Editorial Board

Loyalty is an attribute to be cherished, but at what cost? The American peace delegation in Bosnia-Hertzegovina should be praised for its efforts in the world’s most violent region. A U.S.-initiated plan to end the decade-long fighting had brought hope to a people who have suffered for too long.

But in this case, loyalty may doom the residents of Sarajevo and elsewhere to more needless pain.

An armored vehicle in the peace delegation’s convoy fell 400 yards down a ravine last week after slipping off a road just outside of Sarajevo. Three top U.S. negotiators were killed. Their comrades, visibly shaken, insisted on returning to the United States with the bodies.

Their justification: “We came to the Bosnian problem as a team early this week. We’ll return to Washington tomorrow as a team,” Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke said Sunday.

Holbrooke’s dedication to the fallen diplomats is admirable. The problem is, the peace delegation was making real progress before the accident.

Soon after the remaining members of the delegation announced they were leaving, with a promise to return by Aug. 28, a Sarajevo newspaper reported that pessimism was again spreading its wings.

The report was apparently true; as fighting intensified, three children were killed and two others wounded.

Is that what the fallen diplomats would have wanted: to see their work go up in smoke because of an unforeseen accident? No. The diplomats would never have agreed to their assignments had they not been committed to restoring peace and ending the fighting.

Their deaths are tragic and the world will mourn the loss, but the remaining peacekeepers must still complete their task. Their fallen comrades would have wanted nothing less, and even loyalty can’t justify the needless loss of more life.