Understanding Peacekeeping. Alex J. Bellamy

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Название Understanding Peacekeeping
Автор произведения Alex J. Bellamy
Жанр Зарубежная публицистика
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Издательство Зарубежная публицистика
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isbn 9780745686752



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the perpetrators. In one hundred days, approximately 1 million Tutsi and Hutu moderates were slaughtered – a rate of killing higher than that of the Nazi Holocaust.

      Map 4.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina

      As disquiet began to grow in the Western media and among peacekeepers about the UN’s failure to halt the bloodshed, questions were raised about giving UNPROFOR a mandate to use force, and the Security Council gradually expanded the mission’s mandate still further (see table 4.2). In spring 1993, UNPROFOR entered a crucial new phase when the Security Council created ‘safe areas’ in Srebrenica, Sarajevo, Goražde, Žepa, Tuzla and Bihać. The safe areas were all major towns or cities held by the Bosnian government but besieged by Bosnian Serb forces, which systematically targeted civilians with shells and sniper fire. The Security Council demanded that civilians be ‘free from armed attack’ and authorized UNPROFOR to deter such attacks. Importantly, the UN Secretary-General advised that the safe areas policy would need UNPROFOR to be reinforced by 34,000 additional troops. However, the Security Council opted for a ‘light option’ and authorized only 7,600 additional soldiers (UN 1994: 2). As a result, the Secretary-General noted, ‘the effective implementation of the safe-area concept depends on the degree of consent by the parties on the ground’ (ibid.: 3). In other words, the success of the safe areas policy depended upon the Bosnian Serbs.

      Nor was UNPROFOR authorized to use force to ensure delivery of humanitarian supplies. Besieged towns such as Srebrenica were therefore dependent for supplies on (scant) Bosnian Serb goodwill. Malnutrition and disease set in. A by-product of creating so-called safe areas was that most of Bosnia became a hostile region in which UN peacekeepers had very little power. When, in summer 1995, the Bosnian Serbs decided to overrun the safe areas, UNPROFOR had neither the capability nor the mandate to prevent them from doing so. In July 1995, Bosnian Serbs seized the safe area of Srebrenica from a small contingent of Dutch peacekeepers, massacring more than 7,500 civilians as they did so (Honig and Both 1996). The Dutch commander in Srebrenica, General Herrimans, requested air strikes to repel the Serbs – as he was entitled to do under Resolution 836 (4 June 1993), which permitted UNPROFOR to ‘deter attacks against the safe areas’. But UNPROFOR’s commander, General Joulwan, and the SRSG, Yasushi Akashi, feared that substantial air strikes would take UNPROFOR across the ‘Mogadishu line’ into peace enforcement and so blocked the demand. The Bosnian Serbs seized the safe area and massacred its male inhabitants virtually unimpeded by the UN.

Council Resolution Date Purpose
713 25 Sept 1991 Arms embargo against former Yugoslavia
743 21 Feb 1992 Establishes UNPROFOR to monitor a ceasefire in the UNPAs in Croatia
757 30 May 1992 Imposes sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro
758 8 June 1992 Increases UNPROFOR mandate to include Bosnia and the safe delivery of humanitarian supplies
764 13 July 1992 Empowers UNPROFOR to secure Sarajevo airport and its environs
770 13 Aug 1992 Demands access to all refugee and prisoner of war camps
776 14 Sept 1992 Enlarges UNPROFOR mandate to include the protection of convoys
781 9 Oct 1992 Creates a no-fly zone over Bosnia
787 16 Oct 1992 Deployment of observers to Bosnia’s borders to enforce compliance with sanctions
816 31 Mar 1993 Gives members the right to enforce the no-fly zone
819 16 April 1993 Designates Srebrenica a ‘safe area’ which should be ‘free from armed attack’
824 6 May 1993 Designates Sarajevo, Tuzla, Žepa, Goražde and Bihać as ‘safe areas’ and authorizes the strengthening of UNPROFOR by fifty military observers
827 25 May 1993 Creates the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY)
836 4 June 1993 Gives UNPROFOR the task of ‘deterring’ attacks on the safe areas including the use of air strikes
913 22 April 1994 Gives UNPROFOR responsibility for collecting and storing belligerents’ heavy weapons around Goražde
998 16 June 1995 Welcomes the creation and deployment of the NATO Rapid Reaction Force
1035 21 Dec 1995 Authorizes the deployment of IFOR