the Bosnian Serb strategy of ethnic cleansing created approximately 1.5 million refugees and would result in around 250,000 deaths. UNPROFOR was extended into Bosnia and tasked with assisting the delivery of humanitarian aid. The basic problem was that all the belligerents – but the Bosnian Serbs in particular – attempted to control the flow of aid around the country. Roadblocks often obstructed aid convoys, and international lorries carrying aid became prime targets for looting and destruction. However, UNPROFOR lacked both the means and the mandate to enforce aid delivery. Its mandate stipulated that peacekeepers could use force only in self-defence, and even if a commander decided to interpret this broadly – as several contingents tended to do – the UN lacked the resources to follow through on such a policy. UNPROFOR was confronted with a Faustian dilemma: bargain with the warlords and deliver some aid or refuse to bargain and deliver much less. Most UNPROFOR commanders chose the first option.
Map 4.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina
As disquiet began to grow in the Western media and among peacekeepers about the UN’s failure to halt the bloodshed, questions were raised about giving UNPROFOR a mandate to use force, and the Security Council gradually expanded the mission’s mandate still further (see table 4.2). In spring 1993, UNPROFOR entered a crucial new phase when the Security Council created ‘safe areas’ in Srebrenica, Sarajevo, Goražde, Žepa, Tuzla and Bihać. The safe areas were all major towns or cities held by the Bosnian government but besieged by Bosnian Serb forces, which systematically targeted civilians with shells and sniper fire. The Security Council demanded that civilians be ‘free from armed attack’ and authorized UNPROFOR to deter such attacks. Importantly, the UN Secretary-General advised that the safe areas policy would need UNPROFOR to be reinforced by 34,000 additional troops. However, the Security Council opted for a ‘light option’ and authorized only 7,600 additional soldiers (UN 1994: 2). As a result, the Secretary-General noted, ‘the effective implementation of the safe-area concept depends on the degree of consent by the parties on the ground’ (ibid.: 3). In other words, the success of the safe areas policy depended upon the Bosnian Serbs.
Nor was UNPROFOR authorized to use force to ensure delivery of humanitarian supplies. Besieged towns such as Srebrenica were therefore dependent for supplies on (scant) Bosnian Serb goodwill. Malnutrition and disease set in. A by-product of creating so-called safe areas was that most of Bosnia became a hostile region in which UN peacekeepers had very little power. When, in summer 1995, the Bosnian Serbs decided to overrun the safe areas, UNPROFOR had neither the capability nor the mandate to prevent them from doing so. In July 1995, Bosnian Serbs seized the safe area of Srebrenica from a small contingent of Dutch peacekeepers, massacring more than 7,500 civilians as they did so (Honig and Both 1996). The Dutch commander in Srebrenica, General Herrimans, requested air strikes to repel the Serbs – as he was entitled to do under Resolution 836 (4 June 1993), which permitted UNPROFOR to ‘deter attacks against the safe areas’. But UNPROFOR’s commander, General Joulwan, and the SRSG, Yasushi Akashi, feared that substantial air strikes would take UNPROFOR across the ‘Mogadishu line’ into peace enforcement and so blocked the demand. The Bosnian Serbs seized the safe area and massacred its male inhabitants virtually unimpeded by the UN.
Table 4.2 UNPROFOR’s changing mandate
| Council Resolution | Date | Purpose |
| 713 | 25 Sept 1991 | Arms embargo against former Yugoslavia |
| 743 | 21 Feb 1992 | Establishes UNPROFOR to monitor a ceasefire in the UNPAs in Croatia |
| 757 | 30 May 1992 | Imposes sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro |
| 758 | 8 June 1992 | Increases UNPROFOR mandate to include Bosnia and the safe delivery of humanitarian supplies |
| 764 | 13 July 1992 | Empowers UNPROFOR to secure Sarajevo airport and its environs |
| 770 | 13 Aug 1992 | Demands access to all refugee and prisoner of war camps |
| 776 | 14 Sept 1992 | Enlarges UNPROFOR mandate to include the protection of convoys |
| 781 | 9 Oct 1992 | Creates a no-fly zone over Bosnia |
| 787 | 16 Oct 1992 | Deployment of observers to Bosnia’s borders to enforce compliance with sanctions |
| 816 | 31 Mar 1993 | Gives members the right to enforce the no-fly zone |
| 819 | 16 April 1993 | Designates Srebrenica a ‘safe area’ which should be ‘free from armed attack’ |
| 824 | 6 May 1993 | Designates Sarajevo, Tuzla, Žepa, Goražde and Bihać as ‘safe areas’ and authorizes the strengthening of UNPROFOR by fifty military observers |
| 827 | 25 May 1993 | Creates the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) |
| 836 | 4 June 1993 | Gives UNPROFOR the task of ‘deterring’ attacks on the safe areas including the use of air strikes |
| 913 | 22 April 1994 | Gives UNPROFOR responsibility for collecting and storing belligerents’ heavy weapons around Goražde |
| 998 | 16 June 1995 | Welcomes the creation and deployment of the NATO Rapid Reaction Force |
| 1035 | 21 Dec 1995 | Authorizes the deployment of IFOR |
The fall of Srebrenica was followed by the fall of Žepa and the near collapse of Goražde and Bihać. Srebrenica was Europe’s worst massacre since the Second World War, and it stimulated a dramatic rethink of Western policy towards Bosnia. The result was a shift to peace enforcement led by a NATO air campaign (Operation Deliberate Force) against the Bosnian Serbs and a more open strategy of providing military support to the Muslim and Croat armies on the ground. In place of the UN, Western states chose to employ force through NATO. Britain and France deployed a NATO rapid reaction force. On 30 August 1995, NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force. Supported with artillery from the Anglo-French rapid reaction force, Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign against the Bosnian Serbs. Within four months the Bosnian war was over, the Dayton Accords were signed, and the NATO-led IFOR was deployed to assist in their implementation (see chapter 8).
The political will of member states to mandate and contribute to UN peace operations is related to the operational effectiveness of the organization
