OPen samento

During the last year of Bosnia’s War, I had to interview several people to understand and report the population’s feeling regarding the ongoing conflict.

Regardless of the ethnic group, age, gender or social condition, the population had had enough of the war. They all recognized the disagreements between the different ethnic groups, but that war was simply too much and it had to stop.

A female interpreter told Alex that she had had three different boyfriends, but she had never broken the relationship with any of them; neither had them … it had been the war that broke all those boys … into small pieces! That girl had serious relationship issues, because she didn’t want to get involved with anyone else, fearing he might not return home that very evening.

A young ABiH soldier confessed that he would like to get married, but he wouldn’t do it in a country that could jump so easily into an armed conflict. He also feared that one of the members of the couple might not return home at the end of the day.

Every family has lost someone fighting the other ethnic group. Retaliations on top of retaliations for about four years.

For all that resentment to calm down, and eventually go away, it would be necessary at least one full generation to live without having the experience of conflict with the other ethnic groups. Only those that were going to be born after the end of that war could become future leaders and take inclusive decisions that would benefit all parties.

It has been 25 years now. The “Dayton babies” (Bosnian youngsters born after the war) are starting to reach the echelon of power in all three ethnic groups.

25 years ago, on the 25^th July 1995, about one week after the fall of Srebrenica’s UN Safe Area, the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) attacked and took yet another UN Safe Area – Zepa.

Not many people remember the fall of Zepa, but it was quite a disastrous situation for the Bosnian Muslins and the UN forces – UNPROFOR.

Zepa was one of three UN Safe Area in Eastern Bosnia (Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa). The enclave sits in a forested mountain canyon (very difficult to maneuver), , about 50 kilometers southwest of Srebrenica, and it was the home of more than 16.000 Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks).

The VRS attack on Zepa followed the same pattern as the taking of Srebrenica. It initiated with a heavy shelling of the City Centre, followed by assaulting and taking control of the UN Ukrainian contingent Post.

After having entered the Village, the Serbs started to remove by force Zepa’s civilian population, destroying their homes and their mosque, and killed three of their most prominent leaders – municipality president Mehmed Hajric, the commander of the Bosnian Army’s Zepa Brigade, Avdo Palic, and the commander of Zepa’s Civil Protection Unit, Amir Imamovic..

In the days thereafter, the VRS exerted pressure on the civilians hiding in the woods to return to Zepa in order to be transported out of the enclave; hence, the VRS organized a large compulsory ‘evacuation’ of the civilian population.

From July 25 to 27, under the direct authority of the Serbian General – Tolimir – nearly 4.400 women, children and elderly were forcibly removed from the Zepa enclave, on Serb busses.

But, what about the Ukrainian peacekeepers?

After having gained control of the UNPROFOR Observation Post, manned by the Ukrainian Contingent, General Tolimir used the peacekeepers as Human Shields, threatening to kill them, if NATO warplanes would strike back the VRS positions.

However, before the VRS attack, those 79 Ukrainian blue helmets had been suffering the poor treatment of a peacekeeping mission in a war zone, because the Bosniak forces inside the pocket had been robbed them at gunpoint of their weaponry (to be able to face the Serbs) and even took the peacekeepers personal belongings and their money.

The Bosniak troops, who are predominantly Muslim and who view the Orthodox Christian Ukrainians as sympathetic to the Serbs, took two soldiers hostage and reportedly beat the Ukrainian commander. The Bosnian forces threatened to shoot the commander if the Ukrainian soldiers in the United Nations force did not surrender all of the weapons in the compound.

Some 600 to 1.000 Bosniak troops, using armored personnel carriers seized from the Ukrainians, lobbed mortars and fired on the advancing Serbs. That made the Serbs to have the (wrong) perception that the Ukrainians were sizing with the Bosniaks and, when the VRS took control of the situation, it was “pay time”.

We should honor our Ukrainian peacekeeper comrades for the hard times they supported (both in Zepa and Gorazde)” in the service of Peace”.

During the Bosnian War (1992-1995) the World learned about the United Nations blue helmets contingents deployed in the battle fields.

