The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.
That is a slogan of the dauntless, of people determined to succeed despite long odds.
Diplomats concerned with the Balkans had such optimism early in their efforts to limit the damage many feared would ensue from the breakup of the formerly communist nation of Yugoslavia.
As a result, they accomplished difficult things in fairly short order, undertaking peace initiatives, providing humanitarian relief to war victims and even effecting a succession of cease-fires.
But the impossible-ending the ethnic-nationalist war in Bosnia-is proving to be not only long in coming but, well, impossible.
Optimism is long gone, replaced in many quarters by a sorrowful fatalism. In fact, the outlook is so grim that the temptation is to turn away, leaving the Serbs, Croats and Muslims to fight it out alone. Tragically, they have been doing that with renewed intensity following the failure of formal peace plans.
President Clinton was right last week when he noted that “none of the parties now are of a mind to make peace on any terms that the others will accept.” The will to settle differences peaceably remains conspicuously absent; zealous bloodletting holds sway.
Indeed, the increasing bitterness and irrationality of the warriors and the appalling atrocities visited on civilians have deepened despair all around. The slaughter goes on as if for its own sake-there is no evident “sense” to it, no rationale save revenge.
This point came through dramatically in news film shot in the divided city of Mostar by a British crew and shown last week on ABC’s “Nightline.” Croats on the west side of Mostar, which is divided by the Neretva River, are besieging Muslim on the east side. The Britons’ footage, by depicting the random slaying of elderly civilians and a battle-to-the-death mentality, was a distressing look at hell in a very small place.
But hellish conditions prevail all over Bosnia, and because human beings are suffering, the world’s attention cannot be diverted. Not now, with the war’s second winter coming on and food, fuel and other necessities running low.
On Thursday, Muslim, Serb and Croat leaders in the Bosnian war are to meet in Geneva to try to ensure delivery of supplies-a difficult thing done and undone several times before. Might they move from that point toward the “impossible”? Might the peoples of Bosnia resolve to stop committing suicide?
Is it futile to hope? No, never. The alternative is too awful.
