UN: SERBS MASSACRED 500 BOSNIAKS IN LATEST ATTACKS ON MUSLIM VILLAGES AROUND SREBRENICA

St. Petersburg Times, p.16A

6 March 1993.

According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, the horror of Bosnian genocide has escalated another notch in eastern Bosnia. “Lots of civilians, women, children and old people are being killed, usually by having their throats cut,” Commissioner Sadako Ogata reported.

And further: “If only 10 percent of the information is true, we are witnessing a massacre … without being able to do anything about it.”

Based on information from amateur radio operator from amateur radio operators and the Bosnian government, the United Nations has calculated a death toll of at least 500 in this most recent Serbian attack on Muslims [Bosniaks] in several small villages. An estimated 17,000 to 20,000 new refugees have fled to a valley, where they huddle exposed to the elements and constant gunfire. Others are hiding in a nearby woods without food, shelter or medical care.

Even worse, this outburst of fury is a direct response to the American airlift of humanitarian supplies. The message from the Serbs is brutally clear: Send food to the Muslims and we’ll cut their throats before they have a chance to eat it.

Back at the United Nations, it is business as usual — more talks, more denouncements, more squabbles among governments that can’t agree on a course of action, if any. Meanwhile, each day brings a fresh barrage of photos and first-hand tales of death camps, mass executions, rape and torture.

Last year, the world recoiled at the term “ethnic cleansing,” with its echoes of the monstrous goals pursued during the Holocaust. That should have been enough to expose Serbia’s President Slobodan Milosevic for the little Hitler he truly is, and thus to foretell the Bosnian Muslims’ fate.

Now, in the words of another U.N. official quoted last week: “I have heard the desperate screams from them all night, begging for assistance. The desperation they have now is much worse than anything I’ve heard before.” What more are all the diplomats and observers waiting to hear?

The Clinton administration’s willingness to press for a solution and the Russian government’s new offer of assistance with the airdrop effort are two hopeful signs in an otherwise bleak picture. It is time to toughen and fully enforce trade sanctions against Belgrade, to flood the region with supplies and to demand stronger action at the level of the U.N. Security Council.

By rights, Western Europe should be taking the lead, but such fine points no longer matter. Standing idle on principle while people die is just not the American way.

Reprinted by the Bosnian Genocide Blog