The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Military Context of the Fall of Srebrenica
Serbs’ opponents which was undoubtedly watched with growing alarm
in Knin, Pale, and for that matter in Belgrade.
The U.S. appeared to be unilaterally pressing ahead with its policy of
lifting the arms embargo for the SDA Muslims and Croats and NATO
air strikes against the Serbs, or “lift and strike” as it was known, which
had been rejected by its partners in the Contact Group. The danger of
course was that the Serbs would lash out before their enemies became
too strong. It was a risky strategy, but one in which the risks all involved
people on the ground getting killed, almost none of whom were American—Washington
having steadfastly refused to contribute troops to
the UN peacekeeping missions.
A few days later, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called
senior UNPROFOR staff to address the UN Security Council. On May
24, the commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, Croatia, and
Macedonia, France’s Lieut.-General Bernard Janvier, also briefed a
closed-session of the Security Council, where he suggested that the UN
forces should be withdrawn from the three eastern-most enclaves (i.e.,
Srebrenica, Zepa, and Gorazde) because they were impossible to protect
and because he believed UNPROFOR should concentrate on areas
where there was a “peace to keep.” 42 But this was a non-starter for the
U.S. envoy to the UN, Madeleine Albright, who openly and passionately
favored the SDA Muslim government’s every demand. Janvier correctly
pointed out that the SDA Muslims had been responsible for
breaking the December 1994 Carter ceasefire agreement and were using
the safe areas to attack the Serbs in the hope of provoking a sufficiently
furious attack to trigger UN air strikes or even full-scale intervention.
After the closed-session of the Security Council ended, the Russian
Ambassador Sergey Lavrov relayed through Associated Press that (to
quote Lavrov’s words) Janvier had told the Council the UN-designated
“Safe Areas” were “systematically used by the [SDA] government forces
for launching attacks and provoking Serbs,” and UNPROFOR “cannot
pretend that this is a situation where whenever you decide to be robust
against the Serbs you solve the problem.” 43
But the Security Council refused to alter the mission along the lines
suggested by Janvier and so UNPROFOR had to watch as the exchanges
across front-lines intensified. Already the day before, SDA Muslim
and Serb forces had withdrawn their heavy weapons from the UN
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