Leading Article: A test of Europe's conscience

AN ESTIMATED two million people have been displaced by the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The conflict in Bosnia rages on. There are good reasons why Western governments should have doubts about military involvement in a three-sided civil war to which no political solution is discernible. There can be no such reservations about helping to ease the plight of the refugees it has created, or about sharing the burden imposed by the refugees on economies ill- equipped to cope with them.

The statistics are approximate, and mostly not up to date. But, as reported in today's Independent, there are thought to be around 600,000 displaced people in both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, half as many in Serbia, and further tens of thousands in Slovenia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Outside the former Yugoslavia, the countries most affected are Germany (200,000), Hungary (100,000, according to a diplomatic source yesterday) and Austria (20,000), which has now introduced visas for former Yugoslavs. Away from the immediate area, Sweden has been the most welcoming, with 27,000.

The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, is trying to arrange a conference to tackle the refugee crisis. She believes the British government, which holds the presidency of the European Community, could play an important part in convening such a meeting. It would be hard to imagine a more quintessentially European crisis, or one that more directly challenges the conscience of the EC's member states and their ability to co-operate. The issue is not principally their willingness to accept refugees on a quasi-

permanent basis (as happened, for example, in the aftermath of the abortive Hungarian revolution of 1956); most of those involved are anxious to return to their home region as soon as possible. The question is rather one of money: first, for relief work on the spot, and second, for governments in the region attempting to cope with the human influx.

The former Yugoslav states are, as the statistics show, the worst affected. The Croatians may have helped create the problem with their determination to seize the predominantly Croatian areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Yet the economy of Croatia itself is being crippled, not just by the war, but by having to deal with vast numbers of refugees displaced by the Serbs within Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The plight of Bosnia's Muslim majority is particularly poignant: most of their land has been seized by Serbs or by Croats. They are rural people who have lived in the same small communities for centuries.

Of affected neighbouring countries, the Hungarians deserve the lion's share of help. They have already had to cope with an influx of refugees from the Hungarian minority in Romania. Like other East European countries adjusting to democracy and the introduction of free market economies, Hungary has been having a difficult time. Its people deserve gratitude for the role they played in toppling the Communist government of East Germany by opening their border to those seeking refuge in the West. It is grossly unfair that they should now be penalised by their proximity to a conflict in which they have no part. For the West, generosity makes sense: stability in Central Europe is vital to the security of Europe as a whole.