High-Altitude

By Frederick Painton

Beware food that falls from the sky. When supplies were airlifted to Kurdish refugees trapped on the mountain border of Iraq two years ago, people were injured and even killed. Eager recipients who rushed to catch the descending pallets were crushed and others wounded as they fought for possession of the aid. By one count, at least 16 people died in such accidents. It is not easy to provide humanitarian aid this way, nor is it always effective.

But last week President Bill Clinton decided the symbolic gesture was worth the risks and ordered U.S. C-130 transport planes to drop food and medicine to besieged towns and villages in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before a single parcel even reached the ground, the Bosnian government in Sarajevo began plastering the city with posters of Clinton overlaid with an open hand. THANKS, BILL, read the text. THANKS, AMERICA. It was more than simple gratitude from people who still believe -- perhaps vainly -- that the U.S. will save them. "The Americans are in 100% now," said Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic.

Though officials have not determined who was responsible for last week's World Trade Center explosion, speculation that Balkan terrorists had planted the bomb underscored the potential consequences of getting involved in the region. At the same time, Pentagon critics pointed out that the airdrop puts American prestige on the line. If the limited operation proved ineffective, then what? Take greater risks to deliver food and medicines to suffering Bosnians? Or back away from responsibility? Initially wary of a venture he feared might jeopardize the safety of peacekeepers on the ground, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali eventually endorsed the plan, but some members of the Security Council continued to fret privately about the wisdom of the airlift. European allies suspected Clinton's initiative might have resulted from the need to be seen as doing something more active -- a public relations ploy designed to display American leadership. But the airlift also signaled a degree of U.S. engagement that the Europeans have encouraged.

Yet so far, the U.S. will be conducting the operation alone. When Secretary of State Warren Christopher encouraged European members of NATO to join in, they said no, thanks. But when NATO ally Turkey offered planes or aid for the mission, the U.S. said no. Washington fears that the involvement of fellow Muslims would only exacerbate Serbian suspicions.

Many in Washington worried about the safety of the American planes -- with good reason. Some Bosnian Serbs first warned that they might attack the relief flights, then predicted darkly that Muslims would fire the shots and blame the Serbs, in hopes of drawing greater U.S. intervention. To forestall any such provocations, the U.S. decided against having fighter jets escort the cargo planes. But in Belgrade the Yugoslav armed forces general staff declared that the whole operation was just a smoke screen for U.S. "direct military involvement" on the side of the Bosnian Muslims.

Clinton insisted that his decision to parachute relief supplies to the war victims was a "strictly humanitarian" act of charity. The Pentagon's operational plans to fly at high altitudes, at night, without escorts, supposedly would minimize the danger. "We think the risks are very small," said Clinton. He dismissed fears that the U.S. would become entangled in the demonic conflicts tearing at the former Yugoslavia, saying that Washington was embarked only on a short-term emergency mission. Not everyone was reassured by an Administration facing its first major diplomatic dilemma: how to square campaign talk of tougher action against Serbian aggression with the European and Russian reluctance to interfere militarily in what they see as a civil war.

No one argued against the goal of feeding starving people, but the airdrops raise tricky problems. The quantity of supplies carried by the aircraft is limited; they will supplement, not replace, the aid brought in by truck. The deliveries are to be made by a fleet of 18 C-130 Hercules cargo planes based at the Rhein-Main air base outside Frankfurt, each capable of hauling 12 tons of supplies at a time; the land convoys usually carry from 60 to 100 tons. Dropped from altitudes of 10,000 ft., to stay above the range of antiaircraft fire, the parachuted supplies, says a skeptical Pentagon source, "would be lucky to hit Yugoslavia." Finding and hitting the drop zones in tightly surrounded enclaves only 5-to-10-miles wide, at night, in the poor weather and mountainous terrain of the region will be difficult, and there will be no trained personnel on the ground to help. Some of the aid could easily be stolen by Serb fighters or could fall in places where those who go to retrieve it might find themselves targets of snipers.

But the need cannot be denied. The U.N. estimates that more than 100,000 people in eastern Bosnia lack food and medicine. "Everything that once came - into these towns no longer does," says Anthony Land, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Sarajevo. "That, plus a cold winter, means that people are dying." Only two convoys reached the town of Zepa; Srebrenica received its last delivery on Dec. 10. On Thursday, trucks carrying 65 metric tons of aid finally reached Gorazde after being held up at Serbian checkpoints for two days. The region of Cerska, isolated in the mountains northeast of Sarajevo, hasn't received anything at all.

U.S. officials admit that the airlift is mostly a symbolic gesture, but they hope it will pressure all parties to return to the negotiating table. Washington has, in effect, told Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic that if the U.S. is willing to risk its aircrews and planes, he can show up at the peace talks scheduled to begin this week in New York City, which he has refused to attend as long as Serb forces are shelling Bosnian cities. "The airdrops were taken in response to our view that there are Muslim towns in eastern Bosnia where you have very serious humanitarian problems," said a U.S. official. "This should be encouragement for the Bosnians to return to the talks." And by demonstrating that Washington is willing to raise the level of its commitment, the Administration wants to reassure the Bosnians that it will help enforce any political settlement.

At the same time, Washington hopes that its offer to deliver supplies to Serbian and Croat enclaves as well will convince those factions that the U.S. will be an honest broker in the negotiations. At a minimum, the Serbs might be persuaded that the holdup of truck convoys to starve out the Muslims is now futile. But the airlift might just as easily give the Serbs an additional excuse to halt ground deliveries.

If this sounds like a torturous path, it is because any policy toward the paranoiac convulsions in former Yugoslavia is bound to contain contradictions and weaknesses. In insisting on protecting their own troops in Sarajevo at all costs, Britain and France have turned these peacekeeping forces into hostages easily manipulated by the Serbs. All the humanitarian aid seems occasionally absurd when the people for whom it is destined are routinely shelled, ethnically cleansed or raped.

The airdrop mission will not bring the vicious Bosnian war to an end. It may have its main impact in Washington, temporarily silencing those clamoring for the U.S. to do more. But for all the flaws in the operation, it is certain to save at least some lives -- and test whether the Serbs are ready to pick a military fight with Clinton.

With reporting by James L. Graff/Sarajevo and J.F.O. McAllister/ Washingt on