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court, or to intercede with judicial authorities. CIVPOL also
helped trace missing persons in the UNPAs. Outside Croatia,
CIVPOL had a more limited mandate and fewer resources.
The mandate for UNPROFOR troops in Croatia also included
protection responsibilities. As elaborated later, troops
were charged with controlling access to the UNPAs, theoretically
ensuring that asylum seekers were not turned back. They
also were expected to assist in the repatriation of persons who
had fled or been expelled from the UNPAs and to transmit
information on human rights violations to U.N. headquarters.
In September 1993, UNPROFOR troops arrived at villages
in the Medak pocket of central Bosnia, where ruins were still
smoldering from an attack by Croatian army troops. Canadian
and French battalions compiled a detailed account of the
destruction, documenting the systematic burning of Serbian
property as part of a “comprehensive scorched earth policy.”
Eighteen bodies were found, including those of seven women.
The resulting Medak report was described by UNPROFOR as
signaling a new level of assertiveness on protection issues. It
was sent to the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on
Human Rights, who had recommended earlier an expanded
UNPROFOR protection mandate and presence to investigate
human rights violations.
In the following month, UNPROFOR investigated a massacre
of Muslims by Bosnian Croats at Stupni Do, issued
public statements on the incident, and prepared a report for
the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Over Bosnian Croat objections,
Swedish UNPROFOR troops insisted upon visiting Muslim
men held prisoner in two schools in Vares, Bosnia and publicized
their findings.
The most advanced formula for providing protection was
the four UNPAs in Croatia set up in January 1992 under the
Vance plan and the six Muslim enclaves designated as safe
areas by the U.N. Security Council in June 1993. In Bosnia,
U.N. safe havens were established in the cities of Sarajevo,
Tuzla, Zepa, Srebrenica, Goradze, and Bihac.
In theory, these two concepts broke new ground; in practice,
extremely limited protection was offered within them.
Fighting in the UNPAs stopped and there was some success in
preventing expulsions of minorities. But often ethnic cleans-
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