The General's Choice

United Nations peacekeeping forces commander in Bosnia General Philippe Morillon, is a colorful personality, a putchist, adventurer and legionnaire. Last week he entered Srebrenica, and the middle of what one of his adjutants described as a "medieval hell": thousands of hungry refugees in rags sleeping in the snow huddled around fires in the middle of a besieged town, stench, disease, wounds and exhaustion everywhere. If the general did not "smell death" in Cerska, he obviously did in Srebrenica. He was horrified as he passed through the besieged town among men, women and children who looked at him with hope. He walked silently into a house he had been given and shut the door. When he walked out several hours later, he was a different man. He ordered the Post Office in Srebrenica to be opened and cleaned, and addressed the population with a De Gaulle-like statement "Here I am, and here I stay!" (J'y suis et j'y reste!) and gave the order for the UN flag to be raised on the Post Office building with a short ceremony.

Besieged and starving Srebrenica became the headquarters of General Philippe Morillon, UN forces commander for Bosnia-Herzegovina. In a statement for the public, Morillon said: "I am perfectly aware that we are faced with the danger of a great tragedy in Srebrenica. I came her intentionally and I have decided to stay, to calm your fears and to try and save you." A legend was born...

The general's gesture did not surprise his subordinates, those close to him. "He is a man of great physical courage," said his staff chief British Brigadier-General Cordy-Simpson. Morillon's career abounds with similar examples since 1956 when he left the Military Academy in Saint Cyr and entered the Algerian and other wars in Africa. Morillon retained his flamboyant style in Bosnia: French cuisine, driving around in an ordinary car and not afraid of anything. "He sometimes behaves like a politician in an election campaign," complains one of his officers. Last week Morillon went to see what was happening in Eastern Bosnia. General Ratko Mladic's (Bosnian Serb Forces Commander) men took him to Cerska, a village they had just captured. "I did not smell death in Cerska," said Morillon, commenting reports of massacres there. It was proved later that a number of civilians had been killed - witnesses came forward. Knowing that he had been manipulated for propaganda purposes, made Morillon determined to carry out his gesture in Srebrenica, said his officers. If Morillon's staff were not very surprised by his decision to act as a "living shield" and stay in Srebrenica, those who don't know him well, were. UN bureaucrats started grumbling of "discipline," "challenges" and in general, expressing muted dissatisfaction because a standard routine of "diplomatic efforts" had been disrupted. Morillon's officers reject such criticism: "The general took a cold and calculated risk, doing the job he is paid to do," said British Major Bob Prophet. "If the Serbs had needed aid urgently, he would have done the same thing. He is a determined man and plans all his actions and is aware of the risks."

Morillon's choice of Srebrenica came as an unpleasant surprise to Karadzic's supporters after statements on Cerska, as they had already started regarding him as their man. JAVNOST, Karadzic's weekly, had already brought a long article in which Morillon was compared to generals Lewis McKenzie and Satish Nambiar, and said that they had been "elegantly removed because they were too professional and unbiased in carrying out their military-political tasks." They "refused to be the executors of a perfidious policy... the demonization of the Serbian side." The article foresees a similar fate for Morillon, and praises him. Karadzic's side first interpreted Morillon's gesture by saying he was being "held hostage by the authorities in Srebrenica. After Morillon left Srebrenica to meet with General Mladic's local commander General Manojlo Milovanovic and told him he was free to go as he pleased - there was silence. But rumors that Morillon had been "captured" persisted for some time.

Morillon's gesture can be explained in the light of the latest crisis in Eastern Bosnia. The crisis is the result of an offensive by Karadzic's forces in the last few weeks. There are two reasons for the offensive. The first is the strengthening of local, spontaneous resistance groups which have started threatening vital communication links in the Serbian Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina, operating from the mountains and forests in Eastern Bosnia, and sometimes hitting Federal Republic of Yugoslavia territory. The movement resulted after the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Bosnia last spring and summer (a cynic would say, "the badly carried out ethnic cleansing"): local Moslems who survived by withdrawing into the mountains and zones controlled by the Bosnian government, re-grouped and armed in order to return. Here they are on home ground, harassing the local Serbian authorities who are finding it increasingly difficult: Karadzic's authority is spread thinly, it lacks men to cover captured territory. The fighting morale of the Bosnian guerrillas is high. They are motivated by revenge and desperation. All they had has been destroyed, families murdered or expelled. These are peasant people and all they had was the land. With the coming of spring, the situation had become too dangerous for Karadzic's authority.

