A game called peace

Washington is working on a new peace plan for Bosnia Herzegovina. However, it has yet to respond concretely to Monday's brutal Serbian attack on Sarajevo streets in which 37 innocent people were killed. A gesture of anger from the U.S., which claims to be a tough supporter of human rights, is to be expected.

The world surely wants to hear that the attack has taught a lesson to the West, which now may have found the motivation to push the Serbs to accept the plan. Many will also want to know what the West will do if the plan fails this time, as it did last year.

The aggression and brutality on the part of the Bosnian Serbs cannot be ended without first achieving a comprehensive peace in the former Yugoslavia. But the absence of any reaction -- like past inaction -- might lead observers to believe that the U.S. is trying to free itself of the burden by letting the Moslem- dominated country slowly bleed to death, absolving the superpower of any moral responsibility.

Such a conclusion finds support in the casual stance of the U.S. and its Western allies vis a vis the Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing campaign in Srebrenica and Zepa, the two towns seized from the Bosnian government.

This inaction was followed by rumors that Washington had included Gorazde, a city of 65,000 people, on the list of cities which Bosnia would be asked to surrender to the Serbs. Such an act would legitimize the Serbs' ethnic cleansing operations and clear the way to Sarajevo for the aggressors.

Now, reports have it that the U.S. is serious in its effort to persuade all warring parties to take part in the planned peace talks, in which a new map of the region would be drawn. If news obtained from diplomatic circles in Europe is to be trusted, the map will allow the Serbs to keep Srebrenica and Zepa, which are designated Moslem areas on the international peace map. In addition, a narrow strip of Serb-held land known as the Brcko corridor would be widened, giving even greater security to the Bosnian Serbs.

In return, the Bosnian government would get more land around Sarajevo to make the capital more secure. The city would be under continuous UN protection. Last year the Serbs, who have occupied 70 percent of all Bosnian land, rejected an almost identical proposal.

The U.S. game seems to be clear. It was waiting until more and more Bosnian government towns fell into the hands of the Serbs so that the map would be more acceptable to the aggressors. At the same time the Bosnian government would be outmaneuvered and forced deeper and deeper into the corner until it would be forced to accept the bitter humiliation which Washington calls peace.

What Washington is likely to see, however, is a Bosnian refusal to trade land for peace, because the leaders in Sarajevo have been fighting tooth and nail for every inch of their land and dignity. This will mean that President Bill Clinton will have to give in to the House of Representatives, which has pushed for the lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnia.

The West will have no sense of guilt after giving all the opportunities to the land-hungry Serbs. They will allow the Serbs to conquer more and more strongholds on the way to creating a Greater Serbia. For both the Serbs and the West, though, this is nothing but a show of their colonial mentalities.