................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 2.5.93 ................................................................................ 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. ...oooOooo...