Making War to Keep Peace by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

Author:Jeane J. Kirkpatrick [Jeane J. Kirkpatrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780061747229
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Safe Areas Established

Although the special rapporteur had explicitly recommended the establishment of security zones in Bosnia and Herzegovina in November 1992, nearly six months passed before the Security Council passed Resolution 819 on April 16, 1993, established Srebrenica as a safe area—an area theoretically free from armed attack or any other hostile act. The resolution also demanded that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) immediately stop supplying weapons to Bosnian Serb paramilitary units.77 In May, in Resolution 824, the Security Council declared that Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac, and Srebrenica should be treated as safe areas from which all Bosnian Serb military and paramilitary forces should withdraw.

UNPROFOR’s task was not to defend a geographical area but to protect the civilian population of the area against armed attack. As Mazowiecki noted, however, the safe areas were safe only on paper. “The Security Council…refrained from authorizing the additional troops deemed necessary by the secretary-general to ensure full implementation of UNPROFOR’s mandate.”78 The safe areas were mobbed by displaced persons, overwhelmingly women and children; people were dying daily from shelling, starvation, illness, and wounds.

By summer’s end, the Serbs’ shelling, sniping, and starving of civilians had resumed. In August, Resolution 836 reaffirmed the safe areas, extended the mandate of UNPROFOR to enlarge them, and authorized the use of airpower to support the mandate. But by then the Bosnian Serb leadership thought it had prevailed. Its detestable “purification” of Bosnia was nearly complete: Entire Bosnian Muslim communities had been destroyed in the merciless military campaign to establish exclusive Serbian power over the country. One by one, Muslim towns had been attacked by Serb mercenaries and regular army troops, their populations driven out, swelling the refugee population to 1.6 million. It was the largest wave of refugees in Europe since World War II.

Sarajevo’s airport had been shut down for months, and the city was surrounded by Serb troops. Food was so scarce that many families lived on one meal a day. Diabetics lacked insulin; the wounded lacked antibiotics and painkillers. The international community managed little effective action. Neither the sanctions imposed on Serbia by the UN Security Council nor the arms embargoes were working. UNPROFOR was not an effective force. Cease-fires were negotiated and violated, pledges made and broken. Safe routes created for the delivery of humanitarian supplies were shut tight. Serbian mortars pounded Sarajevo’s neighborhoods almost daily and fired on safe areas packed with refugees. In the last three months of 1993, there were 225 violations of the no-fly ban.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.