How troop-hostage talks led to slaughter of Srebrenica
Newsday, Wedesday, May 29. 1996
Cabell Bruce of Reuter Television contributed to this story.
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- One year ago, after NATO launched two modest air strikes against an ammunition dump in Serb-held central Bosnia, Serb forces seized 270 UN peacekeepers, shackled them to potential targets and ordered them to plead on camera for NATO to stop the air strikes.
The daily humiliation lasted for weeks and led to outrage in many countries, but nowhere more than in France, whose troops composed more than half the hostages. French Gen. Bernard Janvier, then supreme military commander in the former Yugoslavia, was already an outspoken opponent of using NATO airpower. Now, convinced the West lacked the the will for further military action, he decided to negotiate an end to the crisis. He was "ready to get his hands dirty," a close aide said.
Janvier arranged to see Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander, in the Serb-held city of Zvornik. Pleading for release of the UN captives, Janvier offered as a quid pro quo to halt the future NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs, the aide said. "We were the supplicants," he said. "Janvier proposed the meeting. Janvier proposed the deal."
"The deal" left the United Nations powerless and the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living under UN protection in the tiny "safe area" of Srebrenica all but defenseless. It led directly to the worst case of genocide in Europe since World War II - the slaughter of the most of the town's male population - and the expulsion of its women and children.
Apart from The Netherlands, whose UN troops were forced to surredner the town, no government nor the United Nations has publicly accounted for its share of responsibility. A three-month investigation by Newsday, which draws for the first time on secret UN correspondence and intercepted Bosnian Serb communications, has revealed that Janvier and his civilian boss, Yasushi Akashi of Japan, played central roles. "They were the crucial players. They held the controls, " said U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, John Menzies.
The investigation also found that some top UN military aides has predicted the Serb attack on Srebrenica months before it occured and advised that the only defense was NATO air power. But until the day the town fell, U.S. intelligence did not correctly analyze Serb aims. "Intelligence did not prepare us adequately for the attacks on Srebrenica," said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs at the time.
U.S. intelligence also did not detect evidence of mass murders until nearly three weeks after the event, despite urgent appeals from the Bosnian government. But Newsday has obtained Bosnian Army intelligence intercepts of radio communications by Bosnian Serb commanders ordering the execution of captured Muslim males.
At their June 4 meeting at the Hotel Vidakovac in Zvornik, after Janvier made his presentation, Mladic had a letter prepared stating the terms and asked for the earliest possible "ratification," according to Janvier's report to the United Nations. A few days later Akashi did just that, by publicly affirming that the United Nations would strictly abide by peacekeeping principles, shorthand for no more air strikes.
The understanding led to the freeing of the hostages by mid-June. But five weeks after the meeting, the halt in NATO air support played a key role as Mladic conquered Srebrenica, and according to witnesses, personally supervised the massacres of up to 8,000 of its male population. The Hague War Crimes Tribunal has indicted Mladic on charges of genocide for his actions at Srebrenica and elsewhere.
The conquest of Srebrenica marked the end of the road for the United Nation's biggest and costliest peacekeeping mission and the low point in inter-alliance relations after the end of the Cold War. The debacle galvanized the Clinton administration, leading to the Dayton peace accords and dispatching of 20,000 U.S. troops to Bosnia.
UN experts and western intelligence officials link the planning, supplying and execution of the attack to the army of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. But the U.S. government has never blamed Milosevic, on whose help it has counted to draft the Dayton accords and force the Bosnian Serbs to go along.
"We shouldn't have let in happen," a White House National Security Council official told Newsday recently, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It was a major failure of the international community. We bear our share of responsibility."
As much as it is a tale of lack of will, the fall of Srebrenica is also a tale of two generals - Janvier, who opposed the use of force, and British Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, the UN commander in Bosnia, who believed the United Nations had to use force to remain in Bosnia.
When Smith arrived in the Bosnian capital in January, 1995, he set up an intelligence cell using experienced officers from the United States and seven other countries. By early April, they determined that Mladic would make a major push by summer to seize three eastern safe areas near the Serbian border - Srebrenica, with 40,000 population; Zepa, with 15,000; and Gorazde, with 50,000. "We felt it would occur by June," said a NATO officer who analyzed intelligence for Smith, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In the view of Smith's chief aide, Lt. Col. Jim Baxter, Srebrenica's survival depended on a three-legged defense: the 3000 ill-armed Bosnian troops in the enclave, whose heavy weaponry was under UN control; the 450 Dutch troops under the UN flag; and the threat of NATO air power.
