International Community

The Role of the UN

Hasan Nuhanović, MA, Expert researcher, Srebrenica survivor

"...I began learning English in Srebrenica from a book that I managed to find in the local Dom kulture (House of Culture). That small step eventually led to my employment with the United Nations. At first, we had no contracts at all. For three, four, even five months we worked as volunteers, and only after almost six months did we receive formal contracts.

A number of young men, including myself, joined United Nations patrols operating throughout the Srebrenica safe area. On a daily basis, we travelled with UN personnel across the enclave. What separated us from the Bosnian Serb forces outside was, initially, a network of thirteen UN observation posts. Later, that number was reduced to eight or nine, although in practice the reduction made little difference.

During patrols, I accompanied two or three UN officers—usually not Dutch soldiers, but personnel from various countries—and served as a translator between Bosnian-speaking residents and English-speaking observers. Wherever we went, local people asked the same question: "What will happen if the Serbs launch an attack?" The observers would point towards the sky and reassure them. They explained that within five, ten, or fifteen minutes of a United Nations request, NATO aircraft would arrive from bases in Italy. According to these assurances, it would take only minutes for those powerful military aircraft to destroy any attacking force on the ground. The message was always the same: the population was safe..."

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The International Community and Srebrenica

Florence Hartmann, Author and independent researcher

"...This quote [from a report] is aimed at showing that the synthesis that I made regarding the role of the international community was not my personal view. The UN report reads that “states in the Security Council and the Contact Group must accept their share of responsibility for allowing these tragic events to happen.” Also, in 2001, a report of the French Parliamentary Investigating Commission, which examined the events in Srebrenica, says that states, especially the major powers in 1995, made a choice, and I quote, "to simplify diplomatic negotiations by clarifying the ethnic map of Bosnia and Herzegovina". The French report then concludes: "None of the countries involved in resolving the Bosnian conflict wanted to save Srebrenica, which does not imply the existence of a conspiracy"..."

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Punishment and Justice: ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia)

Richard Goldstone, The first Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal

"...The preconditions to indict somebody with the crime of genocide is obviously evidence to prove the special intent that the person had to destroy a group of people, in whole or in part. The question we had to look at was whether this applied in the Srebrenica situation. The intention there was not to destroy all of the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The intention was to destroy over 8.000 innocent men and boys in the enclave of Srebrenica. But we came to the conclusion, and the courts, both the ICTY and the International Court of Justice have supported our decision, that a decision to destroy a group of that size in an enclave, in the village of Srebrenica, constituted an act of genocide and that the necessary intention was there.

The attitude of any international prosecutor should be, and I think it has been, to investigate and bring out indictments against the most guilty. And the most guilty are the people, the leaders, whether political or military, who organised, aided and abetted in the perpetration of these massive crimes, especially genocide and crimes against humanity. So that is the attitude, the attitude of prosecutors is to go for the most guilty. In the beginning, in the ICTY that wasn’t possible. The evidence we had in the beginning was against the so-called smaller fish, but they were bricks in building up to indictments. We got there very quickly. It was within a year after I arrived as the first chief prosecutor, it was eleven months after that, that the first indictments were issued against Karadžić and Mladić..."

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