A debacle of British policy

David Jardine, Contributor, Jakarta

As the New Labour government of Tony Blair seeks to take Britain to war again, it is instructive to take a look at a book that deals with a recent, major foreign policy issue involving a British government.

In this "naught for your comfort" volume, Brendan Simms puts together a ruthlessly sharp criticism of the role that Britain played in the Bosnian fiasco of the early 1990s. Simms is no man of the Left. This is, therefore, not the kind of work that you might readily associate with radical critics of British foreign policy, such as John Pilger and Robert Fisk, and this in itself makes it all the more interesting to read. (I have to admit that, more often than not, I have found myself in agreement with both Pilger and Fisk.)

Simms regards the British policy in Bosnia a debacle, and it is hard to disagree. The intransigent refusal of the Conservative government of John Major to allow the new state of Bosnia- Herzegovina the means to defend itself, against the Milosevic- inspired onslaught of the Bosnian Serbs and their Serbian backers, played a determining role in the terrible human drama that unfolded in the Balkans in the early 1990s.

What Simms reveals here is the lengths to which Britain was prepared to go to ensure that Bosnia remained defenseless, even when the evidence of crimes by the Serbian side was there for all to see: the shelling of Sarajevo; the mass expulsions of civilian populations; the uncovering of concentration camps; the onslaught on enclaves such as Srebrenica and Goradze.

As an ordinary member of the British public who takes an interest in foreign policy issues, I recall that at the time I thought that an intervention in the Balkans, involving the British and other nations, was no substitute for a UN-led intervention with the fullest possible backing of the international community. Equally, I thought if the Bosnians wanted arms and were willing to fight on their own account, then they should be allowed to have them.

Douglas Hurd, the British Foreign Minister, however, believed that Bosnia should not be armed, and hoped that the arms embargo issue would simply go away.

Why? Because, he said, arming the new state would increase the violence and the suffering of the very people, the Bosnians, it was supposed to aid: it would create a level killing field.

Simms not only demonstrates that this was fallacious, but that it was a morally neutered position to take up. Hurd and other British spokesmen such as Douglas Hogg mischievously misrepresented the Bosnian government's position, painting a picture of the Bosnians as wanting to draw in large foreign contingents on their behalf.

The fact is, it was the Bosnian government itself that insisted throughout the crucial period of crisis: "We have men who are ready to fight. Lift the arms embargo and let us do the job."

This line was repeated endlessly not only by President Izetbegovic, but also by their savvy ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Sacirbey. In addition, the Bosnians pleaded for limited, surgical air strikes on Serb positions. For certain, if the Serb artillery positions on Mount Igman above Sarajevo had been silenced, then that benighted city would have suffered far less than it did.

It should also be noted that when they did fight, the Bosnians often demonstrated an ability to get things together that surprised their Serb foes.

Who are the "we"? As Simms again demonstrates, the "we" consisted not just Muslims, but also the large number of Serbs and Croats who, in the beginning, identified themselves with Bosnia as opposed to the ridiculous statelets such as Republik Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) that later emerged.

To repeat endlessly, as British spokesmen did, that Bosnia should be identified solely with its Muslim element was to do the country a major disservice. Its capital of Sarajevo, was, after all, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe when hostilities broke out.

Hurd and Hogg would endlessly repeat the rhetoric of moral equivalence. All sides were committing atrocities, they said. Therefore, all should be regarded as being on a par with each other. Simms says, and I fully agree with him, that this is nonsense because the evidence clearly shows that the Serbs under Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were responsible for the bulk of the crimes committed against humanity. There was no moral equivalence between the Bosnians and the Karadzic-Ratko-led Serb attackers.

John Major's government came under very little pressure from within the ranks of the ruling Conservative Party. The leading Tory opponent of the arms embargo was Margaret Thatcher, who told Hurd, "Douglas, you make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger!" For once (just once!), I find myself in agreement with Thatcher. The arms embargo was an attempt to appease Slobodan Milosevic, and of that there can be no doubt.

Simms deals with other issues in great detail, especially the crisis that the UK's position provoked in transatlantic relations between London and Washington. This treatment alone is well worth a read.

At the time of the Bosnian crisis, there was a great deal of noise from certain quarters, in particular Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's Malaysian government, to the effect that the West did not intervene in the Balkans when it might have because the Bosnians were Muslims, and for that reason only; but this was demagogic nonsense.

To get back to the point, the tragedy of Bosnia (and indeed of old Yugoslavia) is that it was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state that was destroyed, and it must be said that it was one in which there was still a viable Jewish community. Of course, the British Foreign Office would have known that there was a large and preponderant Muslim element in Bosnia, but this in no way explains British foreign policy.

Unfinest Hour is well-written, if uncomfortable, reading. I can only hope that the people of Bosnia can somehow forgive us for abandoning them in their hour of greatest need. I would not blame them if they cannot.

Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia; By Brendan Simms; Penguin, 2002; 464pp.