Janvier felt that holding the enclaves entailed risks that UN troop-contributing countries would not accept. He told the Security Council May 24 that Bosnian government forces were sufficient to defend Srebrenica, that UN troops should be withdrawn, and that NATO air power was not needed. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright rejected his approach as "flatly and completely wrong," according to an Albright aide who asked not to be identified. Nevertheless, Janvier proceeded to implement it.
The Bosnian Serbs had blockaded Srebrenica for two years, but starting June 3, when Mladic's forces seized a Dutch observation post, there were daily incidients in which the Serbs fired at Dutch posts.
The Dutch commander, Col. Ton Karremans, requested close air support, but that was out of the question in the midst of the hostage crisis. The next day, June 4, Janvier met Mladic. According to Janvier's account of the meeting, a copy of which Newsday has seen, he apparently did not sign the letter Mladic had prepared in his presence but hand-carried it back to UN headquarters in Zagreb. Translated from French by Newsday, it reads as follows:
"1. The Army of Republika Srpska will no longer use force to threaten the life and safety of members of UNPROFOR (The UN protection force).
"2. UNPROFOR commits to no longer make use of any force which leads to the use of air strikes against targets and territory or Republika Srpska.
"3. The signing of this agreement will lead immediately to the freeing of all prisoners of war."
Five days later, Akashi summoned Janvier and Smith to resolve their differences. "We are not able to use air power becuase we have soldiers on the ground," Janvier stated, according to minutes kept by a participating UN official who insisted on anonimity.
Smith replied: "Our analysis of the Serbs' intentions is to finish the war this year and to take every risk to achieve it... They will destroy the eastern enclaves this year."
Janvier disagreed. "The Serbs need international recognition," he said. "I don't think they want to go to the extremes. They want to modify their behavior."
Smith wanted the United Nations to "establish ground rules and declare we are prepared to fight."
Janvier objected: "I insist we will never use force and impose our will on the Serbs."
Smith rebutted: "If we hit them, they will be more cooperative."
Akashi sided with Janvier. "We have to defer to General Janvier as the senior commander," he said. Later that day, June 9, Akashi issued his statement that UN troops would abide by "strictly peacekeeping principles."
It was a triumph for the Bosnian Serbs, who announced June 18 the resumption of "cooperation" with the United Nations provided there were "no hostile acts" in the future. The signals were set for the Serb attack.
Earlier that month, U.S. intelligence had detected "indications" of a coming offensive, U.S. officials said. And Smith's deputy in Sarajevo, Dutch Brig. Gen. Cees Nikolai, recalled seeing messages that Arkan's Tigers, a Belgrade-based paramilitary group led by Zeljko Raznjatovic, had appeared around the enclave. "They always showed up at places where something was about to happen," he said. "That also was an indication that Srebrenica was on their wish list."
Other signs are clearer in hindsight. In the month before the offensive, Mladic traveled frequently to Belgrade for consulatations with his patron in the Yugoslav army, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, the chief of staff, even though Yugoslavia officially had suspended military aid to the Serbs. And Perisic of his top generals traveled to Bosnia "all the time," the NATO intelligence officer on Smith's staff said. "To them, there was no border." The planning took place in Belgrade, according to a Smith aide and a western intelligence official.
In Washington a new diplomatic approach, of which the Pentagon was a principal author, "emphasized the need for defensibility of federal territory. It had to be compact, coherent and defensible," said the White House aide. Srebrenica had been written off. "We knew that government forces were not capable of defending Srebrenica, and the UN troops there were very vulnerable."
The attack was organized with maximum efficiency and executed with breathtaking speed. Smith's intelligence staff, using data from eight nations, estimated the attacking force at 8,000 to 12,000, up to 3,000 of them from Serbia. They were equipped with at least 20 to 30 tanks and multiple artillery pieces.
The Bosnians, with only 3,000 armed troops, were outgunned. The Dutch UN force was down significantly because the Serbs had refused to allow 150 to return from leave.
The attack began at 3:15 a.m. on July 6 with a two-day pounding of civilian targets by tanks and artillery. Serb forces, only 1.2 miles from the center of Srebrenica, overran five of the 13 Dutch observation posts. The UN military observers in the enclave - a Dutchman, a Ghanian, and a Kenyan - reported at least 250 artillery and mortar rounds and six 120mm rockets, causing two deaths and six casualties.
After one observation post came under direct fire from two Serb tanks, the Dutch report said Karremans asked by telephone for close air support but was told that delicate diplomatic talks talks were under way and that "he should not count on air support in this case."
