Making War to Keep Peace

by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

  On July 6, 1995, the Serbs moved on Srebrenica, mounting a fierce attack with tanks and artillery. The Dutchbat commander made a series of requests for close air support, first in Sarajevo, then in Srebrenica. Supposedly, the commander was told by the UN that NATO planes would soon arrive to conduct air strikes. But NATO planes were never called in. Later investigations indicated that Akashi, who reported directly to Boutros-Ghali, did not inform him or other top UN officials of the requests.

  On the afternoon of July 6, approximately twenty thousand persons—mainly women, children, and old people—converged on the Dutchbat headquarters in Srebenica, demanding air strikes. But there were no calls and no air strikes. The commander cut a hole in the fence, and four to five thousand people came through, under the illusion that it was safer inside the compound than outside it. Another fourteen to fifteen thousand refugees remained outside the compound. Thousands more unarmed refugees sought to make their way to Tuzla. On July 8, the Dutch peacekeepers abandoned three posts under direct fire and again requested air strikes. On July 10, close air support was finally requested.

  On July 11, the Serbs took control of Srebenica. Mladic insisted that Muslim boys and men between the ages of seventeen and sixty must be disarmed and then questioned one by one. He said they would be well treated. In fact, virtually all of them were slaughtered. On August 8, the massacres were described in a Newsday article. On August 10, Ambassador Madeleine Albright showed her UN colleagues aerial photographs of Bosnian Serbs killing hundreds of men and boys held captive in a soccer stadium.

  Akashi later insisted that he had no advance intelligence of the planned attack, but he had many warnings. The Bosnian government had urgently and repeatedly provided him with accurate information about what was happening, including the forced departure of thousands of Bosnian males from their homes and villages. Later investigations confirmed that UN and U.S. intelligence had detected signs of an upcoming Serb offensive, but not of Serb intentions to annihilate thousands of Bosnian males. The Bosnian government, better informed, had intercepted Serb radio communications describing plans for mass murder, but no one else was taking these reports seriously. (That the killings were planned in advance has since been confirmed by the testimony of Bosnian Serb officers at The Hague.120)

  UN officials said they did not regard Bosnian government intelligence as reliable, although they later acknowledged that Bosnian officials had accurately reported the systematic slaughter of Bosnian men and boys. UN and U.S. government officials later acknowledged that they had too little confidence in information from the Bosnian government.121

  A year later, Newsday’s Roy Gutman compiled the following timeline of events:

  JUNE 4

  French general Bernard Janvier, supreme UN military commander for former Yugoslavia, meets with Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic to discuss the release of UN hostages and an end to NATO air strikes

  JUNE 7

  Serbs release 111 peacekeeper hostages

  JUNE 9

  Special representative Yasushi Akashi announces that the UN will abide by “strictly peacekeeping principles”(i.e., no use of force)

  JUNE 13

  Serbs release 118 more hostages

  JUNE 17

  Serbs release the remaining UN hostages

  JULY 6

  Serbs attack Srebrenica

  JULY 11

  Serbs capture Srebrenica. They drive men and boys out of the town, then slaughter them

  JULY 12–18

  Serbs kill approximately 7,000 to 9,000 men and boys from Srebrenica in cold blood

  AUGUST 8

  Newsday reveals the massacres

  AUGUST 10

  U.S. ambassador Madeleine Albright shares CIA photographs with UN colleagues as proof of the mass executions122

  The Dutch UNPROFOR contingent that was supposed to be protecting the refugees was very lightly armed. The Serbian forces, on the other hand, were ready for war—with tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery, communications, and intelligence. For months, the Bosnian Serbs had blocked all deliveries of food, fuel, and spare parts to the Dutch troops. These conditions led the Dutchbat force commander to conclude, “My battalion is no longer willing, able, or in the position to consider itself impartial due to the policy of the Bosnian Serb government and the BSA [Bosnian Serb Army].” The commander spoke repeatedly with General Mladic, appealing for help. Meanwhile, progressively more desperate refugees were gathering in Srebrenica: Four thousand were already there, and their numbers were swelling rapidly. In a letter, Boris Yeltsin placed blame firmly on the aggressors:

  This long-lasting and severe situation is no longer acceptable for the soldiers. Therefore, it is my strongest opinion that this Bosnian Serb government should be blamed for it in the full extent, as well as for the consequences in the future.

