CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

UNSCRs 824 (6 May 1993) and 836 (4 Jun 1993) establishing ‘Safe Areas’. The full
failings of the UN in Bosnia are exemplified nowhere better, or more tragically, than in
the fall of the UN ‘Safe Area’ of Srebrenica. The UN’s own Srebrenica Report 88 ,
written by Secretary General Kofi Annan (who at the time of the tragedy had been
Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Affairs), is a highly candid and self-critical
examination of the events. It also stands as a damning indictment of the inadequacies of
traditional (Chapter VI) peacekeeping.
The fall of Srebrenica began with a concerted Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) attack on
Bosnian Government forces (ARBiH) on 6 July 1995. The ARBiH commander asked
the local UNPROFOR commander for the return of heavy weapons surrendered under
demilitarization agreements, but this request was turned down. At the same time
apparently deliberate attacks by the BSA began on the Dutch UN troop (DUTCHBAT)
positions in and around the town. As the attack developed over the following days, UN
positions were over-run and UN personnel taken prisoner. Repeated requests by the
DUTCHBAT commander for Close Air Support (CAS) were either turned down by
UNPROFOR HQ in Sarajevo or went unactioned through confusion and staffing errors.
Eventually, on 11 July, some limited CAS was provided in support of the beleaguered
DUTCHBAT but it was too late to make a difference. Later that day the DUTCHBAT
commander entered into negotiations with the BSA for a cease-fire. Following the fall
of Srebrenica, between 12 and 20 July thousands of Bosniac men and boys were
systematically murdered by the BSA. The details have been widely published
elsewhere and need not be repeated here. It is the conclusion of the Srebrenica Report
that is germane:
With the benefit of hindsight, one can see that many of the errors the United
Nations made flowed from a single and no doubt well-intentioned effort: we
tried to keep the peace and apply the rules of peacekeeping when there was no
peace to keep. … we tried to create – or imagine – an environment in which the
tenets of peacekeeping – agreement between the parties, deployment by consent,
and impartiality – could be upheld. We tried to stabilize the situation on the
ground through cease-fire agreements, which brought us close to the Serbs, who
controlled the larger proportion of the land. We tried to eschew the use of force
except in self-defence, which brought us into conflict with the defenders of the
safe areas, whose safety depended on our use of force. 89
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