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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 2.5.93
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Good afternoon and welcome to On The
Record. The news from Athens must give cautious hope that the Bosnian horror
may at last be coming to an end, but as so often in the past, it could yet
prove another cruel delusion. In this programme we'll be seeking to assess the
import of this morning's dramatic announcement.
The apparent success of the 'last chance
peace talks', is that the leader of the Bosnian Serbs has agreed to the
so-called Vance/Owen plan for the division of Bosnia between its warring
peoples. But the deal is dependent on the endorsement of that mercurial and
obstinate body, which calls itself the Bosnia Serb Parliament, and that meets
on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the American Secretary of
State, Warren Christopher, has arrived in London to see John Major. His
purpose: to persuade the Prime Minister to accept President Clinton's proposals
for military action by the UN against the Serbs in Bosnia, if the settlement,
as has happened before, collapses. We'll be examining the hazards of imposing
peace by force of arms. To help us, the representatives of the Serbian and the
Bosnian people, here in London, the military specialist, Trevor Taylor, from
the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Shadow Foreign Secretary Jack
Cunningham, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown. I will
also be speaking later in the programme to Lord Owen, the UN negotiator who's
played a crucial part in brokering the deal in Athens.
DIMBLEBY: And now with me in Stoke, I think he is,
to assess the military implications if the settlement does hold - how many
troops, by when, in what kind of force order. Professor Trevor Taylor of the
Royal Institute of International Affairs. Professor Taylor, the plan as you
know, is to secure the Vance/Owen agreement which means the Serbs evacuating
thirty per cent of the territory that they now occupy and then holding that.
What kind of UN force is required to make that possible?
PROFESSOR TREVOR TAYLOR: Well I think that we all recognise that
the Vance/Owen plan could absorb an almost infinite number of UN forces, in the
tens even hundreds of thousands but I think initially we will be looking at a
force that's somethink like double the present size and, of course, it will be
predominantly infantry with additional factors. I think that we'll be looking
at a division perhaps getting on towards two divisions depending very much on
how many forces can be raised, they will need to be professional forces.
DIMBLEBY: In troop numbers....that's what we're
talking about, thirty thousand troops on the ground?
TAYLOR: I would think at least that number, yes.
DIMBLEBY: At least that and what sort of military
support would they need in order to be convincing as a peacekeeping force?
TAYLOR: Well I think that essentially they're
going to have a policing, a function and that means infantry, people on the
ground but we know already that given what's likely to be the fragility of this
arrangement, they will need some protection and that means I think that many of
them will want to be able to move around in armoured vehicles. We've seen the
British troops in Warriors being effectively protected by those. I think also
that we will think that... we can well imagine that if the funding can be found
and it's quite expensive, that a helicopter force would be very useful to get
people in quickly to local situations that are proving a problem and finally, I
do think that it will be helpful if over the horizon there is air power which
the local parties know will be available if the United Nations forces come
under serious fire and get into real difficulty.
DIMBLEBY: Now given that policing is by no means
an easy task, the calibre and character of the troops on the ground is
presumably of immense importance because this is going to be a very tense
operation if it takes place.
TAYLOR: Yes and I think this is one of the big
problems about where the troops are to come from because essentially I think
that the European contribution is going to have to come from primarily Britain
and France and we have very few spare troops and, of course, much will depend I
think on the American willingness to provide their professional soldiers for
this mission. This again given American past practice will raise issues of
command and control which perhaps a NATO command will ease. The United States
has always refused to put its forces under a UN commander in the field, in the
past.
DIMBLEBY: Now you heard perhaps earlier in our
conversation here in the studio, the representative of the Bosnians, saying
that he wanted the UN troops in there as rapidly as possible, to police a
ceasefire. Both our politicians are anxious indeed about that. What is your
judgement of how quickly you can in reality get those kind of troops in there
who are to police a ceasefire rather than engage in warfare offensive or
defensive.
TAYLOR: Well of course the speed at which we
could get forces there I think is rather difficult to judge accurately, but I
do believe that an enormous amount of planning has gone into lots of
contingencies, inside our military establishments, and therefore I don't think
it would be long, a period of two, three weeks, but I think also ...
DIMBLEBY: Two or three weeks, what from now, you
could deliver that number of troops you believe?
TAYLOR: Well, I think that one can start to see
that that...the essential thing would be I believe, to protect first those
areas that have come under substantial attack and that's to say the Muslim
areas, particularly in the east of Bosnia, and obviously most recently those
that have come into combat with the Croat forces. So that we would know which
areas it was most important to police first, because it would have the effect
of giving you safe havens for people to live.
I mean I think that what is apparent is
that although the parties have accepted the plan, there are enormous numbers of
negotiations, enormous number of subjects to be addressed, and it's going to be
a long time before we have a comprehensive settlement there.
DIMBLEBY: That's interesting, because what you're
saying is that the troops would have to go in while the forces were still
disentangling themselves from their present positions, you wouldn't wait, you
couldn't wait until unilaterally the Bosnian Serbs had retreated to the
Vance/Owen line.
TAYLOR: Well I think that it's most unlikely
that the Serb forces would retreat to the Vance/Owen line unless there were
replacement forces coming in, both the press them to leave and to reassure them
that on their departure that their enemies would not take over. So I think
that there's going to have to be an element of that. What I think is important
is that poltically there is a judgement that this plan has got a real chance
before United Nations forces are deployed throughout Bosnia, because the worst
possibility is of UN forces being spread throughout Bosnia in a rather
vulnerable condition perhaps, within say two months, and then we see reversion
to all-out civil/international war, in which Serbia proper is helping the
Bosnian Serbs.
So I think that we need to have broad
confidence that this is going to work and that perhaps can be established in
the next week or ten days.
DIMBLEBY: Professor Taylor, thank you very much
for that.
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