  Apparently no one received Yeltin’s message until much later.123

  French General Bernard Janvier, supreme UN military commander for former Yugoslavia, opposed the use of NATO airpower even before he negotiated the release of UN forces held hostage by the Serbs. By most accounts, it was Janvier who struck the deal with Serb commander Ratko Mladic that NATO would halt air attacks and the Serbs would release the hostages. As U.S. ambassador to Bosnia John Menzies later confirmed, they agreed over the opposition of the United Kingdom’s General Rupert Smith, who favored using more force to try to save the Bosnians. General Smith argued that analysis of Serb behavior indicated that their “intention is to finish the war this year and take every risk to achieve it. They will destroy the eastern enclaves this year.” Javier believed that the Serbs’ desire for international recognition would prevent them from going to such extremes.

  According to the Newsday accounts, Javier told UN headquarters that Bosnia’s forces were adequate to defend Srebrenica (which they were not) and that NATO airpower was not needed (which it was). Akashi, always opposed to the use of force, informed the Serbs that UNPROFOR would strictly observe peacekeeping principles (that is, refraining from the use of force). Another, divergent account of the deal asserted that it was an agreement not between UNPROFOR forces and Bosnian Serbs, but between UN officials and Bosnian Serbs. Richard Holbrooke commented, “To this day, Washington has never been sure of what was actually agreed to, but after the hostages were released, the intensity of Bosnian Serb military effort increased dramatically, with no further UN or NATO air strikes.”124

  After the release of the UN hostages, word circulated of a secret deal between Javier and Mladic, under which UNPROFOR commanders agreed never to ask for NATO airpower again in Bosnia. This agreement was publicly affirmed by Milošević and the Bosnian Serbs, but denied by French and UN officials. In fact, however, no further NATO air strikes were carried out. Boutros-Ghali removed from General Smith the authority to call for NATO air strikes, saying that he would “personally make all further decisions…from New York.”125 There were no further calls for air strikes.

  The Washington Post later ran a story stating that twelve thousand Bosnian men had set out on foot from Srebrenica at dawn on July 11 in an attempt to escape death at the hands of the Serbs. Fewer than half survived the march. The article described five or six massacre sites at which large numbers of Bosnian men and boys were forced to dig trenches. They were then shot and buried. One Bosnian man, who had observed the process, from a hiding place said that the slaughter and burial were systematic and utterly brutal, and that General Mladic was personally in charge of the entire operation. This eyewitness said that “the Dutch peacekeepers made little attempt to defend the civilian population. They were worried about their own hostages.” The account continued: “Refugees later described how many of the peacekeepers were forced at gunpoint to strip to their underwear by Bosnian Serb soldiers, who then strutted around in UN uniforms themselves.”126

  A very few men and boys managed to survive by pretending to be dead, hiding among the corpses. No precise number of those killed is available; the common estimate is a
pproximately nine thousand. Later investigations by a French parliamentary committee and by the Dutch government confirmed that the men and boys of Srebrenica were murdered in cold blood over a period of several days. They were undefended, with no assistance from the UNPROFOR peacekeepers, who seemed less interested in protecting Bosnians in a UN safe haven than maintaining satisfactory relations with the Serbs and protecting their own security.

