The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Military Context of the Fall of Srebrenica
siding against them, and warned of the consequences if their own forces
were to treat the UN staff as enemies rather than the neutral peacekeepers
they purported to be.
The NATO air strikes prompted the Serbs to activate their air defences,
which were then targeted by NATO missiles. Three Serbian antiaircraft
sites were destroyed in Bihac, Otoka and Dvor. In response,
Bosnian Serbs intensified the barrage on Bihac, and military activity
into Sarajevo increased. The potential consequences of losing their neutral
status was further demonstrated to the UN as a UN Military Observer
team near Brcko (northeast Bosnia) was driven out, 55 Canadian
peacekeepers were taken hostage in Ilijas (west of Sarajevo) and 350
UNPROFOR troops from various countries were blockaded in a
weapons collection centre in central Bosnia.
In Bihac, Dudakovic was sufficiently rattled to press for a ceasefire.
He even suggested that he would negotiate a demilitarization of the
“safe area,” overlooking the fact that this was already meant to be the
case. His appeal fell on deaf ears in BSA headquarters where memories
of his recent deception of Abdic were still fresh. By November 25, reports
were circulating that the 5th Corps might actually collapse; highlevel
meetings took place at Sarajevo airport trying to arrange a
nationwide ceasefire.
UNPROFOR Commander, General Michael Rose, ordered further
air strikes against BSA positions around Bihac but called them off at
the last minute, even as the NATO planes were over the targets.
The battles around Bihac and Sarajevo, where the Bosnian Serbs were
now gaining the upper hand, provided the images which filled the TV
screens and news columns. But this was not the whole picture. In the
northeast around Stolice and Sapna, the BMA had also initiated several
offensives which were going much more favourably from their point of
view, threatening to extend SDA Muslim control all the way east to the
river Drina, bordering Serbia itself and splitting Republika Srpska in
half. The media evidently did not wish to confuse their audience by
showing the “victims” in any other light than in abject need of Western
intervention, so these Muslim military successes went unreported.
On November 30 1994, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-
Ghali flew to Sarajevo to demonstrate the UN’s concern at the escalating
conflicts and to hear from the warring factions. In the event he only
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