Diplomat Assails U.N. Policy

Slovenia's ambassador to the United Nations yesterday criticized the U.N. for not deploying troops to the former Yugoslavia to guarantee humanitarian aid.

Speaking to an audience of about 50 in Pound Hall, Danilo Turk, a professor of international law at the University of Ljubljana, said the U.N.'s peace proposal would have worked had they sent the troops.

He also said peace proposals in the future should be accompanied by troops to ensure a cease-fire.

"Once the signal is sent, it is more likely that the positions of Serbians will change," he said.

Turk, whose speech was part of the Law School's Human Rights Series, praised Lord Carrington's efforts to organize the peace proposal in 1992 in London. But he said the plan failed because the U.N. did not enforce the cease-fire.

"There is no point of negotiation during fighting," he said.

Still, Turk cautioned against a direct military confrontation.

Turk, who emphasized that he was speaking as a private citizen and not representative of any government, also condemned Serbia's human rights violations and criticized the Security Council for failing to punish Serbs for their war crimes.

"Since Yugoslavia signed the Geneva Convention, the countries must abide by the articles during war," he said.

In his analysis of the conflict, Turk said the U.N. could have prevented the war had it involved itself earlier.

"We believed in the 1980s that the conflict should be solved internally, not internationally," he said. "In 1980, most people thought the solution was within the country. This is the fatal mistake."