  The Serb capture and mistreatment of UN peacekeepers, and the slaughter of the undefended male population of Srebrenica in July 1995, were deeply humiliating for UN forces. It was the most shocking mass murder in Europe since World War II, and the widespread international revulsion that followed finally mobilized NATO troops to action. French president Jacques Chirac (who had approached the British and been turned down) called President Bill Clinton to propose jointly planned responses in the future. The two agreed to abandon the UN’s “proportionate response” and dual-key strategies if the Bosnian Serbs continued to attack Muslim towns. Henceforth, NATO would be authorized to launch air strikes on the request of the UNPROFOR force commander without seeking approval from the UN secretary-general. NATO carried out thirty-four hundred sorties against the Bosnian Serbs in less than two weeks

  The Strain on U.S.-European Relations

  The Bosnian conflict challenged the Euro-American relationship, because Americans were generally more ready than Europeans to use force to defend the Bosnians. More Americans than Europeans saw Bosnia as the victim of Serbian aggression, ethnic cleansing, and conquest, and wanted to help—although they did not want their country to become involved in a ground war. Many Americans disapproved of the UN’s posture of neutrality between aggressors and victims, and did not believe it was morally permissible for a UN member state to be denied the right of self-defense through an arms embargo. The disagreements primarily concerned the arms embargo, the use of airpower, and the right of peacekeepers to fend off Serb assaults. American impatience grew with the UN’s inefficient policies, cumbersome chains of command and control, and unrealistic rules of engagement.

  Tension over the lack of response to continued Serbian aggression had been building, with Americans in and out of government calling for more vigorous implementation of the Security Council resolutions and more determined use of force to punish and deter armed attacks. A bipartisan coalition in Congress called for lifting the arms embargo to permit Bosnia to defend itself. But Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali had established his control over NATO air strikes, and he used that control to block the use of air strikes against the Serbs.

  In an effort to impose a settlement, the Contact Group issued an ultimatum: if either side did not accept the latest proposed plan, disincentives (including military force) would be used. This was a take-it-or-leave-it approach. General Michael Rose called Admiral Leighton Smith in Naples and asked him to put NATO aircraft overhead, which Smith did within five minutes.127 Akashi denied having turned down a NATO request for permission for an air strike, saying that “NATO will take the lead on this, because the violation of the no-fly zone and the direct attack on its planes are direct challenges to the alliance.” But permission to use airpower was never granted.

  Of the growing differences between the Americans and the Europeans, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote in the London Daily Telegraph: “Something has finally snapped in the relations between the United States and Britain. The irritation that has been festering over Balkan policy for three years has reached the point of irreparable rift.”128 NATO was finished, Pritchard opined, and with it the intimate British-American relationship that had existed since World War II.

  There was no enforcement of Security Council resolutions, no en-forcement of no-fly zones or of safe havens, little delivery of humanitarian assistance, no deterrence of attacks, no protection for peacekeepers or refugees, and no enforcement of NATO ultimatums. Each deadline set by NATO and UNPROFOR was missed, each safe haven violated, each effort to alter the UN mode of operation rebuffed, and each decision to alter it ignored. Humiliation of UN forces was tolerated and thus intensified, and attacks on civilians spread. NATO was permitted to attack only a runway and three missile sites. This extremely weak response was defended as necessary to protect UN peacekeeping forces. To U.S. complaints, French, British, and UN officials essentially replied that the United States had no standing because it refused to contribute troops to UNPROFOR.

  In the fall of 1995, the Clinton administration reluctantly announced that it would no longer enforce the arms embargo. At that point, an open rift developed between the United States and the British and French, who critiqued the American withdrawal as unhelpful and inappropriate behavior for a country that had no forces on the ground. The WEU pledged to maintain the arms embargo, and Willy Claes announced that NATO would continue to enforce the embargo because it had been mandated by the UN.

  Tensions multiplied after the Security Council authorized NATO to attack Serb targets in Croatia. UN officials debated and delayed, and finally permitted fifty NATO planes to attack three Serb missile sites in Croatia in a pinprick effort to slow Serb aggression against Bihac. Things got worse after NATO failed to endorse a U.S. plan to save Bihac. Two days later, NATO joined UN officials in announcing that nothing would be done to mitigate the Serb assault on Bihac.

