Darfur

vr 15 dec 2006, 15:43

Hulpverleners weg uit Darfur

LONDEN - Hulporganisaties hebben de afgelopen dagen meer dan 250 hulpverleners uit de Sudanese regio Darfur moeten terugtrekken. De humanitaire situatie in het gebied is daardoor weer verder verslechterd.

Verscheidene grote hulporganisaties hebben sinds begin december hun medewerkers uit veiligheidsoverwegingen tijdelijk uit vijf districten in Darfur gehaald, zo deelde Oxfam-Novib vrijdag mee.

darfur the situation

Last Updated: Thursday, 16 November 2006, 23:04 GMT

Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict

Many thousands of displaced people are in need of relief supplies

The African Union (AU) has agreed to keep its peacekeepers in Darfur until the end of the year, after Sudan rejected plans for it to hand over to a larger, stronger UN mission.

More than two million people are living in camps after fleeing three years of fighting in the region and they would be even more vulnerable without any peacekeepers.

Sudan's government and the pro-government Arab militias are accused of war crimes against the region's black African population, although the UN has stopped short of calling it genocide.

How did the conflict start?

The conflict began in the arid and impoverished region early in 2003 after a rebel group began attacking government targets, saying the region was being neglected by Khartoum.

The rebels say the government is oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.

Darfur, which means land of the Fur, has faced many years of tension over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs, and farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa communities.

There are two main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), although the peace talks were complicated by splits in both groups, some along ethnic lines.

The groups opposed to a May peace deal with the government have now merged into the National Redemption Front led by former Darfur governor Ahmed Diraige.

What is the government doing?

It admits mobilising "self-defence militias" following rebel attacks but denies any links to the Janjaweed, accused of trying to "cleanse" black Africans from large swathes of territory.

Refugees from Darfur say that following air raids by government aircraft, the Janjaweed ride into villages on horses and camels, slaughtering men, raping women and stealing whatever they can find.

Many women report being abducted by the Janjaweed and held as sex slaves for more than a week before being released.

Human rights groups, the US Congress and the former US Secretary of State Colin Powell all said that genocide was taking place - though a UN investigation team sent to Sudan said that while war crimes had been committed, there had been no intent to commit genocide.

Sudan's government denies being in control of the Janjaweed and President Omar al-Bashir has called them "thieves and gangsters".

After strong international pressure and the threat of sanctions, the government promised to disarm the Janjaweed. But so far there is little evidence this has happened.

Trials have been announced in Khartoum of some members of the security forces suspected of abuses - but this is viewed as part of a campaign against UN-backed attempts to get some 50 key suspects tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

What has happened to the civilians?

Millions have fled their destroyed villages, with many heading for camps near Darfur's main towns. But there is not enough food, water or medicine.

The Janjaweed patrol outside the camps and Darfurians say the men are killed and the women raped if they venture too far in search of firewood or water.

Janjaweed fighter on horseback in Darfur region, 25 April

The Janjaweed are accused of 'ethnic cleansing'

Some 200,000 have also sought safety in neighbouring Chad, but many of these are camped along a 600km stretch of the border and remain vulnerable to attacks from Sudan.

The refugees are also threatened by the diplomatic fallout between Chad and Sudan as the neighbours accuse one another of supporting each other's rebel groups.

Chad's eastern areas have a similar ethnic make-up to Darfur.

Many aid agencies are working in Darfur but they are unable to get access to vast areas because of the fighting.

How many have died?

With much of Darfur inaccessible to aid workers and researchers, calculating how many deaths there have been in the past three years is impossible.

What researchers have done is to estimate the deaths based on surveys in areas they can reach.

The latest research published in September 2006 in the journal Science puts the numbers of deaths above and beyond those that would normally die in this inhospitable area at "no fewer than 200,000".

The US researchers say that their figures are the most compelling and persuasive estimate to date. They have made no distinction between those dying as a result of violence and those dying as a result of starvation or disease in refugee camps.

Accurate figures are crucial in determining whether the deaths in Darfur are genocide or - as the Sudanese government says - the situation is being exaggerated.

What happened to the peace deal?

SLA leader Minni Minawi, who signed the May peace deal, was given a large budget, but his fighters have already been accused by Amnesty International of abuses against people in areas opposed to the peace deal.

The smaller SLA faction and Jem did not sign the deal.

The government again promised to disarm the Janjaweed but there appears no evidence of this.

The UN's Jan Egeland says that there has been a dramatic increase in violence and displacement since the deal was signed.

With the peace deal looking unworkable and amid fears of renewed "all-out war", there appears little prospect of people returning to their villages for some time yet.

Is anyone trying to stop the fighting?

About 7,000 African Union troops have slowly been deployed in Darfur on a very limited mandate.

Experts say the soldiers are too few to cover an area the size of France, and the African Union says it does not have the money to fund the operation for much longer.

Sudan has resisted strong western diplomatic pressure for the UN to take control of the peacekeeping mission. The latest plan envisages 17,000 troops and 3,000 UN policemen but at present there is deadlock.

However, UN chief Kofi Annan has said Sudan has agreed in principle to allow a joint peacekeeping force into Darfur.

