H
Humanist
Guest
Betrayal of Bosnia by the United Nations and the World Community
Since the early spring of 1992 the sovereign UN member state of Bosnia-
Herzegovina was savagely attacked, its people butchered, oppressed and
maimed while the rest of the so-called civilized world watched and did
next to nothing to stop it. The United Nations which ideally stands as
the "Law" of the world failed in protecting and betrayed its UN member
state: Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Bosnia from the start was looked upon as a place where a brutal
civil war has started - this was utterly un-true. The truth was that
this war was started by one-sided aggression. In reality the
nationalist Serb forces perpetrated the brutal war against the
federal, legitimate Bosnian Government forces and its civilian
population.
In the following paragraphs it will be outlined how the Bosnian
State came in formation under the auspices of the UN, EC and World
community. Then factual accounts of the fascist and brutal aggression
will be discussed and outlined which took place against the innocent
civilians of Bosnia. And lastly it will be proven how the world
community back stabbed and betrayed Bosnia and how the UN even defied
its own UN resolutions and international law in guaranteeing Bosnia's
death warrant.
Ever since 1987 when Serbian Nationalists took over Yugoslavia,
the republics of Yugoslavia seceded from the rump Yugoslavia dominated
by Serbian nationalists - constitutionally the Yugoslav Republics had
the right to secede. Bosnia-Herzegovina was the last of the former
Yugoslav republics to secede.
The succession of the Bosnian Republic had taken place a via
democratic method actually more so than the succession of the other
two former Yugoslav Republics of Slovenia and Croatia, for example Roy
Gutman states: "In theory the new state was better off diplomatically
than Slovenia or Croatia, for Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic had
followed to the letter a plan prescribed by the United States and its
European partners. Washington explicitly accepted Bosnia's "pre-crisis
republic borders as the legitimate international borders." Unlike
Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia could claim to be the victim of cross-
border aggression and assert the right to self-defense under the UN
charter."1
The Bosnian government on the advice of the European Community
held an independent plebiscite in late February. In the referendum,
which was held from February 29, to march 1st 99.4 percent of the
votes opted for full independence with a 63 percent turnout. Following
this the UN and world community officially recognized Bosnia as an
independent, sovereign UN member state. During and immediately after
this the siege of the Bosnian capitol city Sarajevo began and invading
Yugoslav Serb forces started the ethnic cleansing campaign of mostly
Muslim civilians in eastern and northwestern Bosnia. The Yugoslav
federal army or paramilitary forces under its supervision came in from
Serbia and seized control of cities and towns on the Bosnian side of
the Drina River, which forms the boundary between Serbia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina.2 The Serb military began its most horrendous form of
killings, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide of mostly the Muslim
population in the Bosnian town areas of Zvornik, Visegrad, Foca, Banja
Luka and Bijeljina areas. Civilians in these towns were
systematically cleansed and killed. Concentration camps were also set
up in towns of Banja Luka and Omarska where there were daily killings,
torturing of mostly Muslim civilians. Following are factual accounts
of the killings, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bosnian
civilians as reported by Ed Vulliamy (Foreign Correspondent of the
Year) and Roy Gutman (Foreign Correspondent who's book "A Witness to
Genocide" won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize - Winning Dispatches on the
'Ethnic Cleansing' of Bosnia):
The most ferocious 'ethnic cleansing' of all had begun in
the
satellite villages and towns around Banja Luka and Prijedor
in
the Bosnian Krajina, where in May the Serbs had declared
their
autonomous 'Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina'.
Between 150 and 200 homes, shops and mosques were being
burned or dynamited every day in the Krajina, sending a tide
of
refugees towards Croatia which the UNCHR called the 'most
serious refugee crisis since the Second World War'. 'Whole
communities,' said Peter Kessler, the organization's
spokesman, 'and whole towns have been emptied.' By the end
of May, half a million people had been wrenched from their
homes, and their number would more than double before the
summer.3
In the (Bosnian) town of Kozarac, there was barely a single
house left undamaged and those that stood intact were
occupied by Apparently nonchalant Serbs. this town of
25,000
had been 90 per cent Muslim, a 500-year-old settlement.
Late
in May, the Serbs had set about its methodical
obliteration.
According to relief workers, some 3,000 people were killed.
