyterian Church

Walker said Bosnia's eruption after the Persian Gulf War, the feeling that the United States could not handle another crisis and public criticism of the Bush administration for spending too much time on foreign policy kept the Clinton administration from getting involved in another foreign policy crisis.

Walker resigned from the State Department in August 1993 in protest over U.S. policy toward Bosnia.

He is now the associate director for the Balkan Institute and associate director of the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans.

NATO peace talks and the partitioning of Bosnia, Walker said, rewarded Serbian aggression and the genocide that had been taking place in the former Yugoslavia.

After the collapse of the European policy and the U.S. "facade" policy, Walker said, the United States faced an enormous liability in sending troops to Bosnia on the eve of the 1996 election season.

"So (the administration) tried to force an agreement on a peace plan, any plan, the agreement on a peace plan, any plan, the quickest one they can get as soon as possible," he said. "Get the troops in as soon as possible, so we can get them out as soon as possible in time for the election...That was their calculation."

Walker said the Bosnian constitution, created under the Dayton peace agreement on Bosnia-Herzegovnia, was approved despite contradictions and flaws.

"They have come up with a facade of unity in Bosnia, a central government that would be denied most powers and authorities that a central government would normally have," Walker said.

Walker also questioned the new Bosnia's military, political, economic and social viability. He said many of the 2.8 million Bosnians do not have homes or jobs and that many refugees don't feel safe to return home because of the political situation.

"(The refugees) are upset that the government sold them out by giving up their homes to the people who killed their families," Walker said.

People guilty of war crimes must be punished or still-simmering conflict will boil over, Walker said.

"If you want to have reconciliation, if you want to detour revenge, at least the people who are responsible for directing the genocide have to be brought to justice."

"The war is not over," Walker said. "Bosnia's future is yet to be determined."

Friday's forum was sponsored by the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies, The University Center for International Studies and the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense.