In July 1995, the final year of the Bosnian war, diplomatic trickery, shameless lobbyism and laconic leniency, radiating for far too long from the centres of international powers, especially London and Paris, came to its consequential finale in a small town in Eastern Bosnia. Eight thousand men and boys of Srebrenica were executed in a manner sickeningly reminiscent of the Nazi era. The American Congress reacted first to save what’s left of the tattered reputations of the world’s most powerful organizations, The UN, NATO and European Union.
Unjust Embargo
The arms embargo, imposed in the early stages of disintegration of Yugoslavia, was always morally controversial. It had little effect on Serbs who were left in possession of most weapons belonging to the former Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), while especially in the early stages of the war, it was not unusual for Bosnians defenders to be given nine bullets each and share one semi-automatic rifle between two or more fighters. Even when, against all odds, the Bosnian government managed to put together the Bosnian Army, it was only able to equip a fraction of its soldiers. Encircled, cut off in many areas and under constant attack from Serb separatists, who controlled more than 60 percent of the country, and the rest within reach of Serb heavy artillery, the Bosnians struggled to survive yet refused to surrender the idea of multiethnic country and to accept the nationalist projects of separations along ethnic lines.
Rift in the North Atlantic Alliance
This commendable resistance, in the wake of increasing Serb atrocities and enormous shortages in food, medicine, military equipment and just about everything else, earned the Bosnian side an unequivocal level of sympathy from all over the world. Americans, recognising the imminent humanitarian catastrophe, very early proposed “lift and strike” strategy, meaning lift the weapon embargo that was crippling the Bosnian government and strike the Serb heavy artillery that continued to terrorise the besieged cities and villages across Bosnia.
This proposal, however, was staunchly opposed by both London and Paris, which argued that lifting the embargo will only create a ‘level killing field’ and that it is all too easy for Americans to seek military resolution to the conflict while they, unlike Britain and France, had no troops on the ground. Thus, ironically, the deployment of British and French troops became in effect an obstacle to the resolution of the Bosnian conflict and consequently prolonged sufferings of millions of people. “Britain played a particularly disastrous role in the destruction of Bosnia, more so even than France. Her political leaders became afflicted by a particularly disabling form of conservative pessimism which disposed them not only to reject military intervention themselves, but to prevent anybody else, particularly the Americans, from intervening either" (Simms, Unfinest Hour, p. xi). Even when Serb actions were blatantly and obviously humiliating to UN and NATO, the French and British officials used the presence of their troops as an excuse to defer any, even limited, strikes against Bosnian Serbs, despite the huge public opposition to their policies in both France and Britain.
Concentration Camps
When, in summer of 1992, Ed Vulliamy, a British journalist, discovered concentration camps set up by Serbs in Western Bosnia, the images of thousands of imprisoned Bosnians and Croats behind the barbed wires shocked the world. It seemed that the American proposal was now not only morally justified but also an inevitable course of action if NATO and the UN are to retain any credibility, let alone prevent slow strangulation of a small European country. Indeed, Lord David Owen, a British diplomat who will later have an enormous yet, unfortunately, largely destructive influence in the Bosnian crisis, wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister John Major: “It is not an exaggeration to say that we are witnessing, 50 years on, scenes in Europe that mirror the early stages of the Nazi holocaust under the dreadful description of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ I urge you not to accept the conventional wisdom that nothing can be done militarily..." (Owen, in Simms, p. 135).
Owen’s views at this point almost mirrored the American position and were diametrically different to the official British policy led by its Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd. It was therefore somewhat surprising when John Major arranged for Owen to replace Lord Carrington as the EU negotiator in Geneva at the International Peace Conference on the Former Yugoslavia. But, as Simms pointed out, within a few months Owen “lapsed into the standard government line" (p. 138). In December 1992, at his first press conference at the Sarajevo airport he warned Bosnians, “Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the west is going to come in and sort this problem out. Don’t dream dreams" (Simms, p. 138).
In truth, the Bosnian government never demanded that the Western troops come and ‘sort the problem out.’ They argued that, as an internationally recognized state, they have right on self-defence and that the international community has denied them this right by maintaining the unjust embargo on weapons and military equipment. The Americans and the Bosnia’s sympathizers in Britain, France and across the world argued the same, just, point. But, as the events over the next three years in Bosnia proved, justice is not always the highest priority in the trade of politics.
Vance- Owen Peace Plan
In January 1993, David Owen and Cyrus Vance, the UN special envoy to Bosnia, came up with a plan to end the war in Bosnia. The Vance Owen Peace Plan (VOPP), as it became known, looked at first glance as a commendable effort to preserve the unity of Bosnian state. The detailed look, however, revealed a major flow—it divided the country in ten provinces with nine of them predominantly either Serb, Croat or Muslim which was contrary to the multi-ethnical principles of the government in Sarajevo. In effect it was a plan which proposed separation along ethnic lines—something that both Serb and now, increasingly, Croat separatist were seeking to achieve. The Americans dismissed the plan immediately on the grounds that it rewards ethnic cleansing and advised the Bosnian government to reject it.