Later in the year, the Guardian's Ian Traynor and Tom
Gjelten
of US National Public Radio pieced together what had
happened: 'The Serbs' operation was clinical, calculated
and
comprehensive. The local political, business and cultural
elites
were singled out for extermination...Emir Kevljanin, who stood
at the crossroads with his wife and teenaged children, part
of
the exodus from Kozarac ... said: "they were very systematic,
destroying everyone who could bring about a revival of
Kozarac"'.4
General Mladic's army, with its Serbian patrons and a
medley
of local cohorts, moved across eastern Bosnia like a grim
combine harvester. They linked together the top and bottom
right-hand corners of the country, where Serbs were the
majority, by displacing, sometimes killing, 200,000 Muslims
in
between. In Zvornik, on the Bosnian-Serbian border,
(Bosnian)
fighters hoped to defend their community with hunting rifles
by
standing on the bridge linking it with Serbia. They
dissapeared
shortly after the arrival of a band calling itself the
'Serbian
volunteer force'. The irregulars wreaked the first horror,
the
army would then move in and remove any remaining civilians
and the death squads would 'mop up'. Some Muslims fled,
some were taken prisoner, some were killed, others were
brought back over the border to await transport by railway
boxcar to Hungary.5
The following account would attempt to paint a picture in what kind of
horrendous human misery the Muslim and Croat civilians in Banja Luka
were in:
In the city, a reduced Muslim population hung on, subject to
nightly murders and houseburning. By mid-August, Banja Luka
was a petrified city. Muslims were scared to be seen talking
to
any visitor, let alone journalists. One woman came up to us
a
few minutes before curfew just to say: 'They are killing us,
one
by one. My husband, my son have gone and are dead, and
still
they stand around the house, sitting on my wall, the same
men,
after dark. Can you get me out? can you? By the end of the
month, Vukic was local leader of SDS (Serbian nationalist
party), and he passed an edict that no Muslim or Croatian
woman was permitted to have a baby in any Banja Luka
hospital. UNCHR officers trying in vain to work from Zagreb
estimated that a quarter of a million Muslims were driven
from
their homes in the Bosnian Krajina alone during one single
and
brutal wave of 'cleansing' in September.6
Vulliamy and Gutman were the first ones to visit the death and
concentration camps in Bosnia. Their accounts are horrifying.
According to their accounts people were tortured and killed daily. The
conditions were inhumane, for example:
The camp is an open pit where only a third of the prisoners
have shelter from the elements and most have to stand in
mud,
according to a witness. Six to 10 people die daily. "The
corpses
pile up. There is no food. There is no air to breathe. No
medical
care. Even the grass around the pit has been completely
clawed away,"7
Another grotesque and horrible progrom of the Serbs were massive
and systematic rape of Muslim females. There were accounts that rapes
were also done in sadistic and bestial fashion where they would kill
after raping, rape young girls and women in public and in front of
family members. Testimony gathered by the (Genocide in Zenica)
commission includes that of a thirteen-year-old who was raped in front
of her mother and who later died.8 One girl of fourteen was tied naked
to a tank and driven around her village near Prijedor. After being
raped, she was, as the collector of the testimony says, 'thrown in
front of her parents so that they could see her half dead'.9
Approximately 25,000 Muslim women were raped by the Serbian army.
Now the question arises where was the World Community and UN
during systematic decimation and rape of the Bosnian civilians? What
role did the International Community play in this crisis? Did they
attempt to prevent genocide and destruction of a state and its people?
The answer is an emphatic "no" they did not. The 'international
community' along with the nationalisitc and fascist forces actually
played an indirect and sometimes direct third party to the
annihilation of Bosnia and its people. The 'international community'
firstly did this through the propagation of misinformation of the
reality and nature of the Bosnian crisis. And secondly it was by the
impotent action in response to the genocide in Bosnia - actually the
United Nations and world community came up with policies that for the
most part appeased the aggressors of Bosnia.
Bosnia from the start was looked upon as a place where a brutal
civil war had started - this was false. The fact was it were the
nationalist Serb forces (and later nationalist Croat forces) which
perpetrated this brutal war against the Bosnian civilians, the federal
and legitimate Government forces. Also the federal Government of
Bosnia was not exclusively "Muslim" as it was portrayed in world media
and was erroneously painted out to be - it was a multi-ethnic
government comprising of Muslims, Croats and Serbs alike. It was a
multi-national, legitimate government of Bosnia who were hopelessly
trying to defend the indivisible, multi-ethnic nation of Bosnia from
nationalistic terrorist forces. For example:
..........the government of Bosnia (though often called in the
press the Muslim government) is actually the government of
those who want to keep Bosnia the entity it was; it is
supported
by much of the urban population of all ethnic groups. Most
of
the Sarajevo Serbs I know are still in the city, in favour
of
Izetbegovic's government. The present Bosnian cabinet
(February 1993) contains nine Muslims, six Serbs, and five
Croats. One third of the Territorial Defense forces of
Sarajevo,
including its second in command, is Serb. Thus Serbs (and
Croats too) are on both sides. And both Croatian and Serb
chauvinists want to depict the conflict as an ethnic war -
to
justify their states' territorial expansion, to demean the
Bosnian
cause by making it seem as if it too were just one more
narrow
ethnic one..................10
The propagandist exaggerations were put forth by Serbian and
Croatian nationalists in which they influenced in forming world
opinion:
The Serbian and Croatian national extremists also realized
that
the goal of a genuinely multi-ethnic state was the key
premise
of Bosnia's claim to uniqueness in the central lands of
former
Yugoslavia. by eradicating the pattern of ethnic
intermingling
and promoting hatred and intolerance among Bosnia's
nationalities, they undermined the Bosnian government's
potential political base........... In propaganda and in deeds,
Serbian and Croatian nationalists have sought to portray
the
Bosnian government as "Muslim," thereby seeking to devalue
its claim to represent the interests of all Bosnians. To a
dismaying degree, they have succeeded in the court of world
public opinion.11
Thus the prevalent myths that the war was based on age old animosities
and all sides were to blame were one of the reasons behind the lack of
intervention or any action to protect Bosnia's territorial integrity
by the world community.