In April 2006, the UN Security Council passed a resolution imposing sanctions against four Sudanese nationals accused of war crimes in Darfur that include two rebel leaders, a former air force chief, and a Janjaweed militia leader.

A dossier of evidence compiled by a UN commission has also been passed to the ICC in The Hague, along with the names of top war crimes suspects.

Situation Darfur on 10-08-2004

Sudan is in the midst of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Currently, a brutal system of ethnic cleansing is being practiced against the Black people of Darfur, located in the western region of Sudan. Arab militiamen, known as the Janjaweed, are the main cause of these horrific conditions. "So many men have been killed. I and another woman buried seven men. We put the bodies we could not bury in a shelter, but the Janjaweed returned in the night and burnt the shelter and the bodies, a woman described to Amnesty International delegates after her village was attacked by the militia. According to a September 13 report by the U.N. Health Organization and the Sudanese Ministry of Health, the mortality rate for children under five years of age is significantly higher than the emergency thresholds. Also, for people aged 15-49, 40% of deaths were a result of violence. The crisis came to a head in February 2003. The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice for Equality Movement (JEM) draw their members from ethnic groups, like the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. Demanding an end to economic disenfranchisement, these two organizations petitioned the government to halt the abuses they suffered under the Arab pastoralists who were taking over their farmlands; the same lands that were already ravaged by desertification and drought. The Arabic Janjaweed is traditionally a nomadic group of armed militias. The government has not intervened, despite mild international pressure. As a result, the Janjaweed has terrorized the Darfur region by raping women, burning villages, killing Muslim religious leaders, destroying mosques, ruining food stocks, and murdering men women and children alike. The situation has resulted in over one million Black Sudanese fleeing the Darfur region, their homeland. Unfortunately, the nearly two-year-old crisis will see no end in the near future. Peace talks have failed and the Sudanese government has refused to allow any outside forces to intervene. 13-12-2006. Noting has chanced in a good way. The people are still waiting for: Real HELP.

History till now : Sudan.

The three and a half million people living in Darfur region, geographically isolated and neglected by central government in Khartoum, have been adversely affected by conflict since the early 1980s. The relatively peaceful equilibrium between its ethnic groups has been destroyed by environmental degradation - the spread of the desert and the effects of the Sahel drought - coupled with the divide-and-rule tactics of central government and the influx of modern weaponry. Members of the elites of the major ethnic groups are engaged in a struggle for political status, and failing to tackle the underlying problems of equitable allocation of water and land. Meanwhile outside access to the region is now so tightly controlled that detailed information about the current plight of the indigenous people is increasingly difficult to obtain.

Darfur was an independent sultanate until 1917, when it was the last region to be incorporated into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Arabic word Dar roughly means homeland, and its population of nearly four million is divided into several Dars; not only of the Fur people, as its name suggests, but also of several other communities, determined by livelihood as much as ethnicity. These ecological and social distinctions are more meaningful than the administrative divisions imposed by government. Ethnicity is not in itself clear-cut, given the long history of racial mixing between indigenous "non-Arab" peoples and the "Arabs", who are now distinguished by cultural-linguistic attachment rather than race.

The Fur, largely peasant farmers, occupy the central belt of the region, including the Jebel Marra massif, the richest and most stable area in terms of soil fertility and water resources. Also in this central zone are the non-Arab Masalit, Berti, Bargu, Bergid, Tama and Tunjur peoples, who are all sedentary farmers.

The northernmost zone is Dar Zaghawa, part of the Libyan Sahara, and inhabited by camel nomads: principally the Zaghawa and Bedeyat, who are non-Arab in origin, and the Arab Mahariya, Irayqat, Mahamid and Beni Hussein. It is the most ecologically fragile of the three main zones and most acutely affected by drought. Its occupants have frequently been active in armed conflicts in the region - either against settled farmers or amongst themselves - amid growing competition for access to water and pasture.

Cattle rather than camels are herded by the Arab nomads of the eastern and southern zone of Darfur, who comprise the Rezeigat, Habbaniya, Beni Halba, Taaisha and Maaliyya. The area is less severely affected by drought than the northern zone, although still highly sensitive to fluctuations in rainfall and less ecologically stable than the central zone.

In addition to the distinction between cattle and camel herders on the one hand and settled farmers on the other, there is a significant urban population of traders, government officials and other professionals.

Armed raids on rich agricultural areas and skirmishes with rival groups are part of the historical way of life for the nomadic herders, and constitute a survival strategy in the face of natural calamity and threatened destitution, enabling the maintenance of their social fabric. While the Fur and other cultivators did not traditionally have the same degree of military organisation, their relations with the nomads alternated between negotiation and hostility over the intrusion of nomads' herds on to farming land.

The pattern of conflict changed from low-intensity, small-scale outbreaks from the 1950s to the 1970s, to high-intensity, persistent and large-scale battles in the mid-1980s. The earlier conflicts were predominantly clashes between nomadic groups over accesss to pasture and water, or theft of animals. Since the mid-1980s there has been a more systematic drive by the nomads to occupy land in the central Jebel Marra massif, on the scale of a civil war, with entire villages wiped out and thousands of lives lost on both sides. While drought-stricken livestock herders attempt to survive by encroaching on the fertile central zone, the Fur have fought back to retain what they see as "their" land.