Before the Bosnians had a chance to make a decision, the separatist Serbs and Croats launched the land grabbing offensives in order to secure more favourable negotiating positions in regard to Vance- Owen Peace Plan. In western Bosnia, the Bosnian Croats Army embarked on a campaign to expel the non-Croat population. In April, the Bosnian Serb Army overran the enclaves in eastern Bosnia and created the first Srebrenica crisis.
Disgusted by the European attitude, which allowed this to happen, British ex-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, rejected as “disgraceful”, the notion that lifting the arms embargo would create a ‘level killing field.' “The Bosnia," she remarked, "is already a killing field the likes of which I thought will never see in Europe again...We are little more than an accomplice to massacre" (Simms, p. 50).
It was clear by now that VOPP is not only failing to stop the bloodshed but was encouraging the ethnic cleansing. Nevertheless, the Bosnian government, under immense pressure from London and Paris and with no prospect of military aid, accepted the plan. With Bosnian Croats already done so, it was down to Bosnian Serbs to put the final signature but unwilling to return some 20 percent of the territory acquired by force, they refused. While Cyrus Vance resigned following the rejection of the plan, Owen, remarkably, tried to press the Bosnian government into further concessions. When they at last dismissed his proposals, he blamed, not the Serbs, but both the Bosnian government and the United States and continued obsessively for the next two years to insist on the three party consensus as the only solution to the Bosnian conflict, opposing any military intervention against the Serbs.
In the contest of Serb ethnic cleansing, Owen's insistence on all party agreement almost guaranteed an unfair solution. When he finally left, in June 1995, the consequences of non-confrontational attitudes towards the barbaric practises of the Bosnian Serb Army were looming heavily above the heads of Srebrenica inhabitants.
The Fall of Srebrenica
By 11th July 1995, no one in Srebrenica was under any illusion that the day would end up in anything but tragedy. The Dutch battalion, supposed to protect Srebrenica, did not fire a single bullet while Serbs, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, advanced into the town. What followed over the next few days was the repeat of sadistic scenes that few thought will ever be seen in Europe again: separation of men, women and children, deportations, torture, rape, beatings, executions...
American Congress and Dayton Agreement
A few days later, while the world was still grasping the extent of the atrocities, the American Congress unilaterally lifted the arms embargo and charged the American President with the task of ending the war. President Clinton, always a critic of the handling of the crisis but too cautious not to sideline the Europeans, now abandoned a great deal of diplomatic courtesy. After seeing much of its efforts to level the military balance in Bosnia constantly stifled by Europeans, Washington adopted a much more aggressive policy in dealing with London and Paris. “The Americans were no longer in listening mode: ‘don’t ask, tell’, was the new slogan" (Simms, p. 324).
Partly due to their resolve and partly due to European’s ‘reckoning’ after ‘Srebrenica’, the Americans now encountered a softer resistance to their initiative. Within weeks the Serb army was on the verge of collapse in both Bosnia and Croatia and within months the Dayton Peace Accord, brokered by Richard Holbrooke and his team, ended the war. The logic behind shameful European policies could not be discredited more effectively.
The Vance-Owen Peace Plan and the follow up attempts to repackage the ‘original product’, was by no means the only obstacle to just resolution in Bosnia. The support it received from the centres of powers remains, however, the most indicative collection of diplomatic arrogance and political incompetence of both the UN and European Union. While the main responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre lies on the nationalist Serb executioners, it is the self-assured and ignorant political mentality of the international community that ultimately paved the way for the Srebrenica massacre.
The Victims of Srebrenica
As of July 2011, more than 6,500 Srebrenica victims were excavated from mass graves, identified, and reburied. On 11th July 2011, the remains of more than 600 victims, identified over the previous year, were laid to their final resting place in Potocari, a small village just ouside Srebrenica. Every ninth victim of those was a child. Some 1500 more are currently either awaiting identification or are still missing.
Those were not the only victims; many who survived Srebrenica find life almost unbearable. Zumra Sehomerovic, discusses the moment she was separated from her husband: “During deportation a soldier stopped him and ordered me to continue. My husband whispered to my ear: ‘don’t worry, everything will be fine.’ He touched my shoulder briefly and I felt his hand trembled. I can still feel this tremble deep inside me—it’s always with me. I wish I have screamed or shouted not to take him—it would, perhaps, be easier for me to live now. But I remained silent and could not speak. While walking towards the bus, tears were flowing down my face like a river—and often still do. I never saw or heard anything about my husband since" (Woodhead; Srebrenica-A Cry from the Grave).
References:
Holbrooke, Richard; To End a War, Modern Library Paperback, New York, 1999
Rohde, David S; Endgame: the betrayal and fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1997, 1998
Simms, Brendan; Unfinest Hour: Britain and the destruction of Bosnia, Allen Lane The Penguin Press, London, 2001
Woodhead, Leslie (dir.), Srebrenica-A Cry from the Grave, An Antelope production for BBC in association with Thirteen/WNET and NPS, 1999
Bekir Sabic - Bekir Sabic writes both fiction and non-fiction. His literary interests include history, religion and art. He lives in Essex, ...
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