Economic Sanctions

The Bosnian Serb tactic is clear enough. The assembly that refused to "ratify" the peace plan referred it to a referendum May 15 and 16 in which only Bosnian Serbs will vote. The West is supposed to withhold reaction. Meanwhile, Serbs assault Zepa, the last Muslim-held town in eastern Bosnia. Serbs blow up three mosques in Banja Luka, two of them 16th century gems. Muslims flee and vanish. Greater Serbia becomes more of a fact.Reeling under economic sanctions, desperate to have signed on to the Vance-Owen peace plan if not to abide by it, the Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro dissociates itself from Bosnian Serb policy.

Fresh from his fight over Iraq war spending, President Bush has been busy this week at the more constructive task of burnishing his humanitarian credentials. He's stepping up pressure on Sudan to halt the genocide in Darfur; proposing to double funding for global AIDS programs to $30 billion over five years, and installing at the World Bank a skilled negotiator knowledgeable in these and many related issues. And yet Mr. Bush's positive initiatives remain crippled by the global ill will engendered by America's pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- President F. W. de Klerk left South Africa yesterday for a long-awaited visit to the United States, saying he hoped to convey the message that his country was on an irreversible road to change.The two-day visit will be Mr. de Klerk's first to the United States as South Africa's head of state and the first for any South African leader since 1945. He will be greeted by anti-apartheid protests that have already been organized, but he is expected to receive a warm welcome tomorrow from President Bush, who invited the South African president to the White House.

WASHINGTON -- The United States imposed new economic sanctions on China and Pakistan yesterday in retaliation for the Chinese export of technology and parts for a missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload. The move could cost U.S. companies as much as $1 billion in lost business.The action came after a U.S. investigation turned up evidence that China and Pakistan traded components for the M-11 intermediate range missile in 1992. Both countries have denied the exchange, but President Clinton found the evidence conclusive.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Baltimore declared yesterday that President Clinton's threat to send U.S. troops to Haiti "should have been there all along," given the violence being inflicted by that nation's military rulers.Charging that Haitians are "being hacked to death and fed to animals" while the United States futilely calls for change, Mr. Mfume, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was among several members of Maryland's delegation who applauded Mr. Clinton's newly hardened stance.

WASHINGTON - Iran's decision to resume its uranium conversion activity in defiance of Europe and the United States raises the specter of sanctions imposed against Tehran by the U.N. Security Council. Sanctions always have been a favorite punishment against the rogue state. But as the Iraqi case shows, they are easily breached and do little to bring about behavioral change. With no realistic military option, economic sanctions are always the fallback. In Iran's case, economic sanctions may be a double-edged sword.

THE resignations should be a wake-up call for Washington. Hans Von Sponeck, the United Nation's assistant secretary general and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, announced his resignation last week after 15 months on the job, because he became convinced that "every month, Iraq's social fabric shows bigger holes." The next day, the chief of the U.N.'s World Food Program in Baghdad, Jutta Burghardt, quit as well, also to protest how the economic sanctions against Iraq are eroding its society.

WASHINGTON -- A White House policy guru named James Pinkerton has been pushing a set of domestic initiatives to empower the poor -- such as school vouchers, enterprise zones and low-cost home rehabilitation and ownership -- as opposed to the old welfare approach. He has labeled it "The New Paradigm," meaning a conservative blueprint for dealing with social needs in the 1990s. (In case you don't have your dictionary handy, "paradigm" is an egghead's word for model or pattern.)The label could just as well be assigned to the original effort by President Bush to establish what he has unfortunately called "a new world order" (apologies to Adolf Hitler)

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, D-Md., has become a leading congressional critic of the Bush administration's actions in the Persian Gulf, urging sanctions instead of war.Sarbanes' views received national attention Wednesday when he sharply questioned administration actions while Secretary of State James Baker was testifying before the Foreign Relations Committee.Extensive media coverage of the hearing and Sarbanes' subsequent comments on the MacNeil-Lehrer news program that night assured a large audience.

Iraq has lived with United Nations economic sanctions since August 1990, so far with no harm to the government but a great deal to its 17 million subjects. Libya fears a more limited economic sanction. Each harbors deeper fears of a possible U.S. military attack. Neither wants to comply with United Nations Security Council mandates. Each is maneuvering desperately. Signs are that, with each, economic sanctions or the threat of them have effect, but require more patience than Western policy-makers normally have.