Allies' part in Srebrenica massacre

A photographic exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland, marks the 20th anniversary of the genocide of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb death squads. Photo / AP

Classified documents show Britain, US and France were negotiating to cede UN-protected safe area to Serbs.

The fall of Srebrenica in Bosnia 20 years ago this week, prompting the worst massacre in Europe since the Third Reich, was a key element of the strategy pursued by the three key Western powers - Britain, the United States and France - and was not a shocking and unheralded event, as has long been maintained.

Eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed over four days in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb death squads after they took the besieged town, which had been designated a "safe area" under the protection of UN troops.

The act has been declared a genocide by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic await verdicts in trials for directing genocide.

Blame has also been placed on Dutch troops, who evicted thousands seeking refuge in their headquarters, and watched while the Serbs separated women and young children from their male quarry.

But a new investigation of the mass of evidence documenting the siege suggests much wider involvement in the events leading to the fall of Srebrenica.

Declassified cables, exclusive interviews and testimony to the tribunal show that the British, American and French governments accepted that Srebrenica and two other UN-protected safe areas were "untenable" long before Mladic took the town, and were ready to cede Srebrenica to the Serbs in pursuit of a map acceptable to the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, for peace at any price.

But as they considered granting Srebrenica to the Serbs, Western powers were also aware, or should have been, of the Bosnian Serb military "Directive 7" ordering the "permanent removal" of Bosnian Muslims from the safe areas.

They also knew Mladic had told the Bosnian Serb assembly, "My concern is to have them vanish completely", and that Karadzic pledged "blood up to the knees" if his army took Srebrenica.

Robert Frasure, a US diplomat working as an international representative, reported to Washington that Milosevic would not accept a peace map unless the safe areas were ceded to the Serbs. His boss, Anthony Lake, the US national security adviser, favoured a revised map that ceded Srebrenica, and the US policy-making Principals Committee urged that UN troops "pull back from vulnerable positions" - ergo, the safe areas.

France and Britain agreed, with UK Defence Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind arguing that the safe areas were "untenable", as defended in 1995. As Mladic's troops advanced on Srebrenica, the West failed to heed warnings of the town's imminent fall. Once it had, says General Van der Wind of the Dutch Defence Ministry, the UN provided 30,000 litres of petrol, used by the Serbs to drive their quarry to the killing fields.

As the killing hit full throttle, top Western negotiators met Mladic and Milosevic but did not raise the issue of mass murder, even though unclassified US cables show that the CIA was watching the killing fields almost "live" from satellite planes.

- Observer