The attempts of successive governments to achieve peace have been alternately ineffectual and heavy-handed. Arms were channelled into Darfur by the central government under Sadiq al-Mahdi (1986-89), which armed the southern Baggara Arabs as a militia to fight against the SPLA (at that time threatening insurgency in the region), and also armed the northern Arab tribes, who were loyal to the Ansar of the Prime Minister's Umma Party. Although the Fur farmers are also largely supporters of the Umma Party, the government's preference appears to reflect the influence of the "jallaba" merchants whose primary commercial interest was in the livestock raised by the nomads. This contrasts with the situation in eastern Sudan, where the mercantile interest in large-scale farms predominates, and where nomadic pastoralists are treated as a hindrance - a more common scenario in many African countries.

The power struggle in neighbouring Chad spilled over into Darfur, with Idris Deby, then leading the opposition, using Sudanese territory to launch attacks on the government of Chadian President Hissene Habre. In this way the Zaghawa - who were aligned with both the Ansar and with Deby, since their ethnic group straddles the border - also obtained modern weapons. In response, Habre helped to arm the Fur. Colonel Ghadafi of Libya encouraged the notion of an Arab "corridor" into central Africa, which lent at least moral support for the Darfur Arabs' incursion into the fertile Jebel Marra area hitherto occupied by the Fur. Arabs and Fur clashed bloodily around both Jebel Marra and the southwest of the region in 1988-89. A peace conference in mid-1989, mediated by the Sultan of the minority Masalit, temporarily settled some of the issues: the government was forced to admit publicly that the problem was not merely one of banditry.

DAOUD BOLAD: NIF TO SPLA The complex realities of Sudan's political and religious alignments are vividly illustrated by the life of Daoud Yahya Bolad, a Darfuri who became an SPLA guerrilla commander after years of activism on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood / National Islamic Front. Bolad was born near Nyala around 1952, into a Fur family with strong connections with the Mahdist Ansar sect. Arabic was his second language, learned through memorizing the Quran at primary school. The national education system that formed his identity also led him to a sense of disillusion with the sect into which he was born. The "Sudanization" being carried out at school promoted a view of local Darfur culture as primitive and unacceptable compared with the model of riverain Sudanese culture to which pupils were expected to aspire, while the central Umma/Ansar leadership was prepared to exploit the loyalty of Darfuris without offering genuine development or local pride. At secondary school Bolad's reaction was to abandon the Ansar for the Muslim Brotherhood, a modern party which appealed to his ingrained religious sensibilities in a way that was impossible for the avowedly secular Sudan Communist Party which was in many respects its mirror-image. Since he was a nationalist, the regional DarFur Development Front was less attractive, and since he was not an Arab, the Arab Baath Party would have been unsuitable. Mahdist loyalty was probably also more easily transferrable to the Muslim Brotherhood because of the marriage of its leader, Dr Hassan al-Turabi, to Wissal, the sister of Sadiq al-Mahdi.

Muslim Brotherhood members at the University of Khartoum were seen as heroic participants in the October 1964 uprising against the Abboud military regime, although their subsequent tactics against political opponents included beatings and intimidation. As a young Islamist zealot in his years as an engineering student at the University (1971-78), Bolad embraced these undemocratic methods and became chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Khartoum University Students' Union. During the early and mid-1970s the leaders of the Brotherhood were frequently interned or in exile, and the student section of the movement became in practice its executive body, coordinating between the leadership and its cells, and coordinating street protests against the Nimeiri regime until the 1978 reconciliation with Turabi. Bolad became a master of religious and political rhetoric, and was frequently detained by Nimeiri's security forces. He worked closely with Turabi and Ali Osman Muhammad Taha, who became Minister of Social Planning under the Bashir regime, and with other key NIF figures.

(A fellow Darfuri, Dr Ali al-Haj, who helped found the Darfur Development Front, later joined the Islamists but was unable to raise popular support in Darfur. He was appointed by the Bashir regime as a negotiator with the SPLA between 1989 and 1994, in addition to his role as Minister for Economic Planning.)

On graduating from university in 1978, Bolad chose to return to Nyala to start a carpentry firm with finance from an Islamic bank, and remained active in building the Muslim Brotherhood, renamed National Islamic Front in 1985. The crisis in Darfur in the late 1980s prompted him to side with his Fur tribesmen when 27 Arab tribes formed an alliance against the Fur. The perception that this alliance was tacitly backed by the central government, in which the NIF was a coalition partner, seems to have turned him against his former colleagues. In late 1989, after Bashir's NIF-led coup, Bolad left the country. He resurfaced nearly two years later in Khor Gimbil, south of the Jebel Marra massif, as the commander of the SPLA's Darfur division. The SPLA's incursion into Darfur was at first successful, but was eventually defeated by a combination of the army and local Arab militias, who viewed themselves as enemies of the Fur. The military governor who commanded the forces against the SPLA in Darfur and brought about the capture of Daoud Bolad was Al-Tayib Ibrahim Muhammad Kheir, known since university days as Al-Tayib Sikha ("Iron Bar"), a former contemporary and underling of Bolad. In late 1991 Bolad appeared in a video recording on Sudan television, a battered but composed prisoner, and was accused of treason. However, his past history as an NIF stalwart was extremely embarrassing for the regime, and he died a week later in unexplained circumstances before his trial could take place.

