The Fruits of Terror

Everything was clear in mid-May when General Rupert Smith, UN Commander in Bosnia, and Yasushi Akashi, the UN Secretary General's special envoy, warned Radovan Karadzic of obligations under the UN and NATO ultimatum of February 9, 1994 and accompanying Security Council resolutions: withdraw heavy weapons from the exclusion zone, stop attacks on Sarajevo, do not grab artillery from UN controlled depots.

Karadzic replied, and repeated several times, that he will consider the UN forces an enemy if air strikes happen. Karadzic has said that repeatedly all along; he issued that threat all through the February ultimatum; once more after air strikes at Gorazde.

UN personnel were captured, disarmed, detained, surrounded, robbed, abused sometimes, but it all stopped there: no one was hurt or killed in Serb hands, nor was any significant political concession made to get UN personnel released.

On Wednesday, May 24, General Rupert Smith issued an ultimatum to both warring sides in Sarajevo: stop using heavy artillery (under the Security Council resolution) starting Thursday, May 25 at noon and return the heavy weapons they took from UN control or he'll call in air strikes.

A day earlier, six civilians were killed in fighting around Sarajevo and 31 were wounded including two French soldiers. That was the culmination of the conflict which started 17 days earlier with the virtual abolishment of the exclusion zone as a result of Akashi's refusal to allow air strikes which Smith wanted against the Serbs. Since then Serb tanks were inside the exclusion zone and both sides used mortars and artillery at will. Smith threatened to blast anyone who fired a shell after Thursday and the Serbs if they did not return the artillery pieces they took from the UN depots.

Karadzic reacted nervously and with greater inconsistency than usual: "If the UN orders air strikes we will treat the UN as the enemy. We do not recognize the UN as a factor of peace since they betrayed our people," Karadzic told TV Banja Luka and added that the UN is not in a position to threaten the Serbs in Bosnia since they did not defend the Serb people in Western Slavonia. General Ratko Mladic interpreted Smith's statement as "a threat that I'm not happy about".

The deadline expired at noon on May 25. Sometime before 4:00 p.m., six aircraft from NATO's southern wing attacked ammunition and weapons depots at Jahorinski Potok and Ravna Planina south of Pale. Another strike was launched at 4:25 at the same targets. Alarms sounded in Pale.

That night, Serb artillery on Majevica fired several shells into central Tuzla at a time when the streets were full of young people. 72 were killed and over 150 wounded all aged betwen 16 and 25.

On Friday morning, from 10:00 to 11:20 NATO launched three air strikes at ammo dumps in the same area around Pale. On both days they used precise, laser guided 250kg and 500kg missiles. Primary and secondary explosions showed they hit their targets and a column of black smoke could be seen in central Sarajevo.

At the same time, the Bosnian Serb army and police started hunting UN personnel; first they took unarmed military observers. Eight of them were tied (handcuffs and chains) to what Pale felt were the next targets, then TV Pale filmed them with masked Serb soldiers guarding the unarmed helpless men.

Soon the number of hostages grew to 48 and to 200 that same night. In the next few days it varied from 200 to 450 (they caught some - let others go). 25 Russians were freed as Orthodox brethren which did not impress Moscow; some 30 British were captured around Gorazde; another 30 resisted, broke through Serb barricades in armored cars and escaped.

In an imaginative and brazen operation on Saturday at dawn, Serb commandos dressed as French troops took the Vrbanja bridge checkpoint in Sarajevo; the French got angry and attacked at dawn taking back the bridge (four dead, several wounded and captured on both sides).

Then came an interesting situation: Mladic got so worried over four captured Serb soldiers that he sent an ultimatum to Smith to release them by six or he wouldn't guarantee the safety of the British hostages. Some UNPROFOR sources said Mladic could possibly be worried if the captured men were Yugoslav special forces sent in to help. The Ultimatum expired and there was no change.

On Thursday afternoon, the number of hostages stood at 320. The Serbs said they were POWs and demanded political and military concessions for their release which makes them hostages. An International Red Cross request to see the POWs was refused. The hostages were taken to many different locations to lessen chances of someone freeing them. In the whole crisis, the Serbs confiscated some 15 armored cars and light tanks, large amounts of weapons and telecommunication equipment.

Soon it turned out both sides were making mistakes in their assessments. That was to be expected: bureaucracies operate on the same principles - always do what you did the last time. This time things were different: the evident anxiety in Pale resulted from repeated and continuing Bosnian army success. The destruction of the ammo dumps was more painful than expected since the Bosnian Serb Army faces shortages of some types of ammunition. All that should have been considered while deciding on air strikes.

On the other hand, Karadzic and Mladic had to bear in mind that the UNPROFOR position around Sarajevo was untenable because of the systematic violations of the UN resolution. The UN had to do something. They did what seemed least painful; they hit the ammo dumps instead of places where it would hurt more.

Both sides now see clearly that their assessments were wrong but it's too late. The crisis rose to a higher level where face and credibility had to be saved. The great powers relented under the dictate of political needs: Paris and London stopped threatening to withdraw their troops and sent in more men; the UN and NATO suddenly agreed on regrouping the peacekeepers in Bosnia into larger, better armed rapid intervention forces; there are at least 10,000 troops in the Adriatic at present with accompanying logistical and air support and more are on the way; the British force of 6,000 is already in Bosnia.

US hesitation doesn't mean much now; Europe is able to do what it wants. The crisis is coming to a climax; Karadzic has been warned several times of terrible consequences if something happens to the hostages; Belgrade has condemned Pale clearly; Karadzic's words ("We're not against the whole world, the world is against us," in April 1994) are now reality. The entire world is against him and he achieved it all alone.