Peacekeepers Only Protect You When There Is Peace
July 10, 2012
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman
This month marks the seventeenth
anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian War.
Its significance lies in both what it is
as much as what it is not.
Srebrenica was not Genocide.
However, the Western Mainstream Media (WMM) and the liberal intelligentsia would like you to think it was. They prefer to shine a bright light on Srebrenica and label it genocide. But the salient
point is; that genocide was not committed.
According to the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, Genocide is:
“It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group.”
Genocide is a specific and
horrendous act that should not be trivialized. Equally, it is wrong to apply
its use incorrectly for political gain or correctness. For anyone who has
forgotten -- here is a short recap of actual genocides in the 20th
century.
The Armenian Genocide was
implement in 1915 and lasted until the end of World War I. In the end, the
Ottoman Turks had murdered 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children. The
means of extermination were methodically planned, with the intention of destroying
the existence of the Armenian people in Turkey. They used some of the same
methods we associate with Nazi Germany, such as death marches, starvation,
extermination camps, use of poison gases, drowning children, and mass burnings.
Their intent from the start was to wipe out the Armenian people, with the ultimate
endgame resulting in the systematic eradication of the Armenian population from
Turkey. The fact that modern day Turkey, under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denies that
it was genocide is laughable.
The Jewish Holocaust of World War II is understood and accepted
today as the definition of Genocide, in most of the world. The exception is the
world’s Islamic nations. Nazi Germany and their Quisling collaborators
exterminated 6 million Jews, two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, in
a systematic state planned program, i.e., The Final Solution. The methods and
means of history’s most horrific genocide are well documented.
Yet, what is not as well known is what happened in the Balkans
during this same period. The Nazis and their Croatian Ustase collaborators killed 581,000 Serbs. German forces, under
direct orders from Adolf Hitler, fought with a special vengeance against the
Serbs, who like Jews and Romas, were considered untermensch (sub-human). It is estimated that 300,000 Serbs were
murdered in the Croatian operated Jasenovac concentration camp. Large numbers
of Serbs were also killed at the hands of Albanians, who allied themselves to
the Nazis. It is estimated that Albanians killed 40,000 to 60,000 Serbs.
The Rwandan Genocide began and
ended in 1994. It is estimated that 750,000 ethnic Tutsi were murdered in 100
days. This genocidal act occurred under the protection of a United Nation’s
Peacekeeping Force, under the direction of Mr. Kofi Annan, Head of the UN
Peacekeeping Department. Hutu tribesman who comprised 80% of the population of
Rwanda attempted to destroy the existence of all Tutsi in the country.
In the Balkans, during the
Yugoslavian War (1991 - 1995) and the Kosovo War (1999), there was war and there were war crimes. Everyone in the Balkans has blood on his hands; war
crimes were committed by all of the major warring factions. The greatest of
these war crimes was the now infamous Srebrenica Massacre.[i]
In 1995, from July 12 through
July 16, Bosnian Serbs killed 7,079 Muslim men, the majority of whom were
unarmed. This was a war crime. Much as the American massacre at My Lai was in
1968 during the Vietnam War.[ii] What made
Srebrenica unique were not the number of people killed, although significant,
but rather the international community’s role in the crime, and the subsequent
portrayal of this event as genocide.
United Nation’s Peacekeepers,
under the direction of Mr. Kofi Annan, the ongoing Head of the UN’s
Peacekeeping Department, had disarmed Muslim fighters and guaranteed their
protection in the designated “safe area.”[iii]
As someone who experienced the
terrain of Srebrenica firsthand, it was abundantly clear that you could not
select a more disadvantageous place to ensure anyone’s safety. Srebrenica is a
small town with a single north – south thoroughfare situated in a hollow with
steep treed hills on both sides. One could defend the town, much as Texans
defended the Alamo. But no one should have mistaken Mr. Annan and his UN
Associates, for William Travis, James Bowie, or Davy Crockett.
Since the Bosnian Serbs did not
attempt to destroy the existence of all Bosnian Muslims, Srebrenica was a war
crime and not genocide. Women and children were also living under UN protection
in the Srebrenica “safe area,” and they were not killed. They were put on buses
and trucks and were transported out of the area. One may posit that the aim was to ethnically cleanse Muslims from eastern Bosnia, but it was
not genocidal. In any war, combatants and civilian populations are on the move
– sometime by force and sometime by choice.
So what have we learned? One
lesson learned from Srebrenica was that Europe and the United States did not
have the will to defend and protect the people who had put their lives in their
hands. Moreover, UN officials such as Mr. Annan, Mr. Yasushi Akashi (UN Special
Representative for the former Yugoslavia), and French General Bernard Janvier
(UN Force Commander in the former Yugoslavia), were either incompetent and/or
complicit. They have yet to be held accountable for their part in this horrific
war crime.
A second lesson is that Peacekeepers only protect you when there is
peace. In the past, a hostile force has used Peacekeepers as human shields,
and hostages and pawns in a negotiation. And in this case, worst of all, the
Peacekeepers gave the veneer of safety to those whom they were tasked to
defend; thus rendering them defenseless and compliant. Survival would have been
better achieved knowing ones vulnerability and acting accordingly, rather than relying
on a quasi-military force under orders not to engage an opposing hostile force.
The men of Srebrenica put their
lives in the hands of the United Nations, and were slaughtered as a result.
Apologies and handwringing does not help the dead. And neither does
inappropriately euphemistic labeling. Progress may someday be made in the
Balkans when broken rhetoric is replaced with honest dialogue.
[i]
In his book, Endgame, The Betrayal And Fall Of Srebrenica: Europe’s Worst Massacre
Since World War II, David Rohde superbly documents the events of this
tragedy.
[ii]
In Vietnam, in March 1968, there was the My
Lai Massacre. The village of My Lai is where American soldiers during the
Vietnam War killed 347 to 504 (the exact number has never been confirmed)
non-uniformed men, women, and children, some of whom were enemy combatants. It
was not planned. There was no systematic state program to destroy the
Vietnamese people. The commanding officer was tried before a US military tribunal
and found guilty.
[iii]
On April 16, 1993, the UN Security Council
passed Resolution 819, declaring Srebrenica the world’s first “safe area.” It
should be noted, that the term “safe haven” was avoided since it had a specific
connotation under international law. The latter meant full protection, while
the former had at the time no international legal definition.
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