ACCESSION NUMBER:234551
FILE ID:PO-402
DATE:07/09/92
TITLE:BUSH URGES BUILDING EURO-ATLANTIC PEACEKEEPING FORCE (07/09/92)
TEXT:*92070902.POL
BUSH URGES BUILDING EURO-ATLANTIC PEACEKEEPING FORCE

(Force to help quell "intolerant nationalism")  (620)
By Alexander M. Sullivan
USIA White House Correspondent
Washington -- Warning that Europe is awash in weapons left over from Cold
War days, President Bush called July 9 for a "credible Euro-Atlantic
peacekeeping capability" to quell the potential fires of "intolerant
nationalism."

Bush urged the Helsinki meeting of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe to use any means necessary to enforce United Nations
1anctions against Serbia and to assure that U.N. humanitarian relief
supplies reach Sarajevo.  His remarks were monitored at the White House in
Washington.

The president gave few details of the suggested CSCE peacekeeping force, but
said the American troops stationed with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization could join it.  Bush noted the continent "remains heavily
armed from Cold War days" in explaining his peacekeeping call, and he
argued that "ad hoc" and "hastily-assembled units" would not suffice to
clamp down on possible outbreaks of aggression or oppression.

"This is why I consider NATO's offer to contribute to CSCE peacekeeping so
vital," Bush said, adding he welcomed contributions as well from individual
nations and from the Western European Union.

"We've learned that Europe's problems are America's problems," Bush said.
"Her hopes and aspirations are ours as well.  Because of NATO, my country
will keep a substantial military capability in Europe that could contribute
to peacekeeping under CSCE."

The president told the gathering of three dozen European and North American
nations it should establish conciliation mechanisms to combat the "new
ideology" of "intolerant nationalism," which he said was "spawning new
division, new crime, new conflict."  He suggested a "prompt follow-on
meeting" of CSCE to "take up specific means of dispute settlement."

Speaking as the United Nations sought to continue providing supplies of
humanitarian materiel to besieged Sarajevo, Bush called on the CSCE to
develop muscle to supplement its power of isolation and verbal
condemnation.

The president urged the conference "to attack the root causes of conflict"
like the warfare raging in Bosnia as Serbia seeks to expand its sway.  Bush
urged a campaign to promote tolerance and to "fight discrimination and
racial prejudice....We cannot fail to make this a top priority," Bush said,
"while the so-called ethnic cleansing of Muslims occurs in Bosnia even as
we meet."  Serb forces say "ethnic cleansing" of Sarajevo is a major aim of
their constant shelling of the city.

He called for "a flexible set of services" for conciliation, mediation and
arbitration and urged adoption of the U.S. proposal requiring "that
disputing parties submit to CSCE conciliation."

Bush said those who violate CSCE norms of conduct should be "singled out,
criticized, isolated, even punished by sanctions," and he said the
conference's ouster of Serbia should "serve as a clear message to others."

The president acknowledged the world once familiar to the three-dozen CSCE
member states "has changed beyond recognition," but he asserted the
conference should not become "paralyzed by change" and thus lose sight of
its "historic mission," first spelled out in the 1975 Helsinki Accords.  He
called on the group to complete "the grand liberation of the last three
years," and to "nurture democratic ways" in societies whose people have
suffered "under the heel of the state" for generations.  "Let us commit
ourselves," he said, "to make democratic change irreversible."

Bush rejected the view of those who argue that democracy has unleashed the
division and conflict of the "intolerant nationalism" he had cited.
"Democracy," he pointed out, "is not the cause of these problems; rather it
is the means by which people can resolve their differences and bring their
aspirations into harmony."

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