ООН e отговорна за ужаса в Сребреница / Я! Архивите са живи / Косово-1

Като го четете, помислете си за Косово. На няколко пъти си говорихме какво би станало ако НАТО този път не беше се намесило. Report blames U.N. for failing to halt 1995 Bosnia massacre November 15, 1999 Web posted at: 4:03 PM EST (2103 GMT) UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- In a damning report on the 1995 fall of the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, the United Nations on Monday blamed itself and key governments for failing to use force and for appeasing Bosnian Serb leaders. The 155-page document on the events before and after the slaughter of thousands of Muslim men and boys concludes that a fighting force and air strikes should have been used in Bosnia much sooner. Instead the world body treated all parties equally and conducted negotiations that "amounted to appeasement." "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," said the report from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who headed U.N. peacekeeping through much of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The report, requested a year ago by the U.N. General Assembly, draws on 100 interviews with many of the main actors as well as confidential archives of the United Nations. The Red Cross estimates about 7,300 people are "missing," in the Srebrenica operations. Some 2,200 bodies were recovered. A senior U.N. official described the report as a "critical self-examination without parallel" in U.N. history. But Bosnia's U.N. ambassador Mohammed Sacirbey said the report did not say how the "misanalysis" of the United Nations came about. However, he said "the first, most courageous step has been to bring this out in the open." The report said the U.N. Security Council responded to the war "with an arms embargo, with humanitarian aid and with the deployment of a peacekeeping force force. "It must be clearly stated that these measures were poor substitutes for more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror." "Through error, misjudgment and an inability to recognize the scope of the evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to help save the people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder," the report said. Srebrenica, along with Zepa, Goradze, Bihac, Tuzla and Sarajevo, the capital, were designated in May 1993 as "safe areas" by the 15-member Security Council. All but Tuzla was encircled by Serbs, who overran Srebrenica in July 1995, and then Zepa. But the council only authorized 7,400 extra troops to guard them, despite pleas from then- Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to send 34,000. The report recounts the horror of Srebrenica day by day, including Serb General Ratko Mladic's words to encourage an evacuation: "Don't be afraid. Just take is easy, easy. Let women and children go first... Nobody will harm you." In scenes reminiscent of Nazi transports, Bosnians, aided at times by peacekeepers, drew up lists of men between ages of 16 and 25, believing Serb claims they would be questioned as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva convention. Most were shot en route, in fields and barns. Mladic, along with the civilian Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, were indicted by a U.N. war crimes tribunal but are still free in Serb areas of Bosnia. The report describes how 110 Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica were helpless against the Serb onslaught. Their commander several five times asked for NATO air cover, which was either denied or never reached U.N. headquarters. At one time the Dutch defence minister ruled out air strikes in fear of the troops being taken hostage. And when air support did arrive, it was brief and too late. The report, however, does blame the Dutch soldiers, when they were allowed to leave the enclave, of not reporting the extent of the killings so some action could be taken. The report says that even Serbs interviewed admitted that the poorly-armed Bosnian army defenders of Srebrenica were not a threat. Reports of the damage of their raids into Serb villages were highly exaggerated, its says. The report does not spare French or British commanders of the U.N. peacekeeping force from criticism. And when they were divided on whether or not to call in air strikes, the United Nations sided with those advocating no action. But it does dwell on European policy, which dominated in the Security Council. Both France and Britain, the main troop contributors, did not want to engage in combat and Washington for two years did not want to join the war effort at all. The United States did eventually advocate lifting the arms embargo against Bosnian Moslems and using air strikes. "We were, with hindsight, wrong to declare repeatedly and publicly that we did not want to use air power against the Serbs except as a last resort...and believe there was no choice under Security Council resolutions but to deploy more and more peacekeepers into harm's way," the report said. "The Serbs knew this and they timed their attack on Srebrenica well," it added. Air strikes, after a major Croat offensive against Serbs in Croatia in 1995, proved successful in ending the war but only after peacekeepers had been withdrawn from Serb-held territory so they would not become hostages again. Annan declares in the report that lightly armed peacekeepers must never again be deployed into an environment in which there is no cease fire or peace agreement. War, he said, needed to be handled by a fighting force.