Some of the
reactions to my article, «Stoltenberg’s co-responsibility for
Srebrenica» in Ny tid (Norwegian weekly newspaper) the 5th
of
August 2005 show that the Norwegian public is still far from
recognizing
Stoltenberg’s co-responsibility.The
fact that he himself replies in a way which is irrelevant with regard
to the
content of the critique (as if he was criticized for failing to report
to the
UN), does not make recognition easier. Stoltenberg’s unshakeable
attitude and
self-proclaimed infallibility disclaims his reputation as a man who is
devoted
to dialogue and reconciliation.
Gunnar Garbo
is among those who find that Stoltenberg has no reasons for regrets,
and that
the claim concerning his co-responsibility for Srebrenica is highly
exaggerated. The fact that this claim even after ten years of research
by
journalists and academics, UN-initiated interrogatory reports, the
Dutch
Srebrenica-report and various trials in the Hague, can be seen as being
highly
exaggerated in Norway, is expressive of how Stoltenberg’s own version
has been
protected in the Norwegian press.
Let me state
my concern. When I concluded in my last article that Stoltenberg has
co-responsibility for Srebrenica, I do not mean to state that he is
alone in
this. The theme of the article was his
particular role. The list of politicians, diplomats and officers whose
co-responsibility more or less equals that of Stoltenberg is a long
one;
«the wall of shame» is crowded. While co-responsibility is
comprehensive, it must be identified with particular persons, whose
names are
mentioned, the unpleasantness of this process notwithstanding. The ones
who
were co-responsible, meaning those who contributed to the creation of a
situation of such a kind that Mladic could calculate correctly that he
would be
able to kill 8 000 boys and men in Srebrenica without obstruction,
form a
different category than that of the killers, although it is a category
of
people whose behaviour must be
taken into account if we are to understand what made the massacre of
Srebrenica
possible.
Garbo’s
article is not primarily about Stoltenberg, but about the UN and the US. So, let us discuss
their part in the picture. Although this discussion
is an important one, it is made more difficult by the inaccuracies that
prevail
in Garbo’s account. Garbo does not tell us which moments and events his
descriptions are meant to cover. He writes: «The US was continuously eager
to bomb.» At what point? Does
«continuously» mean that they generally, from the spring of 1992
until the autumn of 1995 were eager to bomb? Bombing
whom, as a part of which general policy?
The
truth is
that the Americans did not support bombing one of the «parties». As
documented by Samantha Power in the book A
Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, no less than
five
leaders in the Bosnia section of the State
Department quit their jobs during 1993. Why?
Because they found themselves unable to work for «an administration
which
supported a diplomatic process legitimating aggression and genocide.»
(p.
315) Warren Christopher, the US foreign minister during all these years
(not
Madeleine Albright, as Garbo states; she was a UN ambassador, and her
influence
on Clinton between 1992 and -95 was minimal; her «moralism» (David
Owen) and eagerness to bomb was hindered by general Colin Powell for
several
years) replied to the request for employment of military force against
the
Serbian aggressor by ordering a search for evidence that the Bosnian Muslims had committed equally serious
atrocities. Thus, Christopher would insist on the «equality» of the
parties – they were all guilty, and taking a stance would be
improper – a
position which was soon established as the only path worth taking.
Rather than
bombing, or rather than opposing the genocidal aims and actions of the
strongest party on the ground, the US political leadership
tried to delay the conclusion suggested by their
intelligence and the advice they received that military force would be
the only
means of preventing continued ethnic cleansing. This is what Clinton
and
Hoolbrooke have apologized for to the victims of Srebrenica, and of Bosnia in general.
If Garbo is
thinking of the behaviour of the US towards Srebrenica in
particular, his claim that the US was eager to bomb is
equally misleading. The UN Security Council
discussed the fall of Srebrenica and Dutchbat’s request for air force
attacks
the day after the enclave was taken by Mladic’s forces. In this meeting
– a
fateful moment for the population of Srebrenica – the
representatives of France, Italy, Nigeria, Russia, Britain and China went against the use
of NATO armed forces under UN directions. The US was more positively
inclined towards the employment of air force
attacks, but did not attempt to force this decision upon the others.
