Six weeks before Bosnian Serbs overran the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, the U.N. commander in former Yugoslavia told U.N. diplomats to abandon it and the other Bosnian so-called "safe areas" to their fate, The Independent newspaper reported Monday.
The United States has accused Bosnian Serbs of massacring up to 2,700 of the 8,000 inhabitants of Srebrenica who are still missing, three months after the town fell. Other estimates put the death toll as high as 4,000.The Independent said it had obtained a copy of a statement Lt. Gen. Bernard Janvier made in a closed-door briefing in New York on May 24 in which he openly expressed a desire "to ditch the enclaves."
Janvier argued that U.N. troops stationed in the enclaves, including Dutch forces in Srebrenica, were little use against Serb aggression because they were isolated, poorly armed and vulnerable to being taken hostage, the newspaper said. He said other gestures, including NATO air attacks, also would have little effect, it reported.
"We have little time ahead of us. We must take measures which allow us to limit the risks incurred by our forces," the document records Janvier told the diplomats, The Independent said.