The United Nations and the EC lacked in adequately saving Bosnia
and it seemed purposely wanted to make the Bosnian Government
capitulate to its aggressors. Firstly before the succession of Bosnia
had taken place, the Bosnian President requested a UN force to be
deployed in Bosnia - it was denied knowing full well that crisis was
eminent. Secondly the UN enforced an arms embargo on the Bosnian
Government - thus in turn helping the enemies and aggressors of
Bosnia. The Bosnian Government on numerous occasions pleaded in vain
to the UN Security Council to lift the arms embargo, the request was
stubbornly denied.
On December 18, 1992, the UN General Assembly realizing that every
sovereign UN member state has the right to self-defense under article
51 of the UN Charter voted by a tremendous majority to lift the arms
embargo against Bosnia and asked the Security Council to authorize
"all means possible" to preserve Bosnia's territorial integrity. The
General Assembly's request to the Security Council was rejected.
The clear contradiction between the General Assembly and that of
the Security Council for the most part peculiarly went unnoticed in
the media and press. Ian Williams, journalist with The New York
Observer however had made note of this:
The sordid maneuverings in the Security Council in April
[1993]
raise the question of whether the carnage in the Balkans
could
actually have continued for the past year without the UN.
The
most notable example of the UN's contribution to the mayhem
in the region has been the lopsided arms embargo against
Bosnia-Hercegovina, which in principle favors the Serbs ...
The
Balkan crisis has shown that, far from being the keystone of
the
new world order, the United Nations has no independent
volition apart from the Security Council, which can and
does
ignore the will of the General Assembly ... A series of
creeping
procedural changes since the end of the Cold War have
virtually made the Council a tight cabal of the five
[permanent
members'] foreign ministries.12
In spite of political and diplomatic pressures against them, three non-
permanent members of the Security Council, New Zealand, Pakistan, and
Venezuela, consistently resisted against the position of the Security
Council and Permanent members Britain and France on the arms embargo.
After a visit to the besieged Bosnian town of Srebrenica in April
1993, Diego Arria, Venezuela's Ambassador to the United Nations,
appealed once again to the Security Council to the one sided arms
embargo against Bosnia. Arria's speech was "reported to have brought
tears to the eyes of listening UN staff members."13 Permanent UN
Security Council members Britain, France, and Russia rejected the
request.
In June 1993, Pakistan and Venezuela again appealed to the
Security Council to lift the arms embargo. Addressing the Security
Council Diego Arria, responded to the French and British objections:
We are told that lifting the arms embargo would increase
violence. Already nearly two hundred thousand people have
died. More than two million people have been displaced from
their homes. Twenty thousand women have been raped. The
International Court of Justice and the World Conference on
Human Rights have indicated that Bosnia-Hercegovina is a
victim of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," among other
unspeakable crimes. For this Council, then, what precisely
does it mean to say that violence would increase and spread?
If an armed people possess a greater ability to defend
themselves, this does not mean that violence would
necessarily increase. Until now the Serbs have been able to
easily trample and vandalize the Bosnian Muslims. When the
Bosnians are in a position to defend themselves,
circumstances may deter the Serbs and, above all, place
limits
on their capacity to act with impunity.
More war? Rather, it is the international community's
inconsistent attitude in the adoption of measures to stop
aggression that has given free reign to the escalation of
the
conflict. It has essentially meant a massacre of mainly the
Bosnian Muslim community. This is the reality ... To do all
that
one can possibly do to prevent a people from exercising its
right to defend itself in order to survive means to
shoulder
moral and political responsibilities of extraordinary
significance.14
Despite the repeated appeals the embargo against Bosnia was not
revoked instead Britain and France recommended the make up of "safe
havens" in Bosnia. The Americans endorsed the idea with some
equivocation, acknowledging in the words of one American intelligence
official that a "polka dot solution" would result in "six little West
Banks in Western Europe with enormous problems." The American official
explained whimsically , "You can't create a viable economy inside a
polka dot."15
The Bosnian Government spoke against the proposal calling it
formation of "ghettos" on its territory. Alija Izetbegovic, the
Bosnian President, declared on Radio Sarajevo, "If the international
community is not ready to defend the principles that it itself has
proclaimed and which it proclaims to be a reflection of its
fundamental values ... [and instead] prefers to close its eyes before
the most ruthless violations of human rights and international law,
even more to reward both aggression and genocide, let it then say this
openly both to our public and its own ... Let it proclaim that the UN
Charter and all the carefully and patiently built rules of
international law are no longer valid."16
Thus the UN defied its own charters and laws in not lifting the
arms embargo on the Bosnian Government - thus playing a part in
Bosnia's destruction.
