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them.
The first and most direct was to delay aid activities. Every
item in every relief shipment used by the United Nations
agencies to assist refugees in Serbia and Montenegro—and to
reach the displaced in eastern Bosnia through the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia—was subject to review. At the time of
our first visit in March, the delays were already sizable. By
June, new procedures to implement the tighter controls had
created widespread confusion and brought most relief shipments
already in the pipeline to a halt. By October, the approval
process had been streamlined somewhat, but delays
still averaged two months.
The staff time and expense committed by the U.N.’s humanitarian
organizations to the clearance process could have
been used to mitigate suffering. UNICEF’s entire system was
affected, from administrative offices in New York and Geneva
through purchasing and warehousing staff in Copenhagen
and at the Hungarian-Serb border to program managers in
Belgrade, Zagreb, Split, and field staff deployed around the
region. In the spring of 1993, UNHCR paid financial penalties
of $30,000 a day in demurrage costs for a truck convoy stopped
by officials at the border between Austria and Hungary who
questioned the validity of its papers. The resulting obstruction
of about 4,000 tons of food bound for Sarajevo and the eastern
enclaves contributed to critical interruptions in the food pipeline.
Second, United Nations sanctions spread the suffering
experienced by refugees to local populations. In fact, the
damage may have outweighed U.N. humanitarian assistance.
In late 1993 when the U.N.’s target beneficiary population in
Serbia numbered 565,000 (not all of whom were being reached),
estimates indicated that between 50 and 90 percent of the
remaining population of 10 million was experiencing serious
sanctions-related hardship. As indicated, the health care system
in Serbia and Montenegro was a major casualty. Monitoring
the twin effects of sanctions—the functioning of aid organizations
was hamstrung, while the numbers of those needing
assistance burgeoned—WHO authorities in Belgrade commented
that “Sanctions make the life of humanitarian organizations
almost impossible.”
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