Bolad's abandonment of a religionist and outwardly nationalist movement in favour of an ethnic, regionalist stance reflects the frustrations and cleavages in Sudan's political culture.

CIVIL WAR IN DARFUR: Chronology 1983-87: Zaghawa and Mahariya against the Fur: The drought of the early 1980s drove nomadic Zaghawa and Arab groups southwards into the central Fur region of Jebel Marra. Some sought water and pasture for their animals, but many had lost so much animal wealth that they were seeking to settle permanently. The Zaghawa who moved to urban centres had some success in petty trade, but those who kept to rural areas encountered hostility from the Fur farmers - who realized that the move might this time be permanent - and from government forces who accused them of camel rustling. The Fur elite in local government resisted the nomads' intrusion rather than seek accommodation. Police and army burned down numerous Zaghawa settlements and extra-judicially executed local Zaghawa leaders. The influx of modern weaponry increased dramatically: an estimated 50,000 AK47s, G3 rifles, RPGs and heavy machine guns were available in Darfur, equivalent to one for every adult male.

1987 to present: The Arab alliance against the Fur The element of racial prejudice became further entwined with the environmental roots of the conflict with the formation of an alliance of 27 Arab nomad tribes and their declaration of war against the "Zurug" (black) and non-Arab groups of Darfur. The response of the Fur was to form their own militias, at first for local self-defence and later as part of a short-lived but significant linkage with the SPLA.

The main aim of the nomads was to seize land, and they would often give notice to Fur villagers before the raids to make way for the "liberating" or "cleansing" forces. Nonetheless, the toll on population and resources was high. By the time of the 1989 peace conference, an estimated 5,000 Fur and 400 Arabs had been killed; tens of thousands had been displaced and 40,000 homes destroyed.

The Sahel drought, coupled with interference by government and the struggle for local political power, appears to have polarized the ethnic groups whose identities and inter-relationship had hitherto been fluid. The only way out of the crisis will be the recognition of its environmental and developmental origins, and the negotiation of equitable access to resources in a fragile eco-zone.

Drafted for Minority Rights Group 1995

Economics Gaza 2 years ago....

High population density, limited land access, and strict internal and external controls have kept economic conditions in the Gaza Strip - the smaller of the two areas under the Palestinian Authority (PA)- even more degraded than in the West Bank. The beginning of the second intifadah in September 2000 sparked an economic downturn, largely the result of Israeli closure policies; these policies, which were imposed in response to security interests in Israel, disrupted labor and commodity relationships with the Gaza Strip. In 2001, and even more severely in 2003, Israeli military measures in PA areas resulted in the destruction of much capital plant, the disruption of administrative structure, and widespread business closures. Including the West Bank, the UN estimates that more than 100,000 Palestinians out of the 125,000 who used to work in Israel or in joint industrial zones have lost their jobs. Half the labor force is unemployed. Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 offers some medium-term opportunities for economic growth, especially given the removal of restrictions on internal movement. In addition, recent agreements and continuing negotiations on the administration of Gaza's border crossings increase the prospects for trade.

War on drugs

By Dr. Steven Taylor

Via the LAT: Pentagon resists pleas for help in Afghan opium fight

While the Pentagon and the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the DEA, have been at odds, poppy cultivation has exploded, increasing by more than half this year. Afghanistan supplies about 92% of the world’s opium, and traffickers reap an estimated $2.3 billion in annual profits.
“It is surprising to me that we have allowed things to get to the point that they have,” said Robert B. Charles, a former top State Department counter-narcotics official. “It we do not act aggressively against the narcotics threat now, all gains made to date will be washed out to sea.”

The bumper crop of opium poppies, much of it from Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, finances the insurgency the U.S. is trying to dismantle.

The DEA’s advocates in Congress argue that the Pentagon could undermine the insurgency by combating the drugs that help finance it. Military officials say they can spare no resources from the task of fighting the Taliban and its allies.

Hmm. It seems like I read something over a year ago about the likelihood of this problem…

None of this should be a surprise. What should also not be a surprise is that members of Congress and the DEA think that there is a simple solution to this problem. Eradicating the crops is not an easy proposition–especially with the ongoing Taliban insurgency.

The current troop levels, further, are not adequate to such a task:

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said that Afghanistan’s flourishing opium trade is a law enforcement problem, not a military one. It would be “mission creep” if the 21,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan were to turn their attention to opium, and it would also set a precedent for future combat operations, military officials say.

Of course, to say that this is a law enforcement problem, even if accurate, is to say that the situation is lost, because there is no effective state in Afghanistan, certainly not one that can assert control over the territory in question, to say it is a “law enforcement problem” is to say that nothing can be done about it. Also, based on our experiences (mixed results and all) in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia it is clear that crop eradication and interdiction policies are far from just “law enforcement problem[s].”