The UN also failed with its so-called "safe haven" policy. The UN
safe haven of Gorazde fell to the Serbs and the British UN General
Michael Rose refused to protect the safe area. This resulted in
burning of Muslim homes, ethnic cleansing and mass killings. The UN
also handed over safe areas of Srebrenica and Zepa to the Serbs and
mass killings ensued in which 8000 civilian men were massacred.
European Community ministers continuously pressured the Bosnian
Government to agree to the ethnic cantonization of the country - thus
instead of offering support or protection to the territorial integrity
of the indivisible nation of Bosnia they elected to systematically
break it up.
The UN force even failed at protecting Bosnian Government
officials from Serb assaults, the following is a tragic and dramatic
account how Bosnian Vice-President, Dr. Hakija Turaljic was killed
under UN protection:
When things went wrong, even with something so simple as
transporting a Bosnian official to and from the airport, the
UN
was quick to blame everyone but themselves. In January
1993,
the Bosnian Vice-President, Dr. Hakija Turaljic, perhaps
the
ablest member of Izetbegovic's cabinet, was returning to
Sarajevo in a French armored personnel carrier after
meeting
with Turkish humanitarian officials at the airport. At the
bend in
the road halfway into town, a spot where Bosnian Serbs
would
later establish a checkpoint - despite the fact that,
according to
the airport agreement, they were already allowed to inspect
relief supplies at the airport and had supposedly ceded
control
of the road to the UN - his convoy was stopped by a hundred
and fifty Serb fighters and a number of armored vehicles. A
standoff ensued. The French battalion commander, Colonel
Patrice Sartre, instead of calling for help from the
UNPROFOR
airport garrison, actually sent away three British Warrior
fighting vehicles that had happened on the scene. When
their
commander, Captain Peter Jones, offered to deploy around
the
armored personnel carrier in which Turaljic was sitting,
Sartre
dismissed him. "This is a French problem," he said. Shortly
thereafter, Sartre allowed the rear hatch of the APC to be
opened in order, he said later, to demonstrate to the Serbs
that
there were no arms or "mujahedin" riding along with
Turaljic. At
this point, according to a French enlisted man riding with
the
Vice President, Turaljic was weeping. His terror was
entirely
warranted. As Sartre stood there, a Serb fighter simply
pointed
a machine pistol past his shoulder and into the rear of the
vehicle and cut Dr. Turaljic to bits.17
The UN commission exonerated the French soldiers and hinted it was the
Bosnians fault for creating "an atmosphere of anxiety" among the Serbs
that day. I guess creating anxiety among the Serbs gives them the
justification to kill with the UN's blessing?? The irony is that
Colonel Sartre, far from being sent home, was allowed to carry on in
Bosnia, and upon his return to France where he was awarded the Legion
of Honor. In other words he received a reward for allowing the Serbs
kill the Vice President of Bosnia thus indirectly helping the Serbs.
Now the question arises why did the UN and rest of the World
Community instead of protecting Bosnia played a part in its
destruction. This is a phenomenon which cannot be easily understood -
but there were some clear cut reasons and those will be briefly
discussed. Firstly it was not literally the entire world that denied
Bosnia's right to self-defense but was the five nations who controlled
the UN Security Council: Britain, France, United States, Germany and
Russia. This really questions democracy and credibility of the United
Nations. While most of the members of the General Assembly and even
some members of the Security Council voted to lift the arms embargo on
Bosnia the permanent members denied it. What gives them the right to
override established International Laws of the United Nations? And why
were they so stubborn in not lifting the arms embargo? The Bosnians
constantly made it clear that they didn't want foreign troops to help
them - they only wanted the right to defend themselves. Sefer
Halilovic, at the time the Commander of the Bosnian Army, repeatedly
stated that Bosnia did not want the United States or any other power
to deploy its ground forces in the Balkans.18 If the United States or
Europe would not assist Bosnia in defending its integrity as an
integral state or believed they were under no obligation to forcefully
deter acts of genocide, then at the very least these Great Powers
should cease to deliberately obstruct the ability of Bosnia to act in
its own self-defense.19 The Bosnians simply pleaded: If you cannot or
will not help us, then have the moral decency to cause us no harm.
The reason why the United States and the select few hegemonic
Great European Powers took actions to guarantee the destruction of
Bosnia may lie in cynicism and systematic prejudice. If the victims of
genocide had been Christians (in which most of the Europeans share in
religion) instead of Muslims in Bosnia the reaction would have
definitely been different. In the words of a French Diplomat "Our
interests are closer to the Serbs than you think", "We worry more
about the Muslims than about the Serbs".20
With the failure of the World Community and the United Nations to
protect Bosnia's sovereignty and its people from genocide, ethnic
cleansing and mass killings questions arise about what role and for
who's real interest does the United Nations function for? Using Bosnia
as a case in point the United Nations even defied its own so-called
International Laws in guaranteeing the direct and indirect destruction
of Bosnia and its people. With this evidence of the United Nation's
great failure in allowing systematic annihilation of its member State
should the UN be radically reformed or simply abolished?