Only the
Czech representative was unequivocally in favour of taking a strong
line
against Mladic, arguing as follows:
«The
Bosnian Serbs will be reaffirmed in their belief that Security Council
resolutions are just paper tigers. They will be tempted to repeat what
they did
in Srebrenica in Zepa, Gorazde and other so-called safe areas, knowing
that
they can do so with impunity.»[1]
Garbo’s
answer
to being called pro-Serbian by Svein Mønnesland and myself, is
to accuse us of
being anti-Serbian, which is a mental blackout. I, for my part, am
principally
opposed to forces that encourage and perform gross violations of human
rights –
be it Mladic the Serb or Naser Oric the Bosniak. The error is to
presuppose
that «Serbs» are identical to the group of those who support the
ethnic cleansing of Karadzic and Mladic to create a Great Serbia «free
from» non-Serbian inhabitants. But as we know (although Milosevic’s
propaganda and Media control did everything to cover up the fact): not
all
Serbs in Bosnia identified with this
project. Thus the multi-ethnic oriented Serbs
became «the impure in their midst» and a thorn in the flesh of the
ideologists in Pale and Beograd; several of them were
killed along with the Croats and Muslims who
represented Bosnia as a multi-ethnic
society. I am not anti-German because I condemn the
genocide of the Hitler regime, or anti-Russian because I condemn the
Gulag of
the regime of Stalin. Stoltenberg was pro-Serbian in the sense that he
took
over a view of the situation in Bosnia which was
indistinguishable from that of Karadzic and Milosevic. On May the 20th
1995 a long range of
newspapers quoted
Karadzic’s statement: «Serbs, Croats and Muslims can no longer live
together. You cannot hold a cat and a dog captured in the same room.»
11
days later was Stoltenberg’s main message: «You cannot force people to
live together.» In brief, he made the analysis, diagnosis and suggested
solution
of the one «party» (in fact the main aggressor) his own, and voiced
the message with the authority of his position as a chief mediator for
the UN.
One might even call it a case of plagiarism.
«If
the US had not
undermined the plan of the peace mediators for the UN and the
EU, hundreds of thousands of human lives would have been spared
two-three years
of the horrors of war. And the massacre in Srebrenica would not have
taken
place.»
The
Bosniaks, not the Americans, were the ones who refused to sign the
Owen-Stoltenberg plan(s) of division in 1993. Why should they have
accepted the
plans, with or without American support? Because, states Stoltenberg
and Garbo,
an agreement made in 1993 would have saved hundreds of thousands of
human
lives.
Suggestive?
Possibly, but a long range of questions remain. Could – or should
– the
Bosniaks have known that all those human lives would be lost during the
next
two years? That the massacre of Srebrenica was required for the
military
intervention of third parties to stop the main aggressor? That
Stoltenberg the
UN mediator would never abandon Karadzic and Mladic as negotiation
parties,
regardless of their lies and broken promises? More fundamentally:
Should
Izetbegovic have rendered to a principle of division in 1993 that
– as opposed
to the European credo after the fall
of Nazism – implies that human beings of
different (mixed) ethnic origin cannot live together within the same
territory (compare
the quote from Karadzic adopted by Stoltenberg)? Why should the
«party» whose original aim was that of continued multi-ethnic
co-existence abandon this aim to the benefit of a «party» whose
declared – and violently achieved – aim was forced ethnic
segregation?
It was far
from obvious in 1993 that the only alterative to signing an agreement
which
«accepted the political result of scandalous violations of
international
law» (the peace researchers Agrell and Alcala on the Dayton agreement, which is
quite similar to the Owen-Stoltenberg model, as
Garbo also states) would be 200 000 murdered people, most of whom
were
Bosnian Muslims. Garbo’s Stoltenberg-inspired argument crucially
depends on the
wisdom of hindsight. Moreover, by consistently adopting the version of
the
stronger party – the main aggressor, that is – that the
only political solution
was that multi-ethnicity be replaced by ethnic homogeneity, Stoltenberg
contributed to the fact that this position gained the upper hand, as if
it were
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[1]Quoted from Kofi
Annan’s Srebrenica report of December 1999, par. 329-339.
