U.S. Sending Cannons To Bosnia International Peacekeepers Criticize New Armaments As Counter To Peace Efforts
The United States will supply Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation with more than 100 heavy-artillery cannons, officials said Friday, dramatically escalating that army’s potential firepower.
The weapons are part of a $100 million train-and-equip program for the Muslim-Croat army, sponsored by Washington and heavily criticized by European allies.
James Pardew, the U.S. diplomat in charge of the program, said at a Sarajevo news conference that 116 155-millimeter howitzers will be sent to federation forces, which until now had six. An additional 51 slightly smaller howitzers will be manufactured locally with American help.
European military officers and international peacemakers in Bosnia-Herzegovina said the announcement is sure to anger the Bosnian Serbs, former combatants who are predicting a new Muslim-Croat offensive this summer.
The military program has drawn criticism from U.S. allies as well as civilian peacekeepers in Bosnia. They contend it’s a mistake to pour more weapons into a country where memories of war are fresh and where an arms-reduction program, agreed to by all sides as part of the peace process, is not working because Muslim, Serbian and Croatian forces are concealing the true size of their arsenals.
“This runs counter to everything we are trying to do here,” said one official overseeing the 1995 Bosnian peace accords.
But Pardew and other U.S. officials argue that boosting the Muslim-Croat army to put it on par with the Bosnian Serb military is the true guarantor of lasting peace.
“If there is a threat to peace, it’s the Republika Srpska’s failure to comply with (the peace accord),” Pardew said, referring to the Bosnian Serb Republic that occupies half of Bosnia. “It is not the U.S. equip-and-train program designed to help the federation defend itself if peace breaks down.”
Pardew said the howitzers, which are to be delivered by Oct. 15, will be funded by an extra $15 million that was discovered unexpectedly in the equip-and-train budget. The Bosnians do not get full custody of any of the weaponry until their U.S. trainers believe the new army is ready.
The 155-millimeter howitzer has a range of nearly nine miles. It allows troops to maintain distance between themselves and their target.
“This radically changes … how you can use your (military) doctrine defensively,” said Joseph Allred, spokesman for the U.S. company hired to conduct the training in Bosnia.
The equip-and-train program is aimed at bringing together Muslim and Croatian forces, who fought their own ethnic war in 1993, into a single army as a counterweight to the Serbs. There has been little genuine cooperation between the two, who are nominally joined in the Muslim-Croat Federation controlling half of Bosnia.
Western officials say the Serbs expect to receive new weapons from Russia, while Islamic countries such as Iran and Kuwait have provided military and economic aid to Sarajevo’s Muslim authorities.
Under the peace accords that ended the Bosnian war in December 1995, and in a treaty finalized six months later, all sides agreed to limits on their weaponry and the sizes of their armies. Any excess is to be destroyed, and older equipment may be replaced with newer and heavier equipment.
Most weaponry is supposed to be stored in warehouses routinely inspected by officers of NATO. But both the Bosnian Serb and Muslim-Croat armies widely are believed to be concealing equipment elsewhere and smuggling weapons past the foreign monitors.
U.S. officials consider the Bosnian Serbs the greater culprits in the underreporting of materiel, accusing them of having hidden about 2,000 combat vehicles, heavy artillery and other arms.
Although the Bosnians have received other equipment through the U.S. program, including tanks, the acquisition of heavy-artillery pieces would give the Muslim-Croat army greater power where they most lacked it.
xxxx More firepower The United States has agreed to provide a $100 million train-and-equip program for the MuslimCroat Federation. The federation will receive: 116 155-millimeter howitzers, which have a firing range of up to nine miles. 51 slightly smaller howitzers, which will be manufactured locally with American help.