by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Thursday, 10th February 1994:
UN, NATO and US must call Karadzic’s bluff and launch full air strikes against Serbian artillery if there, is no full lifting of Sarajevo siege
It has been reported that the Serbs have agreed to withdraw their besieging forces from Sarajevo as UN, NATO and the United States seemed at last to be close to a decision to launch air strikes on the Serb guns surrounding the Bosnian capital.
To the world, which has been so many threats of air strikes in the past 22 months fizzling into nothing, only the actual deployment of air power to silence the Serb artilleries in Bosnia-Herzegovina could demonstrate that the UN, NATO and united States are prepared to live up to their international responsibilities and commitments.
The reported Serb agreement to withdraw their besieging forces from Sarajevo must not be allowed to become 3 ‘ruse’ to ‘divide and rule’ the UN, NATO and the United States and head off air strikes without fully lifting the 22-month siege of Sarajevo.
This is because of the reluctance of Canada and Greece to use force despite the massacre of 68 civilians at crowded Sarajevo marketplace by Serb mortar attack last Saturday
Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic had threatened that any plans attacking Serb forces would, be shot down.
The United Nations, NATO and the United States must, call Karadzic’s bluff and launch full air strikes against Serbian artillery if there- is no full lifting of Sarajevo siege,
‘The UN, NATO and the United States would become a laughing stock if they could be threatened by Radovan Karadzic,
NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner yesterday called for air strikes when he said: “It’s time for action. We have had enough words.”
If NATO fails in the last minute to follow-through with air strike actions against Serb guns, although there is no full lifting of the 22-month siege of Sarajevo, then many heads must roll – including that of Manfred Werner as well as that of the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutrous-Ghali.