Since the early spring of 1992 the sovereign UN member state of Bosnia-
Herzegovina was savagely attacked, its people butchered, oppressed and
maimed while the rest of the so-called civilized world watched and did
next to nothing to stop it. The United Nations which ideally stands as
the "Law" of the world failed in protecting and betrayed its UN member
state: Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Bosnia from the start was looked upon as a place where a brutal
civil war has started - this was utterly un-true. The truth was that
this war was started by one-sided aggression. In reality the
nationalist Serb forces perpetrated the brutal war against the
federal, legitimate Bosnian Government forces and its civilian
population.
In the following paragraphs it will be outlined how the Bosnian
State came in formation under the auspices of the UN, EC and World
community. Then factual accounts of the fascist and brutal aggression
will be discussed and outlined which took place against the innocent
civilians of Bosnia. And lastly it will be proven how the world
community back stabbed and betrayed Bosnia and how the UN even defied
its own UN resolutions and international law in guaranteeing Bosnia's
death warrant.
Ever since 1987 when Serbian Nationalists took over Yugoslavia,
the republics of Yugoslavia seceded from the rump Yugoslavia dominated
by Serbian nationalists - constitutionally the Yugoslav Republics had
the right to secede. Bosnia-Herzegovina was the last of the former
Yugoslav republics to secede.
The succession of the Bosnian Republic had taken place a via
democratic method actually more so than the succession of the other
two former Yugoslav Republics of Slovenia and Croatia, for example Roy
Gutman states: "In theory the new state was better off diplomatically
than Slovenia or Croatia, for Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic had
followed to the letter a plan prescribed by the United States and its
European partners. Washington explicitly accepted Bosnia's "pre-crisis
republic borders as the legitimate international borders." Unlike
Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia could claim to be the victim of cross-
border aggression and assert the right to self-defense under the UN
charter."1
The Bosnian government on the advice of the European Community
held an independent plebiscite in late February. In the referendum,
which was held from February 29, to march 1st 99.4 percent of the
votes opted for full independence with a 63 percent turnout. Following
this the UN and world community officially recognized Bosnia as an
independent, sovereign UN member state. During and immediately after
this the siege of the Bosnian capitol city Sarajevo began and invading
Yugoslav Serb forces started the ethnic cleansing campaign of mostly
Muslim civilians in eastern and northwestern Bosnia. The Yugoslav
federal army or paramilitary forces under its supervision came in from
Serbia and seized control of cities and towns on the Bosnian side of
the Drina River, which forms the boundary between Serbia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina.2 The Serb military began its most horrendous form of
killings, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide of mostly the Muslim
population in the Bosnian town areas of Zvornik, Visegrad, Foca, Banja
Luka and Bijeljina areas. Civilians in these towns were
systematically cleansed and killed. Concentration camps were also set
up in towns of Banja Luka and Omarska where there were daily killings,
torturing of mostly Muslim civilians. Following are factual accounts
of the killings, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bosnian
civilians as reported by Ed Vulliamy (Foreign Correspondent of the
Year) and Roy Gutman (Foreign Correspondent who's book "A Witness to
Genocide" won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize - Winning Dispatches on the
'Ethnic Cleansing' of Bosnia):
The most ferocious 'ethnic cleansing' of all had begun in
the
satellite villages and towns around Banja Luka and Prijedor
in
the Bosnian Krajina, where in May the Serbs had declared
their
autonomous 'Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina'.
Between 150 and 200 homes, shops and mosques were being
burned or dynamited every day in the Krajina, sending a tide
of
refugees towards Croatia which the UNCHR called the 'most
serious refugee crisis since the Second World War'. 'Whole
communities,' said Peter Kessler, the organization's
spokesman, 'and whole towns have been emptied.' By the end
of May, half a million people had been wrenched from their
homes, and their number would more than double before the
summer.3
In the (Bosnian) town of Kozarac, there was barely a single
house left undamaged and those that stood intact were
occupied by Apparently nonchalant Serbs. this town of
25,000
had been 90 per cent Muslim, a 500-year-old settlement.
Late
in May, the Serbs had set about its methodical
obliteration.
According to relief workers, some 3,000 people were killed.
