THREE FORMER US PRESIDENTS AMONG SIGNATORIES TO STOP GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA

Three former presidents, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, joined with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr., and other notables in a full-page advertisement in The Washington Times calling on Clinton and Congress to “stop genocide in Bosnia.”

The Telegraph-Herald, p.2A

27 January 1993.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bosnian leaders appealed to the Clinton administration Wednesday to provide weapons to its beleaguered, mostly Bosniak, army.

While no decision was taken immediately, U.S. officials said a partial lifting of the embargo the Untied Nations imposed on the warring factions remained a primary objective.

Others are getting food to homeless and besieged civilians in Bosnia-Herzegovina, putting pressure on Serbs who are accused of conducting an “ethnic cleansing” campaign and getting prisoners released from detention camps, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to one U.S. intelligence estimate up to 70,000 prisoners are held in camps in the former Yugoslavia by Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. [note: According to the March 1995 CIA Report, Serbs were responsible for 90 percent of all war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina].

“We should have a right to defend ourselves,’ Ejup Ganic, a member of the Bosnian presidency, told reporters as his group called on White House officials.

The Bosniaks vowed to keep fighting against Serbian forces to maintain their country’s independence.

Meanwhile, it was learned Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher would go to the United Nations on Monday with Madeleine Albright, the new U.S. ambassador, but it was not clear whether he would take the occasion to push for enforcement of a no-fly zone over Bosnia.

There have been more than 300 Serbian flights in the past four months but the U.N. Security Council has not taken steps to apply military pressure on the Serbs.

In another development, three former presidents, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, joined with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr., and other notables in a full-page advertisement in The Washington Times calling on Clinton and Congress to “stop genocide in Bosnia.”

Other signers included former Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis, former defense secretaries Harold Brown, Melvin Laird and Frank Carlucci and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

More than half the country is occupied by Serbian forces, about two-thirds of them from the regular Yugoslav army, the Bosniaks said at a news conference.

They said they would accept arms from Arab countries if the new administration did not help them, though U.N. Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey said “the whole idea is not to make this a Muslim issue.” He said Bosnia-Herzegovina considered itself part of Europe.

Credit: Reprinting courtesy of the Bosnian Genocide Blog.