Now, the degree to which we should follow those models is a whole other debate, but since that is the operative paradigm in US counter-narcotics policy, then the SecDef needs to be honest about what he is saying about the problem.

Filed under: US Politics, War on Drugs, Afghanistan | |

Afganistan: Drugs

Troops will be in Afghanistan for next 20 years, says commander

By Kim Sengupta

Published: 18 October 2006

The commander of the British forces returning from Helmand said that his forces were having to make up for the time lost by the decision of the US and UK to invade Iraq instead of concentrating on post-Taliban Afghanistan.

"We could have carried on in 2002 in the same way we have gone about business now," said Brigadier Ed Butler. "Have the interim four years made a difference? I think realistically they have. It doesn't mean that we will not achieve what we set out to do."

Stressing that he was speaking from a strictly UK perspective, and not for the international community, Brigadier Butler added: "So have we slipped back? I don't think we have slipped back, we may have marked time and I think we are starting to make up for that time."

Brigadier Butler continued that an international presence may be required in Afghanistan for the next 20 years, but he did not specify how long the British forces would have to remain.

Brigadier Butler, who heads the 3 Para Battle Group, has just handed over command in Afghanistan. He disclosed that his troops had come close to running out of supplies ."It got pretty close. We never actually ran out but that was the nature of the conflict. The guys were not starving but people were down to their belt rations," he said.

"I think we might have been surprised on occasion how persistent the attacks were and how enduring the scale of the operation was. I think some may have underestimated the tenacity and ferocity of the Taliban."

The Brigadier's comments came as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime called for Western troops in Afghanistan to attack opium traders, saying the drugs situation there is "out of control".

Opium cultivation rose by 59 per cent this year, according to the UN's figures, to an all-time record of 165,000 hectares.

That leaves a country that is practically run by the West supplying 92 per cent of the world's opium - much of which ends up as heroin.

The UN agency's remarks are stark news for Britain, which at one time was in charge of reducing opium production in Afghanistan.

Around 90 per cent of heroin on British streets comes from Afghanistan.

In the same period of time, opium cultivation in south-east Asia's "Golden Triangle" of Burma, Laos and Thailand, the other major source, fell by 29 per cent.

"You can say that Afghanistan is pretty much out of control," Preeta Bannerjee, a spokeswoman for UNODC said. "Afghanistan is practically... supplying the world's opium. There's also evidence that the country is increasingly hooked on its own opium."

The UN agency is calling for Nato troops and their Afghan allies to attack heroin labs, opium markets and convoys transporting the drug, Ms Bannerjee said yesterday.

But the agency's warning will come as a surprise to no one in Afghanistan, where Western troops already know the opium trade is out of control.

Around 2.9m Afghans are involved in growing opium - 12.6 per cent of the total population - according to the UN's own figures.

Most of those are farmers who scrape only a subsistence living from the opium crop. The majority of the $3bn revenue from the opium industry goes to the warlords who still control it - and to the Taliban, according to UNODC.

The agency warned yesterday that the Taliban are funding their campaign against British and other Nato troops from the opium trade, buying raw opium from farmers and selling it on at a profit.

Taliban

Travelling with the Taleban

The BBC's David Loyn has had exclusive access to Taleban forces mobilised against the British army in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

There is no army on earth as mobile as the Taleban.

I remember it as their secret weapon when I travelled with them in the mid-1990s, as they swept aside rival mujahideen to take most of the country.

Piled into the back of open Toyota trucks, their vehicle of choice, and carrying no possessions other than their weapons, they can move nimbly.

The bare arid landscape of northern Helmand suits them well.

After one hair-raising race across the desert last week, patrolling the large area where they can move at will, they screamed to a stop at a river bank.

Hardy

It was sunset, and time to pray before breaking the Ramadan fast they had kept since sunrise.

Before praying, they washed in a dank-looking pool at the side of the almost-dry river bed.

Afghanistan has been in the grip of a severe drought for several years, but the lack of clean water does not seem to concern these hardy men.

They clean their teeth with sharpened sticks taken from trees, and sleep with only the thinnest shawls to cover them.

They have surprised the British by the ferocity of their fighting and their willingness to take casualties.

Their belief in the imminence of paradise means that few exhibit fear.

When we stopped for the night, they would break into groups to eat in different houses in a village.

They demand and get food and shelter from places where they stop, but it is impossible to say how enthusiastic the villagers really are.

Power base

These remote villages, scattered across the huge expanse of the northern Helmand desert, are very poor, and made poorer by the drought.

The food we shared was just a bowl of rice, a vegetable stew made only of okra, and flat roughly-ground country bread.

The failure of aid policies to make a difference in southern Afghanistan and increasing corruption in the government and the national army, are spreading the power base of the Taleban.

The trucking companies, who backed them first in 1994 when they emerged to clear illegal checkpoints on the roads, are now backing them again.

This time the checkpoints are manned by Afghan government soldiers, who demand money at gunpoint from every driver.

The failure of the international community to stop this makes the military task of the British-led Nato force in the south much harder.

The Taleban official spokesman, Mohammed Anif, explained: "When the Islamic movement of the Taleban started in the first place, the main reason was because of concern among people about corruption.

"People were fed up with having to bribe governors, and other authorities.

