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Ethnic Tensions Blocking Unified Muslim-Croat Army
The United States has pressed the Muslims and Croats to adopt a law organizing their forces along western lines, including a clear chain of command with ultimate civilian control. So far, action on the proposed law has been stymied in the federation parliament.
"We have two armies inside the federation, the army of Bosnia and the Croatian army," said Pardew. "We have worked very intently with the parties here to draft a defense law that pulls those two armies together and integrates and does away with parallel systems." He conceded that combining the forces is difficult because of lingering mistrust between factions that were fighting each other two years ago. "There are still forces in the federation that want to keep those elements separate," he said.
Less than a month ago, U.S. officials thought they had an agreement to combine the forces. After a meeting at Blair House, the White House issued a statement saying the agreement "will mark the start of a new phase in our relations with Croatia and Bosnia."
"There is no substitute for bringing them together," said State department spokesman Nicholas Burns then.
Pardew said he remains optimistic that a defense law will be adopted. "It’s easy to be a pessimistic on the federation," he said, but its survival is "key to long-term security." |
WASHINGTON, June 6 (AP) -- Ethnic tensions are blocking efforts to combine Muslim and Croat armies into a unified force to defend Bosnia if fighting resumes there, a U.S. official said Thursday. James Pardew, director of the U.S. program to help arm and train an integrated Bosnian military, conceded that combining the two forces "has obviously been a bigger problem than I anticipated."
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