Delo: "Humanitarian" Extortion

Ljubljana, 16 February - Over the last few days the proverbial Balkan capacity for improvisation and tendency to do so have once more become obvious in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As all the parties to the Bosnian war have finally realized after ten months that no palpable success can be achieved in the battlefield, because the military situation has become somewhat counterbalanced, they have now decided to make use of the humanitarian aid in their encounters, Veso Stojanov writes in the Theme of the Day.
The Serbs do not permit the humanitarian convoys to reach Moslem enclaves in Eastern Bosnia through "their" territories, because they expect starvation to do the ethnic cleansing for them in that part of Bosnia. The Moslems use a similar sort of extortion, but to another end. The decision of the Bosnian-Herzegovina government that Sarajevo would not accept humanitarian aid until it has reached the population of Eastern Bosnia as well must above all be seen in the light of pressure on the international community, especially on Bill Clinton who had announced harsher measures from the West in response to the obstruction of the supply of humanitarian aid. Perhaps now is the time therefore to test to what degree of seriousness the US will tackle the problem, Stojanov writes.