Interview with David Owen on the Balkans

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The Balkan war has been underway for almost two years. It began on a large scale in the summer of 1991 as a war between Serbs in Croatia, assisted by the Yugoslavian government in Belgrade, and the government of Croatia, which seceded from the Yugoslav federation in June 1991. The conflict spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina last year, after that republic seceded in March 1992.

From the earliest months of the conflict, the European Community, and subsequently the United Nations, have pursued a peace process. In January the co-chairmen of the Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, Cyrus Vance and David Owen, put forward a peace plan. It maintains Bosnia-Herzegovina as independent within its current borders but weakens its central government. Bosnia would be divided into ten provinces, three majority Serb, three majority Croat, three majority Muslim and one mixed, with high levels of autonomy and power vested in the provincial governments. After some hesitation, the Clinton administration declared in February that, if all three parties agree to this plan, the United States might take part in its enforcement. The peace talks are currently in progress.

Foreign Affairs interviewed David Owen, who from 1975 to 1979 was foreign secretary of Great Britain, on February 16, 1993, in New York. The following is an edited version of the discussion.

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Q: Why is this peace process the right one now?

A: It was clear to me by the end of August 1992 that there was no will in any of the major Western nations to take up arms against Serbian expansionism. So it had to be dealt with primarily by negotiation. You can argue that force ought to have been used earlier when Serbia began to fight to protect, as they saw it, their Serb nationals in different parts of Yugoslavia. In July 1992 I had argued publicly that selective air strikes should be used to tip the balance against the Bosnian Serbs, almost exactly at the same time as candidate Clinton was arguing the same case during the election campaign. But even then I never believed that the West should commit ground combat forces in Bosnia.

Q: Do you think that the European Community recognitions of Slovenia and Croatia and then Bosnia internationalized the problem in the former Yugoslavia, making it more difficult to solve?