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War Crimes Court Needs To Expand Net
By Omer Bin Abdullah
01/05/2001
The ever slow International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) received
yet another Bosnian Serb criminal, Dragan Obrenovic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb Zvornik brigade during the
1992-95 war, into its prison cells. Obrenovic was arrested by the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia.
Obrenovic pleaded not guilty to charges of complicity in genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity while about 10,000 Bosnian Serbs in his hometown, Zvornik, staged a protest, many carrying signs which read, "Enough of this biased justice." More protests are planned throughout the Republika Srpska (RS), the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia.
The charges against Obrenovic stem from the execution of thousands of Muslim men after Serb forces overran the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica on July 6, 1995.
Perhaps the Serbs are right that justice should not be biased. The reality is that the authority of law should be extended to the U.N. officials that allowed criminals like Obrenovic to carry out their slaughter with impunity.
Now, Dutch General Cees Nicolai (supported by Colonel Thomas Karremans) has charged that by refusing to order air strikes against the Bosnian Serb troops, General Bernard Janvier, the French commander of the U.N. peacekeepers based in Zagreb in the former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR), allowed the Srebrenica massacre to be carried out unchallenged.
"If there had been a rapid and strong action of U.N. troops with air support, we could have avoided this catastrophe. But the restrictions on the deployment of air power prevented that," Cees Nicolai told a French parliamentary inquiry. He added that both Janvier and the civilian U.N. special envoy to Bosnia, Yasushi Akashi, had disagreed with the British commander of UNPROFOR, General Rupert Smith, over the use of air power against the Bosnian Serbs.
Colonel Karremans was commander of the U.N. battalion in charge of protecting the so-called "safe haven" of Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia. Bosnian Serb forces brushed aside the peacekeepers and entered the town in July 1995 - after Janvier had refused repeated requests for air strikes. They massacred more than 5,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the worst single civilian slaughter in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The French inquiry was launched following allegations that Janvier had been at fault, but the Dutch claims are the first to directly blame the United Nations' for failure to halt the killing. The Dutch officers are discounting the various excuses given by Janvier for refusing air support.
The fact that the enclave was guarded by Dutch troops has resulted in soul-searching in the Netherlands over Srebrenica, where a total of some 8,000 Muslims were executed in what has been described as the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II.
Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic has also been charged with genocide at Srebrenica, and is being tried by ICTY. However, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic remain at large.
The Association of Mothers of Srebrenica has filed a criminal complaint against U.N. officials, including current Secretary General Kofi Annan and former chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. They want the role that the United Nations played in the 1995 massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be investigated, and they are accusing U.N. officials and their subordinates of complicity in the genocidal massacre and calling for their arrest for crimes against humanity. The mothers say that the U.N. officials deliberately sacrificed Srebrenica to allow the carve-up of Bosnia.
In response, Annan has said, "The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever," and is now saying that ''safe areas'' should never be established again without credible means of defense nor U.N. peacekeepers deployed again where there is no ceasefire or peace agreement.
"The cardinal lesson of Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means, and with the political will to carry the policy through to its logical conclusion," he added. In his 151-page report, Annan cited Dutch troops for their failure to defend the enclave, but agreed that the lack of airpower was also a cause of their failure. About 600 lightly armed Dutch infantry forces were guarding the enclave.
Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic, commented on Karadzic's U.N./E.C./U.S. invitation to New York, "If you kill one person, you're prosecuted. If you kill ten people, you're a celebrity; if you kill a quarter-of-a-million people, you're invited to a peace conference."
The Dutch defense seems weak. After a few of their troops were taken hostage by Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic's forces, the Dutch peacekeepers handed over about 5,000 Muslims who were being sheltered at the Dutch base at Potocari. In return, the Serbs released the 14 Dutch peacekeepers that were being held at the Nova Kasaba base. Of course, the Muslims became the target of Serb terrorism.
Partners in Crime
Janvier's partner in crime is Yasushi Akashi, special representative of the Secretary General in the former Yugoslavia. The two provided the proverbial "green signal" to the Serbs on July 10th by authorizing a faxed statement to General Tolimir to the effect that close air support would be used against the Bosnian Serbs if they struck the Dutch blocking positions. Of course, the Serbs then bypassed such positions in proceeding with their grisly mission against the Bosnians.
Annan agreed, "It is possible that this message had given the Serbs the impression that air power would be used only to protect UNPROFOR, and they could attack the Bosnians with impunity."
That is exactly what these U.N. officials intended and exactly what happened. General Bernard Janvier is on the record as having made numerous statements demonstrating that there was no intent whatsoever to defend the Bosnian Muslim population of Srebrenica from attack and genocide.
He did not take the necessary measures (including the use of force), to deter attacks on the safe area as Resolution 836 charged him with doing, and he consistently lobbied for and took actions that facilitated the United Nation's withdrawal from the eastern enclaves.
The record also shows that before, during and after the slaughter, Janvier and Akashi made numerous statements that were untrue, misleading, or distorted - evidently, both to deter defensive action against the Serbs and to conceal the massive dereliction of their own sworn duty.
After General Rupert Smith, NATO commander in Bosnia, ordered a second round of air strikes, on May 29th, the authority to approve air strikes was shifted to U.N. headquarters. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali then had to personally turn the key to request -air strikes - a process that could have taken days.
Further, on June 4th, only one month before the attack on Srebrenica, Janvier met secretly with General Ratko Mladic and his Chief of Staff, General Momcilo Perisic in Zvornik. In his Bosnian memoir
To End a War (1998), Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Bosnia, pointed out that after the Janvier-Mladic meeting, the air strikes stopped while the intensity and frequency of Serb attacks increased. Also, he noted, both Milosevic and Karadzic have said that Janvier agreed to drop the air strikes.
An examination of events relates that the U.N. Secretary General, Akashi and Janvier took it upon themselves to rescind the commitment of Resolution 816 - without authorization of the Security Council. However, the criminal roles of Boutros Ghali, Akashi and Janvier notwithstanding, the Dutch troops also share the blame because it was they who exchanged 14 of their own for 5,000 Muslims when they knew the Serbs planned to slaughter them. The Serbs would have never risked killing the Dutch troops.
In fact, the Dutch commander complied with the orders of General Mladic to separate the males aged 12 to 77, and place their names on a list. The Dutch Deputy Commander in his immediate area ordered the compilation of the list. He later said that this was done to provide a record of the names to be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Despite their pleas for mercy, the Dutch soldiers ordered these men to leave the compound and turn themselves over to the Serbs. They are now offering the excuse that they did not believe sudden death was looming over these men and thought they would be treated in compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
The reality is that Europe has never come out of the Crusades, and Islamophobia reigns - unabated. Muslims have the means to correct the situation, but they are too engrossed in doing business with the West to think about justice.
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