On July 7, UN military observers appealed to the United Nations to "stop this carnage and damage to the civilian property in a UN-declared safe zone." But the observers' commander in nearby Tuzla issued a sanguine report asserting it was "very unlikely" that the Serbs "intend to launch a full-scale attack" becuase of "liquidation of a registered population of this size would be impossible" and removal of the population would be impossible without UN cooperation.
That rosy view was shared by U.S. intelligence experts, who believed Mladic would not attempt to conquer the enclave because of the refugees.
The emotional appeal from UN observers reached Zagreb, but UN officials in New York said they never saw it.
On July 8, UN observers reported that shelling had resumed and was at its "utmost height... without any sign of abating." The Dutch abandoned three posts under direct fire, and 30 Dutch troops were taken off by Serbs to nearby Bratunac. The observers urged the United Nations "to find a means of preventing a total massacre." They signed off: "We are now heading for the bunker."
On July 9, with more than three dozen Dutch in Serb hands, the Dutch again asked for air power. But Brig. Gen. Nikolai, who was in charge in Sarajevo in Smith's absence, said Janvier's command informed him, "Before we use the ultimate weapon, we should react with a lower level of force."
On the eve of Srebrenica's final day, top military and civilian staff in Zagreb held a crisis meeting at which almost everyone, including one of Janvier's aides, called for urgent air support. But Akashi infomed the UN headquarters that Janvier had blocked air power because "the fighting was by infantry, thus making means other than air power preferable."
As late as the morning Srebrenica fell, July 11, U.S. intelligence experts were still debating whether Mladic intended to eliminate the enclave or merely take direct control.
Janvier finally signed off on air support at 12:30p.m., five hours after the first Dutch request that day. Two F-16s dropped nonprecision ordance at 2:40pm p.m. and missed their targets, two tanks.
Akashi's report on the fall of Srebrenica was laconic: "At about 1630 hours, UNMOs [UN military observers] reported that the Bosnian Serbs have overrun the village of Srebrenica including the Netherlands company camp."
Had Janvier held back use of air power because of the understanding with Mladic?
Akashi denied such a deal to the United Nations and repeated his denial in an interview for this story. But U.S. officials and many of Akashi's UN colleagues are convinced there was a deal.
The Bosnian Serbs have no doubts. "General Janvier was seen as a man of honor and that he kept his word," Momcilo Krajisnik, the speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament, said in an interview last week. "We are convinced that had it been entirely up to General Janvier... there would be less bombing than there actually was."
Janvier declined repeated requests for an interview, and the French government refused to comment.
On July 11, Mladic appeared in Srebrenica. According to a western intelligence source, Mladic had spent most of the battle period with Perisic, the Yugoslav chief of staff, at the Yugoslav army's Tara command center across the Drina river in Serbia. "The two of them monitored the planning and the attack," said the source.
Bosnian army intelligence monitored Mladic's arrival. Giving himself the code name "Red," Mladic ordered his fellow generals to take the town. "Down there are our worst enemies," he told a fellow officer from a nearby hill. "Are they fighting amongst themselves?"
The other officer answered: "I don't think so. They are just scared to death."
Red ordered "Ruma," a code name for another general, to "move ahead slowly and cautiously. And good luck." Ruma replied: "Okay, see you down there."
At 4:04 p.m. Ruma told Red the troops wanted to find his location: "Set a house on fire or a barn or some hay for them to see where you are."
At 4:25 p.m. Red ordered the troops to raise the Bosnian Serb flag at the local Serbian Orthodox church.
The fall of Srebrenica was a humiliating blow to the United Nations. How was it possible that the UN "was taken unawares again" by the "true extent of Serb intentions?" UN headquarters asked Akashi.
Akashi replied that he had no advance intelligence on the offensive.
Kofi Annan of Ghana, the UN undersecretary for peacekeeping, has referref publicly to the fall of Srebrenica and the ensuing bloodbath as the result of a "failure of intelligence." In fact, intelligence on Serb actions was there for the asking from the Bosnian government. But UN officials expressed wariness of Bosnian reports of atrocities, and the U.S. government had no intelligence liasion officers in Sarajevo - or a CIA station, U.S. officials said.
After the fall of Srebrenica, about two-thirds of the estimated 40,000 inhabitants fled to the Dutch base camp near Potocari, where the Serbs separated them by sex. The women, children and old people were sent to the front lines and crossed into Bosnian government territory. The men have not been seen again - and are presumed dead and burried in at least 10 mass graves located so far in the regions.
