Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/032392/0323000.000

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                                                                ▄<            ╚WORLD, Page 32

DIPLOMACY

The U.N. Marches In


But chances are slim that the blue helmets can fulfill an
ambitious assignment: bringing peace and stability to Cambodia
and Yugoslavia

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by Bonnie Angelo/New York, James L.
Graff/Belgrade and Richard Hornik/Phnom Penh


    The United Nations has been in the peacekeeping business
for most of its 47 years, but never has it undertaken anything
quite so ambitious. Beginning this week, the world body will put
36,000 military and civilian personnel on the ground in
Yugoslavia and Cambodia, charged with meeting goals that extend
far beyond keeping antagonists from each other's throats. The
U.N.'s blue helmets are supposed to disarm and disband
combatants -- many still seething over real and imagined
grievances -- and prepare the way for the return of hundreds of
thousands of refugees. Nor is that all. They are also supposed
to see to it that political negotiations can be conducted in
Yugoslavia and democratic elections in Cambodia.

    The new missions are more demanding and far riskier than
any of the U.N.'s 23 previous peacekeeping assignments, nine of
which are still ongoing. They are also far costlier. The
22,000-strong Cambodia enterprise carries a price tag of $1.9
billion over 15 months. In Yugoslavia, where hostilities
continue to flare despite a formal cease-fire, the 14,000 troops
begin with a one-year budget of $600 million, which is more
likely to shrink than grow. But the commitment to protect
Serbian enclaves in three war-ravaged areas of Croatia is
open-ended, to allow for extensions in the negotiations being
conducted by the European Community in Brussels. These two
operations alone will cost more than three times the amount that
the U.N. spent on peacekeeping around the world last year.

    But can the blue helmets actually ensure a durable peace
in Yugoslavia and put Humpty-Dumpty together again in Cambodia?
Or will they bog down guarding cease-fires indefinitely, as has
happened in cases like Cyprus, where a U.N. team has been in
place for 28 years without bringing the feuding sides any closer
to reconciliation? Only within the diplomatic community is there
guarded optimism that the absence of East-West tensions, coupled
with the expressed will on all sides for the operations to
proceed, will make for a successful outcome.

    Concerns of a protracted engagement particularly chill the
U.S., which is footing 30% of the peacekeeping bill. With the
economy less than robust, isolationism on the rise and the
November elections approaching, Congress recently warned the
Bush Administration that it may not fund large increases for
U.N. peace forces. There is hardly any doubt that either the
U.S. or other major donors will ante up, but so far little money
has reached U.N. coffers.

    Still, the missions reinforce the consensual approach of
the post-cold war era and affirm a tenet held dear by U.N.
diplomats: the price of peace, while steep, is ultimately less
costly than letting war rage. The challenges ahead:

    YUGOSLAVIA. When U.N. troops begin their patrols in
Croatia by the end of April, their first task will be to break
the stubborn pattern of mutual recrimination that has
characterized nine months of warfare. Since the neutral soldiers
will carry only light arms, their success will depend largely
on whether the Serbs and Croats can be made to fear the
international opprobrium that would attend any attack on the
blue helmets.

    Despite the continued snarling, there are encouraging
signs that the combatants will show restraint. The Presidents
of Serbia and Croatia, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman,
have thrown their political weight behind ensuring the success
of the first U.N. peacekeeping mission in Europe. Tudjman is
manifestly uneasy about relinquishing territorial control to the
U.N., but the foreign troops are an answer to his persistent
calls to internationalize the conflict. For Milosevic, who is
contending with international displeasure, domestic
war-weariness and faltering military momentum, the deployment
is a face-saving way out of the stalemate.

    With the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federal army scheduled to
withdraw its remaining troops from Croatia before the blue
helmets are deployed, prospects are good that the U.N. forces
can keep minor incidents from escalating into major ones. But
the neutral military is likely to face some resistance from
paramilitary groups. This is particularly true in Krajina, the
largest of the three disputed areas, where indigenous Serb
rebels are unlikely to surrender their weapons willingly. "We
can't expect blue helmets to conduct house-to-house searches for
hidden arms," says Mladen Klemencic, a Croat political analyst.
Efforts to return some 600,000 displaced Croats and Serbs to
their homes will also be hindered by the vast destruction of
housing and the war-awakened fears of retribution.

    The greatest obstacle to peace -- the issue of sovereignty
-- lies beyond the scope of the U.N. forces. For now, Croatia
has agreed to cede control of three contested areas to the U.N.
"The whole issue of sovereignty in Krajina is essentially in
suspension," says a Western diplomat. No matter how effectively
the U.N. peacekeepers set the stage for a negotiated
settlement, it is only resolution of the sovereignty question
that will determine whether the fragile peace in Yugoslavia is
enduring or a mere respite -- and when the blue helmets can go
home.

    CAMBODIA. Since 1969, when the U.S. began bombing
suspected Vietnamese strongholds inside Cambodia, this country
has not known a day's real peace. First there was the genocidal
rule of the Khmer Rouge. Then neither the invading Vietnamese
nor their successor Cambodian surrogates were able to restore
calm. Now a U.N. force of 16,000 troops, 3,000 police and 3,000
bureaucrats -- few of them prepared for the rigors and
deprivations of Cambodian life, even fewer armed with local
language skills -- is expected to sort out the sorry mess.

    The most immediate task will be to disarm, demobilize and
disperse most of the 220,000 troops fielded by the government
of Hun Sen and the three rebel factions, including the Khmer
Rouge. The U.N. plan calls for establishing a "cantonment" area,
where 70% of the soldiers and guerrillas are supposed to
surrender their weapons; the remaining 30% are to remain under
U.N. supervision. None of this is expected to go smoothly. "If
the Vietnamese, who are well versed in jungle warfare, weren't
able to root the Khmer Rouge out of those hideouts," says a
Western diplomat, "how are U.N. troops supposed to do it?"

    The blue helmets must also verify the removal of all
Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. Just how many might remain is
hotly contested, but the Khmer Rouge, eager to see even
indigenous ethnic Vietnamese expelled, are likely to press the
issue. As the U.N. troops search for foreign forces, they are
supposed to locate and confiscate weapons caches as well. And
they must deactivate hundreds of thousands of mines that poison
the country's rugged terrain before the 370,000 refugees living
in camps along the Thai border can be repatriated. The U.N.
mission is also expected to make adequate preparations for that
homecoming, although many of the prospective returnees have
lived in the camps more than a decade and have lost their rural
bearings. "Most of these people don't know how to grow a crop,"
says a U.N. official.

    The U.N. team is asked to accomplish all of this before
April 1993, when it is to organize and oversee "free and fair
elections" for a 120-member constituent assembly. To do it, the
U.N. force will in effect have to run the country by wielding
supervisory control over the internal workings of a sovereign
government. Even if they succeed, the outcome may not be happy.
Warns Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who heads the interim Supreme
National Council: "There is a true danger after the elections
that the losing parties could decide to use their guns against
rivals to exact revenge." The U.N. may be needed to hold the
line in Cambodia far longer than is now envisioned -- and it is
an open question whether the patience and generosity of the
international community will endure.