Not many people knew about the small branch of United Nations Military Observers (UNMO) that were constantly travelling unarmed, across the confrontation lines, counting and reporting the amount of shells fired, the exchange of corpses and prisoners of war, the suffering of the civilian population , etc. Those UNMO small teams had to live out of the UN contingents, among the local population, buy the food they bought, drink the water they ate and suffer the dangerous they suffered. That was a hard and hazardous job, normally executed in small teams of less than 10 officers and two local interpreters. It was a risky and daring task, but it was of essence for the UN to understand what was going on beyond the barbed wire of the international military compounds.

However, there was an even smaller group of UNMO officers, only a few people knew about, that were monitoring electronically the No Fly Zone over Bosnia. They were the UNMO Airfield Monitors deployed in (Croatia – Zagreb) Pleso and (Yugoslavia – Belgrade) Surcin radar sites.

They were observing and reporting the war in its third dimension – the airspace.

Although much less dangerous, regarding exposure to the battle environment, those tasks were particularly intense and demanding in order to have a 24 hours – 7 days per week – presence at the radar site, with a team of six.

And when they were not at the radar, they had to do visual inspections of the helicopters authorized to execute medical evacuations (MEDEVAC) into/from Bosnia.

During the first semester of 1995 (the last year of war) the amount of potential violations of the No Fly Zone was considerable, and the reports followed their path up the chain of command, all the way to the UN Security Council in New York. As a result, Yugoslavia suffered seven extra months of UN sanctions. At the radar Team, we felt only but sorry for the Yugoslav population, that had already suffered enough under the regime of Milosevic.

Both NATO and the UN use the same acronym – CIMIC – to address matters related to Civilian and Military interaction trying to help the Host Nation population in a Peace Support Operation. However, do not let the similarity full you; for NATO, CIMIC means Civil Military Cooperation whilst for the UN, CIMIC stands for Civil Military Coordination. Coordination and Cooperation are definitively not the same thing.

Most Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) do not wish to be seen “cooperating” with the military, because (according to them) that may ruin their “neutrality” reputation towards the local population. The UN is not a Neutral Organization; it is an Impartial organization, which means it will point fingers to the guilty party. However, it too does not appreciate to cooperate with the military in their (military force) initiatives, but rather coordinate both entities’ actions in order to benefit the supported community.

Military staff doesn’t normally accept and/or understand why; but there’s a reason for that … and it is a coherent one.

The main objective of the military concept of CIMIC is to support the Force Commander in the field to achieve his/her mission successfully. For that the local population acceptation and support is crucial and that is where CIMIC(cooperation) comes into place. A part of “wining hearts and minds” campaign.

For the Unite Nations’ staff, the military projects, although needed and welcomed, do not normally target the structural needs of the population, but rather the rapid, cheap and easy to execute “quick implementation projects”.

War has one dreadful characteristic: – it destroys the affected country’s infrastructures. Most of it requires a long time to fixing. A time the military does (should) not have because their missions are not expected to stay long in the war zone. The UN agencies and programs, in the other hand, stay in the refereed country for decades after peacekeeping had been achieved and peace building starts being implemented.

A UN CIMIC perspective may look at the rebuilding of the country railway; the military force commander may be looking to the rebuilding of a school. They are both necessary, but the scales and different.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) issued a global call related to the ongoing global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, requesting that appropriate military and civil defence assets be made available for the transport of urgently needed humanitarian and medical items.

NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) responded to UN OCHA on Friday 15 May, indicating the Alliance’s decision to support the request. The Alliance’s assistance will be determined based on close coordination between UN OCHA, the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) and Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), as well as on availability of airlift assets from NATO Allies and partners.

Source – JALLC – NATO’s Joint Allied Lessons Learned Centre

The support of NATO allies to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations started in the former Yugoslavia crisis. While the UN had UNPROFOR in the terrain – NATO was enforcing the maritime embargo to the region, ensuring Operation “Deny Flight” (the No Fly Zone over Bosnia), among other warfare support aspects.

In the job description of UN Military Observers and Military Advisors, one can find one last bullet point saying – “The incumbent must have a valid driving license”. Most people don’t pay much attention to it but, in fact, it is one of the most important items in an UNMO/MILAD “tool kit”. Why? Because they have to drive themselves!

Back in 2012, in UNAMA – Afghanistan, the Military Advisors would have to drive themselves, UNarmed and many times alone in the Afghan roads. After having made 500 road hours in the Jalalabad X Kabul road – without an accident/incident – there was a special patch to celebrate it.

