yugoslavias implosion

and eu governments. 534 Nor did Western intelligence agencies use the
resources at their disposal to detect and expose what many human
rights ngo s have characterized as the most blatant abuses of human
rights in Europe after World War II. Many intelligence reports in
the period April-June 1992 have been kept in the drawers of different
ministries and un offices. The first story describing the horrors
of detention camps, massive ethnic cleansing, and gang rapes in Bosnia
was written by Roy Guttman and published in Newsday in August
1992, three years before the West finally intervened in the aftermath
of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. 535 The Western failure to respond
could be explained in both political and strategic terms, but is still
not morally justifiable.
The May 30, 1995, report of the un Secretary-General, Boutros
Ghali, clearly illustrates the reluctance of the international community
to bear the costs of effective intervention in the Balkans.
The report underlined that the un force sent to Bosnia, unprofor,
was saddled with a mandate it could not fulfill and that the boundary
between peacekeeping and peace enforcement was blurred. Ghali
stressed that “some confusion has arisen as a result of references to
Chapter VII in some Security Council resolutions.” 536 He also criticized
members of the Security Council for not providing the necessary
means for unprofor to carry out the tasks it had been set. Ghali,
who had already expressed an unwillingness to become so broadly
engaged in the Balkans, argued that the mission could only be successful
if it acted clearly as a peacekeeping operation and enjoyed the
consent of the parties to the conflict. He had been convinced from
the outset that “recourse to air power could lead to serious consequences
for unprofor as a whole.” 537 His report showed clearly
534 http://www.gfbv.de/pressemit.php?id=1369&highlight=wiesenthal
535 Roy Guttman, “Bosnia’s Camps of Death,” Newsday, August 2, 1992 .
536 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/4501372.html
537 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/4501372.html
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