  The Move to Dayton

  The war had taken a hideous toll on the people of Bosnia. By the end of 1994, at least two hundred thousand people had died and roughly half of Bosnia’s four and a quarter million inhabitants had been driven from their homes.129 Possessions had been seized and destroyed, property confiscated, and all deeds and records that established ownership burned. Many males between the ages of sixteen and sixty had been killed. The devastation virtually guaranteed that for many there would be no home to return to, yet many still longed to return home.

  The changed balance of power on the ground gave Milošević an interest in negotiating to end the fighting. Serb supremacy in the war had rested on military strength. The Yugoslav National Army (JNA) had been one of the strongest and best equipped on the European continent. It was not exclusively Serb, but when Yugoslavia split into pieces, the largest part of the army remained with Serbia. At the beginning of the war, Croatia and Bosnia lacked the men and arms to defend themselves, and the 1991 UN arms embargo had made it nearly impossible for them to acquire arms and military training. But Croatia had money and connections, and once the Croatians found ways to buy weapons and hire military advisers, they were able to defend themselves and help Bosnia gain access to arms. It was because of this that the Serb monopoly on power was ended.

  Meanwhile, the United States, France, and NATO began to use their overwhelming advantage in airpower and tightened the economic sanctions against Serbia. Milošević had important incentives to end the war. The split between Milošević and his Bosnian Serb allies, Karadzic and Mladic, had become public. Milošević wrested from them an agreement that he alone would represent all Serbs in the negotiations. Holbrooke had categorically refused to meet with Karadzic and Mladic, who had been indicted as war criminals by the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in July 1995.

  Preliminary negotiations included a reluctant agreement from the Bosnian Serbs that Bosnia-Herzegovina would consist of two entities: 51 percent of the territory would go to the Muslim-Croat Federation and 49 percent to the Bosnian Serbs. Russian president Boris Yeltsin helped by writing a letter to the Serb leadership guaranteeing that he would send Russian troops into areas from which the Serbs withdrew, so they could not be quickly occupied by Muslim forces. NATO officials helped with assurances that the NATO commanders would control the use of weapons around Sarajevo. Bosnia-Herzegovina would have a collective, rotating presidency. The Bosnian representative, Alija Izebegovíc, would take the first eight-month term, followed by the Serb, Momcilo Krajisnik, and then the Croat, Kresimir Zubak.

  The Serbs wanted to divide Sarajevo, but the Muslims refused to discuss it. The Americans pressured the Croats and Muslims to acc
ept a cease-fire and create a viable Muslim-Croat federation. Finally, the three parties agreed to the basic provisions for the creation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and also maintain the October 5, 1995 cease-fire.

  The Bosnian president, Izetbegovéc, clung tenaciously to the right of Muslim refugees to return to their homes, thus securing their hold on eastern Bosnia. For a time, the conflict between the Muslims and the Croats became almost as bitter and as murderous as the earlier conflict between Muslims and Serbs.

  Then the Muslim foreign minister, Haris Selajdzic, announced that he wanted Gorazde, the last Muslim safe area in eastern Bosnia. Twice the negotiations deadlocked and twice Milošević compromised, enabling an agreement to be reached.

  The Dayton Peace Accords

  Finally, on November 1, 1995, the United States and the other Contact Group members—France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom—brought the warring factions together for formal peace talks, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

  The three strong-willed, difficult presidents—the Croat Franjo Tudjman, the Serb Slobodan Milošević, and the Bosnian Muslim Alija Izetbegovéc—ultimately accepted that the talks would take place under rules set by the Americans, and that Ambassador Holbrooke would lead the Contact Group, assisted by General Wesley Clark. Clinton’s secretary of state, Warren Christopher, welcomed the three presidents to Dayton; the negotiations would take place under his skillful guidance, drawing on Holbrooke’s tactical skills, knowledge of the area’s politics, and understanding of Milošević.