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An On-Line friend who has fed me some good stuff sent this along. It
was not just the goverment of the Republic of Ireland which failed the
people of Bosnia, so did the Sinn Fein, for a messed up mess of faux
Marxist excuses. I think Sinn Fein bought into the idea that
Yugoslavia was this perfect Socialist State. Well sadly it was not or
it could have survived the death of Tito.

I remember thinking how strange it was to agree with Margaret
Thatcher, to actually be on the same page about anything at all with
her.

Irish parliament to vote down Serbia's EU hopes, if Serbia does not
produce Mladic.

Time to atone for our shameful policy on the Bosnian war
We are one of only two countries to have a full debate on Serbia's EU
admission, writes Eamon Delaney

Sunday September 12 2010

Ireland will shortly get a chance to atone for one of the most shameful
periods of our recent foreign policy when it votes on the partial
admittance
of Serbia to the European Union.

One of the outstanding conditions of this concession is that Serbia
deliver
up Ratko Mladic, responsible for the murder of up to 7,000 men and
boys in
Srebrenica in 1995.

Mladic is believed to be in hiding in Serbia, but no serious effort
has been
made to bring this monster to justice. Serbs now want to declare him
"officially dead" -- a useful way of getting off the hook.

To highlight this, Kurt Bassuener of the Democratisation Policy
Council in
Sarajevo is to appear before the Dail's European Affairs committee this
Tuesday appealing that Ireland not ratify the EU's Stabilisation and
Association Agreement with Serbia, a crucial step to full EU membership,
until Mladic, and other war criminals, are arrested and sent to the
Hague for
trial.

Ireland is only one of two European countries to have a parliamentary
debate on this issue so now is the chance to make amends for our
disgraceful hands-off policy during the war itself.

At the time of the Bosnia war, the Irish did little to support more
robust
intervention to save the lives of tens of thousands. This was so as
not to
deviate from the EU, which was taking a studiously neutral line in
what was
clearly an uneven war. Secondly, the Irish did not want to offend the
British
with whom we were embarked on the protracted and sensitive peace
process. The then Tory government was taking a totally hands-off
approach
for which Douglas Hurd and others are rightly still blamed. The other EU
member states also stood back during what was then a low point for
European policy. The French were reluctant to intervene without British
support and the Germans were accused of taking a pro-Croatian line. A
newly reunited Germany in 1991 supported growing Croatian
independence, although the break-up of Yugoslavia was under way
regardless.

However, the difference was that, alone of the then 12 members of the
EU,
Ireland was neutral and not a member of NATO. It was supposed to be
sticking up for the rights of small, defenceless countries such as
Bosnia.
However, the reality was quite different, as I saw at the United
Nations. The
Irish talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk. On the contrary, we
were, by
the early 1990s, very much part of the 'big boys club' in the EU and
wanted
to do nothing that would rock the boat.

There was another very important reason why this was so. Ireland had
just
secured an extraordinary eight billion ECUs in Structural Funds from
Brussels and were not going to make any serious diplomatic noises about
the plight of the Bosnians, despite public pressure to do so.

At the UN, meanwhile, there was uproar, especially among Muslim
countries, although they too seemed to be doing not enough to help (just
like now after the floods in Pakistan). And then occurred the most
cynical
moment. A motion was put down in the UN General Assembly to have the
arms embargo to the area lifted, so that the Bosnians might at least
be able
to defend themselves. But the British, among others, were against
lifting
the arms embargo, with Douglas Hurd saying infamously that he saw no
point in creating a 'level killing field'. As opposed to what, 'an
unlevel killing
field'?

And the Irish went along with it. In a move that amazed other countries,
especially the neutrals and non-aligned, as well as people at home, the
Irish Government didn't support the right of the Bosnian Muslims to arm
themselves. "We have settled for the mess of pottage," a doughty
Ambassador told us in New York, meaning the Structural Funds package
from Brussels. An old -timer and UN veteran, who'd came through from the
era of Frank Aiken and Frederick Boland, when Ireland at least tried
to take
a neutral stand on these matters, the Ambassador couldn't believe our
cop-
out.

Granted, back in the mid- 1990s, one could understand not wanting to
offend the British and endangering the Northern peace process, but
honestly what chance was there of that? The North was a separate matter.
Why should it have been affected by Ireland taking a different stand
on a
foreign issue like the Balkans?

But the political culture didn't budge, although to their credit Des
O'Malley,
SIPTU and the churches all called for action, while in the UK the
retired
Margaret Thatcher, in contrast to her own party, called for air
strikes as
being the only thing that would stop the Serbs. In fairness to the
then Irish
Government, both they, and the West generally, were stymied by the
confused and ineffective dual mandate system by which a divided UN had
oversight on NATO actions. By a great irony we, and the Bosnians, were
also the victims of a strict Irish neutrality, since any possible
involvement in
military action aroused the neutrality lobby. In the end, it was US
airstrikes
which stopped the Serbs and drove them to the negotiating table and a
peace deal. But fat lot of gratitude they got for this later. It was
the same in
Kosovo.

The spectacle of Western appeasement to such aggression contributed to
the 'neo con' movement, so as to avoid such inaction again. The 'neo
cons'
were thus a development of the left, despite the derision of anti-war
leftists.
This was because the principle was then invoked for the invasion of
Iraq,
where it was much more problematic and provocative.

But credit should be given for the idealism of wanting to do something
about such a situation, borne out of the indignity of ignoring Bosnia.
Ironically, it is still the US which calls most loudly for the arrest
of Ratko
Mladic, while the Europeans remain strangely silent.

But Ireland could now make amends by ensuring Serbia does not get this
first step into the EU, unless they at least offer up their star war
criminal
and thus make some recompense to the victims.

Even with the passage of time, the Bosnian conflict and its cruelties
make
grim reading. After the fall of Srebrenica, the Irish newspapers had a
photo
from Sarajevo, just another victim, really: a girl being carried out
on to a
street by her gaunt father. She seems to be just sleeping, but
actually her
lower back has been torn away by a Serb shell and is pouring blood.

On the same page is a repeat of Dick Spring's strange warning, advising
people not to make decisions "on the basis of emotion or reaction to
what
you are seeing on your television screens".

Sunday Independent

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