op 18 front pages-converted - The Watson Institute for International ...

also difficult. Human Rights Watch, for example, challenged
the Secretary-General’s assessment that expulsions had ceased
in the UNPAs specifically because of UNPROFOR’s intense
patrolling and control at checkpoints. “Although mass expulsions
have decreased in frequency,” the NGO wrote, “this is
due largely to the fact that most of the area’s non-Serbian
population had already been expelled by the time UNPROFOR
was fully deployed.”
Even in cases where human rights abuses had been stopped
or reduced, it was difficult to determine the relative importance
of U.N. intercession. A positive connection was suggested
by the fact that most attacks were carried out on people
in areas without international presence.
Presence, however, often had limited value. All UNHCR
officials working in the Vitez area in late 1993, for example,
were instructed to travel in armored personnel carriers following
several attacks on United Nations officials. One of the most
blatant occurred in mid-August when Boris Zeravtic, a wellknown
local figure employed by UNHCR, was killed by a
Croat sniper while delivering food. Traveling inside armored
vehicles made it impossible for UNHCR protection officer
Steven Wolfson to exploit his main advantage. “The whole
point of protection is to be visible,” he observed. “However,
because I have to travel around in an armored personnel
carrier, nobody knows I’m there.”
Was the advocacy carried out by UNHCR compromised
by its companion and—in budgetary and operational terms—
higher responsibility for delivering relief aid? One sub-office
that faced this dilemma was in Pale, the de facto capital of
Bosnian Serb-held territory. Just before the team’s visit, UNHCR
received word that about 400 Muslims had been expelled from
the town of Bjieljina, one of the first towns overrun by the Serbs
in the spring of 1992. The senior UNHCR official protested to
the Serb authorities in Pale. He was well aware that his protest
could anger the Serbs, but he also pointed out that UNHCR aid
to the Serbs might have to be reviewed if ethnic cleansing was
happening under the agency’s nose. It was a subtle reminder
that aid could be used to advance the cause of human rights.
In other situations, however, criticisms of human rights
violations were muted for fear of jeopardizing aid access. “It
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