The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

The Military Context of the Fall of Srebrenica
supervised collection points which formed part of the heavy weapons exclusion
regime negotiated in February 1994. At the same time British
soldiers came under fire first from Serbs then Muslims as their convoy
approached Gorazde.
Lieut.-General Rupert Smith, the taciturn UNPROFOR commander
who had taken over from the more communicative and even-handed
General Michael Rose, made a rare press appearance to announce that
unless all heavy weapons were returned to collection points by midday,
May 25, air-strikes would be ordered “against the guilty party.” 44 It beggars
belief that NATO jets would ever be ordered to bomb Muslim positions
in Sarajevo whatever they did, and so in effect this was a threat
to one side only—the Bosnian Serbs.
Although the Bosnian Serbs had partially complied with the ultimatum,
this was not judged sufficient and in due course two ammunition
dumps near the Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale were blown up by
NATO jets on missions approved by UN Special Envoy Akashi. The
BSA responded by shelling all six safe areas. In Tuzla, 70 people died and
130 were injured. A second wave of NATO bombing then destroyed
another six BSA ammunition dumps. In Zagreb, the UN’s Akaski issued
a justification for the bombing raids that sounded hauntingly Orwellian:
“I decided I had no alternative but to respond to this dangerous situation
that threatens the entire peace process,” his statement began. 45
Now the BSA‘s response was to take UNPROFOR troops hostage
and television pictures of “blue helmets” chained to strategic targets
were soon flashed around the world.
As Tim Ripley writes:
It had all the hallmarks of a desperate last gasp by desperate men
who knew the tide of war was turning against them. One UN
intelligence officer called it an ‘expression of chaos’. The Croat
attack in Western Slavonia and the perilous state of the [BSA]
probably made Mladic desperate to try and keep NATO airpower
from being unleashed against his army. Whatever the reason,
the Bosnian Serbs played up the hostages for all they were
worth, both politically and financially, but none of them were
physically harmed. Indeed later it was learnt that many of the
UN ‘human shield’ were only chained up for their video performances
and Pale TV then made a small fortune selling the
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