Later in the year, the Guardian's Ian Traynor and Tom
Gjelten
of US National Public Radio pieced together what had
happened: 'The Serbs' operation was clinical, calculated
and
comprehensive. The local political, business and cultural
elites
were singled out for extermination...Emir Kevljanin, who stood
at the crossroads with his wife and teenaged children, part
of
the exodus from Kozarac ... said: "they were very systematic,
destroying everyone who could bring about a revival of
Kozarac"'.4
General Mladic's army, with its Serbian patrons and a
medley
of local cohorts, moved across eastern Bosnia like a grim
combine harvester. They linked together the top and bottom
right-hand corners of the country, where Serbs were the
majority, by displacing, sometimes killing, 200,000 Muslims
in
between. In Zvornik, on the Bosnian-Serbian border,
(Bosnian)
fighters hoped to defend their community with hunting rifles
by
standing on the bridge linking it with Serbia. They
dissapeared
shortly after the arrival of a band calling itself the
'Serbian
volunteer force'. The irregulars wreaked the first horror,
the
army would then move in and remove any remaining civilians
and the death squads would 'mop up'. Some Muslims fled,
some were taken prisoner, some were killed, others were
brought back over the border to await transport by railway
boxcar to Hungary.5
The following account would attempt to paint a picture in what kind of
horrendous human misery the Muslim and Croat civilians in Banja Luka
were in:
In the city, a reduced Muslim population hung on, subject to
nightly murders and houseburning. By mid-August, Banja Luka
was a petrified city. Muslims were scared to be seen talking
to
any visitor, let alone journalists. One woman came up to us
a
few minutes before curfew just to say: 'They are killing us,
one
by one. My husband, my son have gone and are dead, and
still
they stand around the house, sitting on my wall, the same
men,
after dark. Can you get me out? can you? By the end of the
month, Vukic was local leader of SDS (Serbian nationalist
party), and he passed an edict that no Muslim or Croatian
woman was permitted to have a baby in any Banja Luka
hospital. UNCHR officers trying in vain to work from Zagreb
estimated that a quarter of a million Muslims were driven
from
their homes in the Bosnian Krajina alone during one single
and
brutal wave of 'cleansing' in September.6
Vulliamy and Gutman were the first ones to visit the death and
concentration camps in Bosnia. Their accounts are horrifying.
According to their accounts people were tortured and killed daily. The
conditions were inhumane, for example:
The camp is an open pit where only a third of the prisoners
have shelter from the elements and most have to stand in
mud,
according to a witness. Six to 10 people die daily. "The
corpses
pile up. There is no food. There is no air to breathe. No
medical
care. Even the grass around the pit has been completely
clawed away,"7
Another grotesque and horrible progrom of the Serbs were massive
and systematic rape of Muslim females. There were accounts that rapes
were also done in sadistic and bestial fashion where they would kill
after raping, rape young girls and women in public and in front of
family members. Testimony gathered by the (Genocide in Zenica)
commission includes that of a thirteen-year-old who was raped in front
of her mother and who later died.8 One girl of fourteen was tied naked
to a tank and driven around her village near Prijedor. After being
raped, she was, as the collector of the testimony says, 'thrown in
front of her parents so that they could see her half dead'.9
Approximately 25,000 Muslim women were raped by the Serbian army.
Now the question arises where was the World Community and UN
during systematic decimation and rape of the Bosnian civilians? What
role did the International Community play in this crisis? Did they
attempt to prevent genocide and destruction of a state and its people?
The answer is an emphatic "no" they did not. The 'international
community' along with the nationalisitc and fascist forces actually
played an indirect and sometimes direct third party to the
annihilation of Bosnia and its people. The 'international community'
firstly did this through the propagation of misinformation of the
reality and nature of the Bosnian crisis. And secondly it was by the
impotent action in response to the genocide in Bosnia - actually the
United Nations and world community came up with policies that for the
most part appeased the aggressors of Bosnia.
Bosnia from the start was looked upon as a place where a brutal
civil war had started - this was false. The fact was it were the
nationalist Serb forces (and later nationalist Croat forces) which
perpetrated this brutal war against the Bosnian civilians, the federal
and legitimate Government forces. Also the federal Government of
Bosnia was not exclusively "Muslim" as it was portrayed in world media
and was erroneously painted out to be - it was a multi-ethnic
government comprising of Muslims, Croats and Serbs alike. It was a
multi-national, legitimate government of Bosnia who were hopelessly
trying to defend the indivisible, multi-ethnic nation of Bosnia from
nationalistic terrorist forces. For example:
..........the government of Bosnia (though often called in the
press the Muslim government) is actually the government of
those who want to keep Bosnia the entity it was; it is
supported
by much of the urban population of all ethnic groups. Most
of
the Sarajevo Serbs I know are still in the city, in favour
of
Izetbegovic's government. The present Bosnian cabinet
(February 1993) contains nine Muslims, six Serbs, and five
Croats. One third of the Territorial Defense forces of
Sarajevo,
including its second in command, is Serb. Thus Serbs (and
Croats too) are on both sides. And both Croatian and Serb
chauvinists want to depict the conflict as an ethnic war -
to
justify their states' territorial expansion, to demean the
Bosnian
cause by making it seem as if it too were just one more
narrow
ethnic one..................10
The propagandist exaggerations were put forth by Serbian and
Croatian nationalists in which they influenced in forming world
opinion:
The Serbian and Croatian national extremists also realized
that
the goal of a genuinely multi-ethnic state was the key
premise
of Bosnia's claim to uniqueness in the central lands of
former
Yugoslavia. by eradicating the pattern of ethnic
intermingling
and promoting hatred and intolerance among Bosnia's
nationalities, they undermined the Bosnian government's
potential political base........... In propaganda and in deeds,
Serbian and Croatian nationalists have sought to portray
the
Bosnian government as "Muslim," thereby seeking to devalue
its claim to represent the interests of all Bosnians. To a
dismaying degree, they have succeeded in the court of world
public opinion.11
Thus the prevalent myths that the war was based on age old animosities
and all sides were to blame were one of the reasons behind the lack of
intervention or any action to protect Bosnia's territorial integrity
by the world community.