On July 12 the able-bodied male population of the town, a column that U.S. officials estimate at 12,000 to 14,000 men and boys, some of them armed, set off on foot in hopes of reaching government territory. Fewer than half made it. Most were ambushed and executed en route.
The first definitive word the U.S. government had of the slaughter came after John Shattuck, the top U.S. spokesman on human rights, interviewed survivors of the massacres in Tuzla on July 27. Shattuck's report to the State Department prompted a search through satellite photos for evidence of mass graves. "One guy heard my account and stayed up several nights to find the evidence. He made the breakthrough," Shattuck, an assistant secretary of state, said in an interview. The photos were presented to the UN Security Council on Aug. 10.
But weeks earlier, on July 13, Bosnian government minister Hasan Muratovic told U.S. Ambassador Menzies that more than 1,000 males had been collected in Bratunac soccer stadium. Menzies said he passed that on to the State Department. U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence say a photo obtained of the stadium did not bear our assertion. No further search was undertakes.
About a week later, Menzies forwarded to State Department a tip that bulldozers had been called for, indicating plans to prepare mass graves. Again, there was no response.
The Bosnian army monitored the ambushes and massacres as they occured. On July 12 the army picked up a radio signal from a unit north of Srebrenica. "We have found a place where civilians are concentrated," a Serb officer radioed to his commander. He referred to a cemetery called the Pirates' Graveyard. The order was given: "Please shell that place."
On July 14 the Bosnian army intercepts indicated systematic slaughter. About 1,000 men had been picked up by Serb forces and taken to the stadium at Konjevic Polje to be "screened" for "war criminals." At 1:55 p.m. a Col. Milanovic of the Drina Corps called for a bulldozer with a shovel from Zvornik to come to Konjevic Polje.
That evening the Serbs achieved their biggest ambush of all. At 8:35 p.m. a Maj. Obrenovic of the Bosnian Serb's first Zvornik brigade reported that his forces had surrounded a column of two miles long near the village of Glodzanje. "You must kill everyone. We don't need anyone alive," said Drina Corps commander Gen. Radivoj Krstic. Another senior officer, maj. Gen. Zivanovic, radioed: "They must surrender with all their weapons. Then shell the group with all your weapons and destroy the group."
U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said that those reports were credible and that it was likely the Bosnian Army would have such tactical intelligence. "The Bosnian army was in a better position to collect tactical intelligence such as this," said a U.S. official familiar with the reporting. "But we didn't have that."
At 3 p.m. on July 14, a Serb officer with the code name Hawk radioed in that he had found 50 men in the forrest. "We must kill them," he said.
His colleague, "Montenegro" replied: "Do it slowly. We don't need any surprises. Surround them and kill them slowly."
Two hours later Hawk reported: "I've done it. That problem isn't a problem any more."
As press reports multiplied, UN headquarters in New York asked Akashi to keep it better informed. "There have been no reports of physical mistreatment," Akashi reported July 12. "We have been... unable to ascertain if individuals are being moved with or against their will."
The next day headquarters cabled back: "It has come to our attention that the Serbs have separated males of military age from amongst the displaced persons and brought them to Bratunac."
That day Akashi reported that some 4,000 draftage males were being "detained and screened" by the Bosnian Serb army. On July 17 Akashi referred to the unaccounted-for persons and possible detainees as "a large gap in our database."
The next day, UN headquarters, citing "widespread and consistent" reports of atrocities, complained: "We have heard nothing on the subject" from Akashi.
Asked in an interview this month if he had under-reported the facts, Akashi said: "I cannot say whether we did so or not, as I say, in hindsight it might have been so."
Despite the failure on his watch, Akashi said he had not considered resigning. "I feel it was my duty to do my best in carrying out my job under difficult circumstances," he said in the interview. "So long as I had the confidence of the UN secretary-general, I felt I should continue. Abdication of my responsibility would have been an act of irresponsibility."
Janvier's career appears to be over. He is on an extended leave, and is likely to retire, aides said. "The hostage affair finished him," said the close aide. "He was left out on a limb by himself. He really thought he was doing the best he could. He was naive to believe Mladic. But what else could he do?"
In Washington, the soul-searching continues. "Could we have done a better job? Yes," said Toby Gati, the assistant secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. "There was an intelligence myopia, focusing on military aspects and much less on how do I support the broader policy."
"They wanted us in more," Gati said of the Bosnians. "Do you know how many times we heard this? They were getting bombed out. Which one do you respond to? The times they cried wolf in one month - the problem is, they were crying about a real wolf."