"We rose up and saved almost the whole country from the evils of corruption and corrupt commanders. That's why people are supporting the Taleban again now."

Civilian casualties

The intensifying conflict itself also plays into their hands. It is hard for Nato to promote its mission as humanitarian given the inevitable civilian casualties of conflict.

The Taleban deny British claims that hundreds of their soldiers have been killed.

They say that since they wear only the loose long cotton shirts and trousers - shalwar kameez - of any local villager, then the British cannot easily tell them apart.

In a village damaged by a British attack on the night of 7 October, some people were too angry to talk to me because I was British.

One merely pointed to the torn and bloody women's clothing left in the ruins of the house and said bitterly, "Are these the kind of houses they have come to build - the kind where clothing is cut to pieces?".

Nato sources describe this village as being heavily defended by the Taleban, who fired on their forces throughout the operation.

British soldiers landed in helicopters, arrested a suspect and flew away.

But they left six dead in one family, including three young girls, and partially demolished the mosque.

Thousands of people have fled the fighting, many seeking refuge in Kandahar city, where they are putting severe pressure on the ability of the UN's World Food Programme to help.

They fear for the homes and farms they have left behind, and while not active Taleban supporters, it is clear that most blame Nato more for the worsening violence.

Folk memory

One man, Nazar Mohammed, now squatting with his family in a building site in Kandahar, said the Taleban have most to gain in the continuing conflict.

A Taleban fighter stands on a damaged British Spartan

Taleban fighters are highly mobile

"It's very obvious. Right now we see foreigners with tanks driving through our vineyards. They destroy people's orchards.

"They break through the walls and just drive across. When they take up positions in the village like this, nobody can cooperate with them."

There is one other factor that increases Taleban morale.

Few have any education beyond years spent in the madrassas, the fundamentalist religious schools in Pakistan that have produced an endless supply of Taleban for more than a decade.

But all know the story of Afghanistan's past victories over the British.

Engraved in their collective folk memory of Afghanistan's warrior history are tales of the defeat of the British in 1842 and 1880 along with the defeat of the Russians in the 1980s.

The Taleban disappeared to the mountains after their defeat in 2001, and found it hard to recruit.

Five years on they are back, and regrouping against an old enemy.

David Loyn's TV report on Afghanistan can be seen on Newsnight on Wednesday at 2230 (BBC Two). (late okt)

Afganistan

Afghanistan Geography 2000

Location: Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran

Geographic coordinates: 33 00 N, 65 00 E

Map references: Asia

Area: total: 652,000 sq km land: 652,000 sq km water: 0 sq km

Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Texas

Land boundaries: total: 5,529 km border countries: China 76 km, Iran 936 km, Pakistan 2,430 km, Tajikistan 1,206 km, Turkmenistan 744 km, Uzbekistan 137 km

Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)

Maritime claims: none (landlocked)

Climate: arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers

Terrain: mostly rugged mountains; plains in north and southwest

Elevation extremes: lowest point: Amu Darya 258 m highest point: Nowshak 7,485 m

Natural resources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones

Land use: arable land: 12% permanent crops: 0% permanent pastures: 46% forests and woodland: 3% other: 39% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land: 30,000 sq km (1993 est.)

Natural hazards: damaging earthquakes occur in Hindu Kush mountains; flooding

Environment - current issues:soil degradation; overgrazing; deforestation (much of the remaining forests are being cut down for fuel and building materials); desertification

Environment - international agreements: party to: Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban signed, but not ratified: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation

Geography - note: landlocked

Bamiyan

Bamiyan destroyed by Taleban

Hundreds were reportedly killed by the Taleban

The BBC has confirmed that the central Afghan town of Bamiyan was totally destroyed by the Taleban before they fled over the weekend.

The statues were priceless pieces of Buddhist heritage

Evidence has also emerged of Bosnian-style ethnic cleansing in the region involving the execution of hundreds of local ethnic Hazara men.

BBC correspondent David Loyn reached Bamiyan on Tuesday, becoming the first journalist to witness the devastation.

The Taleban caused international outrage earlier this year by destroying two priceless Buddha statues in Bamiyan in an act of wanton desecration.

But it is now not just the ancient treasures that have disappeared.

Ethnic cleansing

Our correspondent said every building, shop and house had been destroyed before the town fell on Sunday after a two-hour gun battle.

Bamiyan finally fell to ethnic Hazara fighters of the Hezb-i-Wahdat faction, who regard Bamiyan as their capital.

Not just in Bamiyan but around the region, it was clear that the Hazaras had suffered horribly at the hands of the Taleban.

Bazaars had been torched in town after town and there have been reports of Bosnian-style ethnic cleansing involving the execution of hundreds of local men.

The Hezb-i-Wahdat was driven out of Bamiyan by the Taleban in 1998.

The city hit the world's headlines in March, when the destruction of the two giant statues provoked widespread international condemnation and criticism from Muslim leaders around the world.

The Taleban dynamited the monuments, carved into the Hindu Kush mountains, claiming that all statues were false idols and contrary to their Islamic beliefs.

