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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 17WORLDA Thin Ray of Hope In Sarajevo
U.N. troops secure the airport to open the way for relief flights
The wall that Serbian forces had formed around the Bosnian
capital of Sarajevo was pierced just enough to let in a ray of
hope last week. More than 1,000 Canadian peacekeepers flying
the United Nations flag rolled in through the mountains from
Croatia to buttress a small U.N. force already in place. The
troops and armored vehicles quickly cleared and reopened the
airport that had been closed for 87 days by Serbian shelling and
sniper fire.
With that, a full-scale international relief effort got
under way. Almost 100 tons of emergency supplies from the U.S.
arrived in the first two days. Giant cargo planes also flew in
from Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden and other
countries. The food and medicine were then trucked -- under
Canadian guard -- into the desperate city of 400,000 people. In
Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said American air
and naval forces would be available if they are needed to
protect the relief flights or future truck convoys.
Relief shipments, welcome as they are, can be only a
palliative. They do not end the siege of Sarajevo or the Serbian
occupation of about two-thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where
Serbs make up less than a third of the population. A political
settlement is still out of sight, but Britain's tireless Lord
Carrington, the European Community's mediator, returned to
Sarajevo last week in a futile attempt to restart the stalled
peace talks.
Serbia may be signaling that it is ready to consider a
more moderate approach. En route to Belgrade to take up the
post of Prime Minister of Yugoslavia was Milan Panic, 62, an
American pharmaceutical manufacturer born in Serbia. Panic
(pronounced Pahn-ich), summoned by the Yugoslav government to
try to improve links with the outside world, had to obtain
permission from the U.S. government to break the sanctions
barring all contact with Belgrade. Panic said he sees his
assignment as an effort to make peace and bring an end to the
U.N. sanctions.