"Amerika Hangja" - Voice of America - William Perry Balkani
korutja.
(Elnezest az esetleges kisbetukert, de az eredeti szoveg csupa
nagybetuvel volt irva, amit at kellett cserelnem.)

Buchwald Amy

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      date=7/22/94
      type=closeup
    number=4-07582
     title=Toward a New US-Balkan Policy
    byline=Pamela Taylor
 telephone=619-1101
  dateline=Washington
    editor=Phil Haynes

content= // inserts available from audio services //

Intro:   U-S defense secretary William Perry went on a 
         well-publicized tour of the Balkans this week, warning 
         about the dangers of the conflict in Bosnia spreading to
         the Southern Balkan tier.  The trip began before the 
         Bosnian Serbs rejected the latest international peace 
         plan for Bosnia.  Mr. Perry wound up his seven-nation 
         Balkan tour in the Croatian capital of Zagreb Friday.  
         VoA's Pamela Taylor asked several Balkan analysts if the
         secretary's trip will lead to a greater American 
         involvement in Balkan affairs, as the international 
         community examines what punitive measures to impose on 
         the Bosnian Serb's main supporter, Serbia: 

Text:    Secretary Perry began his trip warning about the dangers
         of the Bosnian conflict spreading in the wake of a 
         failed peace plan.  By the end of the week the plan had 
         been effectively rejected by the Bosnian Serbs and he 
         was being more explicit.  Mr. Perry urged the countries 
         bordering the former Yugoslavia to tighten their 
         economic cordon around Serbia.  This was not a simple 
         request.  The Balkan countries have already lost 
         billions of dollars in lost revenues and job 
         opportunities because of the U-N embargo against Serbia.

         Secretary Perry had few incentives to offer the border 
         states, apart from renewed bilateral assistance, 
         including some specific items such as surplus U-S 
         military goods: boots, uniforms, ambulances and other 
         non-lethal equipment.   Professor Nicholas Pano of 
         Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, thinks 
         the defense secretary's incentives might do the job:

Tape:    cut   #1   Pano    runs   [:32]

         "Governments have made an attempt to control smuggling 
         but as the economic pinch has been felt, some of these 
         governments have perhaps not been as vigilant as they 
         might be.  And with the promise of economic assistance, 
         with the promise of military assistance from the United 
         States, these countries might be induced now to take a 
         stronger stance on the issue of the embargo and the 
         economic blockade than has been the case in the recent 
         past."

Text:    But professor Rudolph Tokes (pron: turkish) of the 
         University of Connecticut thinks the secretary's 
         incentives are too little and too late:

Tape:    cut  # 2    Tokes     runs   [:45]

         "The embargo is not working, not working because those 
         presumably tight boundaries are leaking like a sieve.  
         You can buy anything and everything (in Serbia) from 
         imported goods to oil, natural gas whatever.  And the 
         Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Bulgarians, indeed the 
         Hungarians are violating those un rules to the best of 
         their ability because they too have to survive 
         economically.  Clearly the pressure should be directly 
         put on Belgrade rather than using these not particularly
         well equipped or highly motivated neighbors to do the 
         job of the United States and Western political 
         community."

Text:    Professor Tokes (turkish) says neither secretary Perry's
         assurances nor similar assurances by president Clinton 
         on his recent trip to Berlin will  alleviate security 
         concerns in the Balkans.

         Professor Pano, however, believes the U-S defense chief 
         did well to remind Balkan leaders about all the possible
         scenarios which could erupt into the next Balkan 
         powderkeg.  // Opt // These include simmering ethnic 
         problems in Albania, with its Greek minority, and 
         sympathy for the Albanian majority in Serbia's Kosovo 
         province.  Greece and Albania remain at odds over the 
         treatment of each other's minority populations.  The 
         former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (Fryom) is in a 
         dispute with Greece over its name and internal ethnic 
         problems are threatening to boil over as the result of a
         new census count.   These are only the more volatile 
         examples.  Bulgaria and Romania, which share Serbia's 
         border, have their own ethnic minority issues which have
         also been inflamed by the Bosnian crisis.  // End opt //

         A visiting Balkan analyst at the Washington-Based Center
         for Strategic and International Studies (csis), Nicholas
         Velef of Bulgaria, thinks the main purpose of secretary 
         Perry's trip was to organize the embargo against Serbia 
         as the least controversial punitive action under 
         consideration by the so-called Bosnian Contact Group 
         (The United States, Russia and the European Union):

Tape:    cut  # 3    Velef    runs  [:55]

         "I regard Mr. Perry's visit to Romania, Albania, Greece 
         and Albania as a part of the US effort to contain Serbia
         because Serbia is the major support for the Bosnian 
         Serbs and to isolate Serbia and to keep the embargo 
         because the embargo is a key point in US strategy for 
         the peace plan in Bosnia.   And Romania, Bulgaria and 
         Macedonia are the key players in this embargo.  So this 
         visit has a clear message for Serbia, that the United 
         States is going to build a coalition in that region to 
         isolate even more Serbia if Serbia intends to back the 
         Bosnian Serbs for the next spiral of potential 
         escalation of the conflict."

Text:    But Mr. Velef also thinks secretary Perry wanted to give
         the Balkan countries assurances they will eventually be 
         brought into the NATO partnership for peace element, 
         which promises closer military cooperation.  In the 
         meantime he assured them the U-S will not stand idly by 
         if their security is threatened.   But professor Pano 
         thinks the secretary may have presented another reason 
         why containing the Bosnian war is in the national 
         interests of all the countries in the region:

Tape:    cut   #4    Pano      runs   [:]

         "I think secretary Perry is trying to use the Bosnian 
         incident as an object lesson to these countries as to 
         what might be in store for them if they allow some of 
         these crises which are looming beneath the surface to 
         get out of hand.  The fact that secretary Perry has made
         this visit emphasizes the importance of the unsettled 
         condition insofar as the U-S is concerned and I think 
         what he is trying to do is to insure there will be a 
         firm but non-violent response to the situation as it 
         continues to unfold."

Text:    Whether or not the United States has decided to take a 
         greater leadership role in the Balkans will no doubt be 
         on the minds of the foreign ministers of the Bosnian 
         Contact Group when they meet in Geneva later this month.
         (Signed) 

neb/pam/pch

22-Jul-94 2:36 pm edt (1836 utc)
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source: Voice of America