Chomsky

e US-Israeli Invasion of Lebanon

Noam Chomsky

Al-Adab, August 19, 2006

Though there are many interacting factors, the immediate issue that lies behind the latest US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon remains, I believe, what it was in the four preceding invasions: the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the most important case, the devastating US-backed 1982 Israeli invasion was openly described in Israel as a war for the West Bank, undertaken to put an end to annoying PLO calls for a diplomatic settlement (with the secondary goal of imposing a client regime in Lebanon). There are numerous other illustrations. Despite the many differences in circumstances, the July 2006 invasion falls generally into the same pattern.

Among mainstream American critics of Bush administration policies, the favored version is that “We had always approached [conflict between Israel and its neighbors] in a balanced way, assuming that we could be the catalyst for an agreement,” but Bush II regrettably abandoned that neutral stance, causing great problems for the United States (Middle East specialist and former diplomat Edward Walker, a leading moderate). The actual record is quite different: For over 30 years, Washington has unilaterally barred a peaceful political settlement, with only slight and brief deviations.

The consistent rejectionism can be traced back to the February 1971 Egyptian offer of a full peace treaty with Israel, in the terms of official US policy, offering nothing for the Palestinians. Israel understood that this peace offer would put an end to any security threat, but the government decided to reject security in favor of expansion, then mostly into northeastern Sinai. Washington supported Israel’s stand, adhering to Kissinger’s principle of “stalemate”: force, not diplomacy. It was only 8 years later, after a terrible war and great suffering, that Washington agreed to Egypt’s demand for withdrawal from its territory.

Meanwhile the Palestinian issue had entered the international agenda, and a broad international consensus had crystallized in favor of a two-state settlement on the pre-June 1967 border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments. In December 1975, the UN Security Council agreed to consider a resolution proposed by the Arab “confrontation states” with these provisions, also incorporating the basic wording of UN 242. The US vetoed the resolution. Israel’s reaction was to bomb Lebanon, killing over 50 people in Nabatiye, calling the attack “preventive” – presumably to “prevent” the UN session, which Israel boycotted.

The only significant exception to consistent US-Israeli rejectionism was in January 2001, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came close to agreement in Taba. But the negotiations were called off by Israeli Prime Minister Barak four days early, ending that promising effort. Unofficial but high-level negotiations continued, leading to the Geneva Accord of December 2002, with similar proposals. It was welcomed by most of the world, but rejected by Israel and dismissed by Washington (and, reflexively, the US media and intellectual classes).

Meanwhile US-backed Israeli settlement and infrastructure programs have been “creating facts on the ground” in order to undermine potential realization of Palestinian national rights. Throughout the Oslo years, these programs continued steadily, with a sharp peak in 2000: Clinton’s final year, and Barak’s. The current euphemism for these programs is “disengagement” from Gaza and “convergence” in the West Bank – in Western rhetoric, Ehud Olmert’s courageous program of withdrawal from the occupied territories. The reality, as usual, is quite different.

The Gaza “disengagement” was openly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. Having turned Gaza into a disaster area, sane Israeli hawks realized that there was no point leaving a few thousand settlers taking the best land and scarce resources, protected by a large part of the IDF. It made more sense to send them to the West Bank and Golan Heights, where new settlement programs were announced, while turning Gaza into “the world’s largest prison,” as Israeli human rights groups accurately call it. West Bank “Convergence” formalizes these programs of annexation, cantonization, and imprisonment. With decisive US support, Israel is annexing valuable lands and the most important resources of the West Bank (primarily water), while carrying out settlement and infrastructure projects that divide the shrinking Palestinian territories into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful corner of Jerusalem will be left to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan Valley, and of course any other access to the outside world.

All of these programs are recognized to be illegal, in violation of numerous Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court any part of the "separation wall" that is built to “defend” the settlements is “ipso facto” illegal (U.S. Justice Buergenthal, in a separate declaration). Hence about 80-85% of the wall is illegal, as is the entire “convergence” program. But for a self-designated outlaw state and its clients, such facts are minor irrelevancies.

Currently, the US and Israel demand that Hamas accept the 2002 Arab League Beirut proposal for full normalization of relations with Israel after withdrawal in accord with the international consensus. The proposal has long been accepted by the PLO, and it has also been formally accepted by the “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that Hezbollah would not disrupt such an agreement if it is accepted by Palestinians. Hamas has repeatedly indicated its willingness to negotiate in these terms.

The facts are doctrinally unacceptable, hence mostly suppressed. What we see, instead, is the stern warning to Hamas by the editors of the New York Times that their formal agreement to the Beirut peace plan is “an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government.” Like others, the NYT editors fail to mention that the US and Israel forcefully reject this proposal, and are alone in doing so among relevant actors. Furthermore, they reject it not merely in rhetoric, but far more importantly, in deeds. We see at once who constitutes the “lawless opposition” and who speaks for them. But that conclusion cannot be expressed, even entertained, in respectable circles.

The only meaningful support for Palestinians facing national destruction is from Hezbollah. For this reason alone it follows that Hezbollah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hezbollah is too deeply embedded within Lebanese society to be eradicated, so Lebanon too must be largely destroyed. An expected benefit for the US and Israel was to enhance the credibility of threats against Iran by eliminating a Lebanese-based deterrent to a possible attack. But none of this turned out as planned. Much as in Iraq, and elsewhere, Bush administration planners have created catastrophes, even for the interests they represent. That is the primary reason for the unprecedented criticism of the administration among the foreign policy elite, even before the invasion of Iraq.