The second reason is the political side of the first as seen through the prism of the Vance-Owen plan, which, as things stand, is the only peace plan in circulation, such as it is. It was clear last winter that the implementation of the Vance-Owen plan in the field would differ drastically from the way it had been conceived. First the Croatian side, in anticipation of Vance-Owen's plan, started taking over control in ethnically mixed future "provinces" in Central Bosnia. This led to armed clashes with the local Bosnian forces. Then Bozidar Vucurevic, leader of the Serbs in Herzegovina, also realized how the Vance-Owen plan would turn out, and expelled several thousand Moslems from Trebinje. The fact that they had been loyal until the end, and fought with the Serbs in Eastern Herzegovina, was to no avail. Today it is the turn of the Moslems from Bijeljina and its vicinity. Of course, the worst situation is in Eastern Bosnia: under the Vance-Owen plan, province no. 5 (Tuzla, a Moslem majority of 63.7 percent) is placed in the corridor linking Serbia and the Bijeljina province with the Rudo province, i.e. with Eastern Herzegovina. This is unacceptable for Karadzic's side. If they lose at the negotiations, then a year of war and ethnic cleansing and all that resulted from it, have been in vain, and the price has been too high... From this perspective, Mladic's offensive and its final goal are understandable. The complete ethnic cleansing of Eastern Bosnia: the elimination of Moslems from this province would allow for a re-examination of Vance-Owen's plan; the further stalling and diluting of international negotiations until matters in the field were consolidated, i.e., until all Moslems were either expelled or killed. The political goal of the war in Eastern Bosnia is clear. The strategy and tactics are dictated by a balance of strengths, a category very dear to those in power here. The problem lies in the fact that the balance of strengths, such as it is, dictates a medieval strategy and tactics used in the Thirty Years' War. That is why we ended up with medieval sieges of cities: starvation until surrender, the massacre of those who surrendered, and all in all, a Vukovar-type situation. The political goals of the war, are, inevitably, determining the tactics.

In such a situation, all attempts at getting humanitarian aid (food and medicine) to a besieged town, are inevitably, a military counter-measure, and that is how the attacker will interpret it. All stories and lies on why the humanitarian convoys are not being allowed to pass through to Srebrenica are pointless from this aspect. They are not being let through because Srebrenica must fall, and if somebody feeds it, then it won't. To feed the Moslems in Eastern Bosnia by air, or convoys overland, is, from the point of view of Karadzic's forces, a hostile act. If they can't reach the Hercules transport planes, they can stop the trucks on the ground. General Morillon understood this and that is why he is so stubbornly and flamboyantly operating from Srebrenica, claiming that he is prepared to "to give his life for this country."

If tens of thousands of people are starving to death and dying for lack of medicine and medical aid, not to mention combat activities, and if the UN are trying to bring them food and medicine, and someone is preventing it from doing so, then the credibility of the world organization is in question.

All was clear from the beginning of this offensive. When a patrol of the British peacekeeping forces escorting the relief convoy arrived in Konjevic Polje early last week, the soldiers found themselves the target of Mladic's artillery, along with the rest of the local population. The medical sergeant said later that he had never seen such horrors. He was forced to operate children on the spot with makeshift instruments and the help of a British civilian doctor. Two days later the soldiers withdrew, and Dr. Simon Mardell of the World Health Organization walked to Srebrenica. "The journey of some 30 km was blocked by hungry and desperate refugees," said Mardell, giving horrible details of the situation in Srebrenica, the hospital where people are dying in great numbers from infections, where operations are carried out without anesthetics and antibiotics. Similar reports have been made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Problems with relief convoys to Eastern Bosnian are not new: for months these convoys have been held up and hindered using all possible excuses. Matters came to a head last week with a 23-truck convoy carrying 125 tons of aid which had been waiting in Mali Zvornik since last Thursday for permission to continue to Srebrenica. This convoy came at the height of the offensive and was in the way. Regardless of Karadzic's more or less vague promises that the convoy would be let through, this did not happen. The reasons are being guessed at - from General Mladic's insubordination to Karadzic, to suspicions that local commanders are obeying anyone. The end of last week saw the active participation of the Yugoslav army and police in hindering the convoys, at the same time when planes coming from the right bank of the Drina River bombed villages in Eastern Bosnia, while General Zivota Panic popped over to Iraq. Writing hastily about the convoy, JAVNOST (with the usual crying over poor Serbs who trust everybody) brought something new: some Frenchmen "are arriving at our borders, stopping on our (!) bridges, blocking traffic. They transport all sorts of things, and nose around as they can't at home." The weekly asks: "How could this convoy reach Mali Zvornik without having been checked at all? How can the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia tolerate the kind of chaos on its territory, as that created in Mali Zvornik by this convoy? Are the convoys transporting arms through the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia?" By the evening of Thursday, March 18, the convoy had not crossed "their" bridge over the Drina River, and they still hadn't checked it. How does JAVNOST (March 13) know that the convoy was "carrying arms?" When did they find them?

All this aside, the stalling of the convoy, statements by local commanders to the effect that they can't allow it through "before orders arrive from Belgrade," (while at the same time they don't know whose orders), combat flights from Yugoslav territory, and increasingly fierce attacks on Srebrenica are all straining relations and deepening the crisis between the Serbs and the rest of the world which is slowly becoming fed up. There is an end to everything, even the shameless hypocrisy used to justify crimes against humanity. In all this, the truth about Serbs, and Serbian honor are being dirtied and dragged through the mud by those who are insolently and indecently holding the entire Serbian nation hostage.

With his "Don Quixote" or "heroic" gesture in Srebrenica, General Philippe Morillon has greatly exacerbated the existing situation. None can play dumb anymore and stick to the bureaucratic routine of the Vance-Owen plan for lack anything better, or lie ad infinitum over the real goals of the war. General Morillon has risked his life with his "adventure," while the other gentlemen in this game with marked cards are not risking anything, expect other people's lives.