It may seem cocky to celebrate half a year of driving, but it is not. In fact, most blue helmets’ casualties in UN missions are related to road accidents. Not only the roads (in conflict areas) are in a very poor condition, but also not all peacekeepers have the necessary experience in off-road driving; with a heavy armored SUV; many times in snow/icy or lose gravel/sand conditions

In Bosnia – UNPROFOR – there were many parking lots exclusively dedicated to storage the wreck of UN vehicles tagged with “Total Loss”.

On Monday 13JUL2020, a MINUSCA convoy travelling through the northwest of RCA, more specifically in Gedze, Nana-Mambéré area, was attacked by insurgents of the 3R armed Group (Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation).

In that attack, a Rwandese peacekeeper was killed and several other were injured. We would like to express our condolences to the family and friends of the deceased blue helmet, and wish fast recover to the wounded peacekeepers.

There are 14 armed groups fighting in RCA. They all signed together with the RCA central authorities a Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in February 2019. The UN was invited to help the country in the protection of civilians and support the transition processes.

The UN Secretary-General – António Guterres – expressed his deepest condolences to the family of the victim, and to the people and Government of Rwanda, condemning the attack and calling on the Central African Republic authorities to spare no effort in identifying the perpetrators so that they can be brought to justice.

But the question is:

WHEN WILL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT KILLING BLUE HELMETS CAN BE CONSIDERED A WAR CRIME?

A peacekeeper is not just another combat casualty, like many other these rebels may be doing daily … it is a war crime … something severely punished in an international court of justice.

But then again, most indicted war criminals, from previous wars, seemed to have taken that status in an easy going way. Maybe they even vaunt about it. Look at the example of General Ratko Mladic in Bosnia. The guy even used to go for skiing, in Sarajevo, under the nose of the International Forces, and no one ever caught him then. He was only presented to court decades later, when he was very sick and needing medical care.

On 16^th November 1995, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (The Hague) indicted Radovan Karadzic – President of Republika Srpska – and General Ratko Mladic – Commander of the VRS – both accused to be directly responsible for the atrocities committed in July 1995, against the Bosnian Muslin population of the UN Safe Area of Srebrenica. On the words of the International Criminal Tribunal’s Prosecutor – Judge Fouad Riad:

– “After Srebrenica fell to besieging Serbian forces in July, 1995, a truly terrible massacre of the Muslin population appears to have taken place. The evidence tendered by the Prosecutor describes scenes of unimaginable savagery: thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson. These are truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history”.

25 year ago, on the 11th of July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army leaded by General Ratko Mladic, entered Srebrenica with an overwhelming firepower, and occupied the Muslim Town, after having bombed it with heavy artillery on the previous day. General Mladic brought along with him a paramilitary group called “The Scorpions” tailored to “solve unconventional situations”. This was a group of unscrupulous men claiming to be volunteer combatants for the “Greater Serbia”. They would do the dirty jobs forbidden by the international conventions, whenever and wherever it was necessary.

Many Muslim families sought refuge inside and around the Dutch Contingent in the UN compound. They were hoping the Serbs would respect the UN flag and no harm would come to them; but they were wrong. In order to keep General Mladic, and the VRS, clear of blame, the “Scorpions” embraced the task to “deal with that situation”. The men were separated from their families; some were executed at the site and others were taken away, never to be seen again.

On that day’s afternoon the NATO jets finally appeared; but it was too late. Attacking the VRS inside the town meant killing blue helmets and civilians. Mladic had the Dutch peacekeepers in his hands and threatened to kill them if NATO would strike.

After having the situation under his control, General Mladic authorized the opening of a corridor connecting Srebrenica to Tuzla – a large Muslin city in the Bosnian territory – allowing the Muslin families to exit Srebrenica using their own means. As a result, a long column of people walked for five days, through mountain roads, in the direction of Tuzla. During that forced march they were attacked several times each day. On 16th July at 17:00, the column reached Tuzla, and reported that between 5.000 to 8.000 Military Age Men had been shot dead and thrown into mass graves.

Read everything about the last year of the Bosnian War on: https://www.amazon.de/Bosnia-95-Peacekeeping-zone-English-ebook/dp/B08B1NK3FL/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bosnia+95&qid=1592383718&sr=8-1

Print on demand – https://www.amazon.com/dp/9893306671

Let us not forget the worst war in Europe since WWII