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UN blames itself for not preventing



Subject: UN blames itself for not preventing Serb killings !!

The Boston Globe   Nov 16, 1999

UNITED NATIONS
****************

The United Nations, in an unusually blunt report, blamed itself Monday
for railing to stop the 1995 Serb massacre of thousands of Muslim
civilians in the bOsnian town of Srebrenica, saying it was wrong to rule
out the use of force to stop the Serbs and wrong to deny Muslims the
ability to defend themselves.

Outrage over the slaughter at Srebrenica, which had been designated a UN
"safe area," heightened U.S. and European resolve to act and help lead
to NATO's military intervention, which led ultimately the Bosnian war.

"Through error, misjudgment, and an inability to recognize the scope of
the evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to help save the
people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder," the report
by Secretary general Kofi Annan said.
"the report makes clear the inadequacy of the entire approach of the
United Nations to the Serb campaign of 'ethnic cleansing," a senior UN
official told reporters.

A month after the July 1995 massacre, NATO launched air raids on Bosnian
Serb targets. The war was over by November.
"That extraordinary, galvanizing event, which is one of the great
tragedies in Europe in the past half-century, was also part of the
reason, why the U.S. got fully engaged," said Richard Holbrooke, the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Annan's 155-page report dissects in detail the failed UN policy. It
concludes that the Bosnian Muslims should have access to arms despite an
embargo and that air strikes and a fighting force, rather than
peacekeepers, should have been deployed early on.
 .