The United Nations and the EC lacked in adequately saving Bosnia
and it seemed purposely wanted to make the Bosnian Government
capitulate to its aggressors. Firstly before the succession of Bosnia
had taken place, the Bosnian President requested a UN force to be
deployed in Bosnia - it was denied knowing full well that crisis was
eminent. Secondly the UN enforced an arms embargo on the Bosnian
Government - thus in turn helping the enemies and aggressors of
Bosnia. The Bosnian Government on numerous occasions pleaded in vain
to the UN Security Council to lift the arms embargo, the request was
stubbornly denied.
On December 18, 1992, the UN General Assembly realizing that every
sovereign UN member state has the right to self-defense under article
51 of the UN Charter voted by a tremendous majority to lift the arms
embargo against Bosnia and asked the Security Council to authorize
"all means possible" to preserve Bosnia's territorial integrity. The
General Assembly's request to the Security Council was rejected.
The clear contradiction between the General Assembly and that of
the Security Council for the most part peculiarly went unnoticed in
the media and press. Ian Williams, journalist with The New York
Observer however had made note of this:
The sordid maneuverings in the Security Council in April
[1993]
raise the question of whether the carnage in the Balkans
could
actually have continued for the past year without the UN.
The
most notable example of the UN's contribution to the mayhem
in the region has been the lopsided arms embargo against
Bosnia-Hercegovina, which in principle favors the Serbs ...
The
Balkan crisis has shown that, far from being the keystone of
the
new world order, the United Nations has no independent
volition apart from the Security Council, which can and
does
ignore the will of the General Assembly ... A series of
creeping
procedural changes since the end of the Cold War have
virtually made the Council a tight cabal of the five
[permanent
members'] foreign ministries.12
In spite of political and diplomatic pressures against them, three non-
permanent members of the Security Council, New Zealand, Pakistan, and
Venezuela, consistently resisted against the position of the Security
Council and Permanent members Britain and France on the arms embargo.
After a visit to the besieged Bosnian town of Srebrenica in April
1993, Diego Arria, Venezuela's Ambassador to the United Nations,
appealed once again to the Security Council to the one sided arms
embargo against Bosnia. Arria's speech was "reported to have brought
tears to the eyes of listening UN staff members."13 Permanent UN
Security Council members Britain, France, and Russia rejected the
request.
In June 1993, Pakistan and Venezuela again appealed to the
Security Council to lift the arms embargo. Addressing the Security
Council Diego Arria, responded to the French and British objections:
We are told that lifting the arms embargo would increase
violence. Already nearly two hundred thousand people have
died. More than two million people have been displaced from
their homes. Twenty thousand women have been raped. The
International Court of Justice and the World Conference on
Human Rights have indicated that Bosnia-Hercegovina is a
victim of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," among other
unspeakable crimes. For this Council, then, what precisely
does it mean to say that violence would increase and spread?
If an armed people possess a greater ability to defend
themselves, this does not mean that violence would
necessarily increase. Until now the Serbs have been able to
easily trample and vandalize the Bosnian Muslims. When the
Bosnians are in a position to defend themselves,
circumstances may deter the Serbs and, above all, place
limits
on their capacity to act with impunity.
More war? Rather, it is the international community's
inconsistent attitude in the adoption of measures to stop
aggression that has given free reign to the escalation of
the
conflict. It has essentially meant a massacre of mainly the
Bosnian Muslim community. This is the reality ... To do all
that
one can possibly do to prevent a people from exercising its
right to defend itself in order to survive means to
shoulder
moral and political responsibilities of extraordinary
significance.14
Despite the repeated appeals the embargo against Bosnia was not
revoked instead Britain and France recommended the make up of "safe
havens" in Bosnia. The Americans endorsed the idea with some
equivocation, acknowledging in the words of one American intelligence
official that a "polka dot solution" would result in "six little West
Banks in Western Europe with enormous problems." The American official
explained whimsically , "You can't create a viable economy inside a
polka dot."15
The Bosnian Government spoke against the proposal calling it
formation of "ghettos" on its territory. Alija Izetbegovic, the
Bosnian President, declared on Radio Sarajevo, "If the international
community is not ready to defend the principles that it itself has
proclaimed and which it proclaims to be a reflection of its
fundamental values ... [and instead] prefers to close its eyes before
the most ruthless violations of human rights and international law,
even more to reward both aggression and genocide, let it then say this
openly both to our public and its own ... Let it proclaim that the UN
Charter and all the carefully and patiently built rules of
international law are no longer valid."16
Thus the UN defied its own charters and laws in not lifting the
arms embargo on the Bosnian Government - thus playing a part in
Bosnia's destruction.
The UN also failed with its so-called "safe haven" policy. The UN
safe haven of Gorazde fell to the Serbs and the British UN General
Michael Rose refused to protect the safe area. This resulted in
burning of Muslim homes, ethnic cleansing and mass killings. The UN
also handed over safe areas of Srebrenica and Zepa to the Serbs and
mass killings ensued in which 8000 civilian men were massacred.
European Community ministers continuously pressured the Bosnian
Government to agree to the ethnic cantonization of the country - thus
instead of offering support or protection to the territorial integrity
of the indivisible nation of Bosnia they elected to systematically
break it up.
The UN force even failed at protecting Bosnian Government
officials from Serb assaults, the following is a tragic and dramatic
account how Bosnian Vice-President, Dr. Hakija Turaljic was killed
under UN protection:
When things went wrong, even with something so simple as
transporting a Bosnian official to and from the airport, the
UN
was quick to blame everyone but themselves. In January
1993,
the Bosnian Vice-President, Dr. Hakija Turaljic, perhaps
the
ablest member of Izetbegovic's cabinet, was returning to
Sarajevo in a French armored personnel carrier after
meeting
with Turkish humanitarian officials at the airport. At the
bend in
the road halfway into town, a spot where Bosnian Serbs
would
later establish a checkpoint - despite the fact that,
according to
the airport agreement, they were already allowed to inspect
relief supplies at the airport and had supposedly ceded
control
of the road to the UN - his convoy was stopped by a hundred
and fifty Serb fighters and a number of armored vehicles. A
standoff ensued. The French battalion commander, Colonel
Patrice Sartre, instead of calling for help from the
UNPROFOR
airport garrison, actually sent away three British Warrior
fighting vehicles that had happened on the scene. When
their
commander, Captain Peter Jones, offered to deploy around
the
armored personnel carrier in which Turaljic was sitting,
Sartre
dismissed him. "This is a French problem," he said. Shortly
thereafter, Sartre allowed the rear hatch of the APC to be
opened in order, he said later, to demonstrate to the Serbs
that
there were no arms or "mujahedin" riding along with
Turaljic. At
this point, according to a French enlisted man riding with
the
Vice President, Turaljic was weeping. His terror was
entirely
warranted. As Sartre stood there, a Serb fighter simply
pointed
a machine pistol past his shoulder and into the rear of the
vehicle and cut Dr. Turaljic to bits.17
The UN commission exonerated the French soldiers and hinted it was the
Bosnians fault for creating "an atmosphere of anxiety" among the Serbs
that day. I guess creating anxiety among the Serbs gives them the
justification to kill with the UN's blessing?? The irony is that
Colonel Sartre, far from being sent home, was allowed to carry on in
Bosnia, and upon his return to France where he was awarded the Legion
of Honor. In other words he received a reward for allowing the Serbs
kill the Vice President of Bosnia thus indirectly helping the Serbs.
Now the question arises why did the UN and rest of the World
Community instead of protecting Bosnia played a part in its
destruction. This is a phenomenon which cannot be easily understood -
but there were some clear cut reasons and those will be briefly
discussed. Firstly it was not literally the entire world that denied
Bosnia's right to self-defense but was the five nations who controlled
the UN Security Council: Britain, France, United States, Germany and
Russia. This really questions democracy and credibility of the United
Nations. While most of the members of the General Assembly and even
some members of the Security Council voted to lift the arms embargo on
Bosnia the permanent members denied it. What gives them the right to
override established International Laws of the United Nations? And why
were they so stubborn in not lifting the arms embargo? The Bosnians
constantly made it clear that they didn't want foreign troops to help
them - they only wanted the right to defend themselves. Sefer
Halilovic, at the time the Commander of the Bosnian Army, repeatedly
stated that Bosnia did not want the United States or any other power
to deploy its ground forces in the Balkans.18 If the United States or
Europe would not assist Bosnia in defending its integrity as an
integral state or believed they were under no obligation to forcefully
deter acts of genocide, then at the very least these Great Powers
should cease to deliberately obstruct the ability of Bosnia to act in
its own self-defense.19 The Bosnians simply pleaded: If you cannot or
will not help us, then have the moral decency to cause us no harm.
The reason why the United States and the select few hegemonic
Great European Powers took actions to guarantee the destruction of
Bosnia may lie in cynicism and systematic prejudice. If the victims of
genocide had been Christians (in which most of the Europeans share in
religion) instead of Muslims in Bosnia the reaction would have
definitely been different. In the words of a French Diplomat "Our
interests are closer to the Serbs than you think", "We worry more
about the Muslims than about the Serbs".20
With the failure of the World Community and the United Nations to
protect Bosnia's sovereignty and its people from genocide, ethnic
cleansing and mass killings questions arise about what role and for
who's real interest does the United Nations function for? Using Bosnia
as a case in point the United Nations even defied its own so-called
International Laws in guaranteeing the direct and indirect destruction
of Bosnia and its people. With this evidence of the United Nation's
great failure in allowing systematic annihilation of its member State
should the UN be radically reformed or simply abolished?