In the background lie more far-reaching and lasting concerns: to ensure what is called “stability” in the reigning ideology. “Stability,” in simple words, means obedience. “Stability” is undermined by states that do not strictly follow orders, secular nationalists, Islamists who are not under control (in contrast, the Saudi monarchy, the oldest and most valuable US ally, is fine), etc. Such “destabilizing” forces are particularly dangerous when their programs are attractive to others, in which case they are called “viruses” that must be destroyed. “Stability” is enhanced by loyal client states. Since 1967, it has been assumed that Israel can play this role, along with other “peripheral” states. Israel has become virtually an off-shore US military base and high-tech center, the natural consequence of its rejection of security in favor of expansion in 1971, and repeatedly since. These policies are subject to little internal debate, whoever holds state power. The policies extend world-wide, and in the Middle East, their significance is enhanced by one of the leading principles of foreign policy since World War II (and for Britain before that): to ensure control over Middle East energy resources, recognized for 60 years to be “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

The standard Western version is that the July 2006 invasion was justified by legitimate outrage over capture of two Israeli soldiers at the border. The posture is cynical fraud. The US and Israel, and the West generally, have little objection to capture of soldiers, or even to the far more severe crime of kidnapping civilians (or of course to killing civilians). That had been Israeli practice in Lebanon for many years, and no one ever suggested that Israel should therefore be invaded and largely destroyed. Western cynicism was revealed with even more dramatic clarity as the current upsurge of violence erupted after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That too elicited huge outrage, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its murderous assault on Gaza. The scale is reflected in casualties: in June, 36 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza; in July, the numbers more than quadrupled to over 170, dozens of them children. The posture of outrage was, again, cynical fraud, as demonstrated dramatically, and conclusively, by the reaction to Israel's kidnapping of two Gaza civilians, the Muamar brothers, one day before, on June 24. They disappeared into Israel's prison system, joining the hundreds of others imprisoned without charge -- hence kidnapped, as are many of those sentenced on dubious charges. There was some brief and dismissive mention of the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers, but no reaction, because such crimes are considered legitimate when carried out by “our side.” The idea that this crime would justify a murderous assault on Israel would have been regarded as a reversion to Nazism.

The distinction is clear, and familiar throughout history: to paraphrase Thucydides, the powerful are entitled to do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must.

We should not overlook the progress that has been made in undermining the imperial mentality that is so deeply rooted in Western moral and intellectual culture as to be beyond awareness. Nor should we forget the scale of what remains to be achieved, tasks that must be undertaken in solidarity and cooperation by people in North and South who hope to see a more decent and civilized world.

In special memory for:

Vanessa, my one and only best friend. She died, 25 years old. Her heart was broken, by knowing, what goes on in our world. I will miss her, every day in my life, the rest of my life. V. I love you.> And you always told me, this song is about the children< (Lyrics by: Brian may) Theres no time for us/ Theres no place for us/ What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away From us/ Who wants to live forever/ Who wants to live forever....?/ Theres no chance for us/ Its all decided for us/ This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us/ Who wants to live forever/ Who wants to live forever?/ Who dares to love forever?/ When love must die/ But touch my tears with your lips/ Touch my world with your fingertips/ And we can have forever/ And we can love forever/ Forever is our today/ Who wants to live forever/ Who wants to live forever?/ Forever is our today/ Who waits forever anyway?

WAS IT A HAOX?

For fair use only:

Was Srebenica a hoax? Eye-Witness Account of a Former United Nations Military Observer in Bosnia

By Carlos Martins Branco

Author's Preface

I was on the ground in Bosnia during the war and, in particular, during the fall of Srebrenica.

One may agree or disagree with my political analysis, but one really ought to read the account of how Srebrenica fell, who are the victims whose bodies have been found so far, and why the author believes that the Serbs wanted to conquer Srebrenica and make the Bosnian Muslims flee, rather than having any intentions of butchering them. The comparison Srebrenica vs. Krajina, as well as the related media reaction by the "free press" in the West, is also rather instructive.

There is little doubt that at least 2,000 Bosnian Muslims died in fighting the better trained and better commanded VRS/BSA. Yet, the question remains, WHEN did most of these casualties of combat occur? According to the analysis below, it was before the final fall of Srebrenica: the Muslims offered very little resistance in the summer of 1995.

I was UNMO [United Nations Military Observer] Deputy Chief Operations Officer of the UNPF [United Nations Population Fund] (at theatre level) and my information is based upon debriefings of UN military observers who where posted to Srebrenica during those days as well as several United Nations reports which were not made public.

My sources of information are not Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs. My name is not included in their database.

I do not wish to discuss numbers and similar matters pertaining thereto. There is reason to believe that figures have been used and manipulated for propaganda purposes. These figures and information do not provide a serious understanding of the Yugoslavian conflict.

The article is based upon TRUE information and includes my analysis of the events. The story is longer than what I have presented here in this article.

It is my hope that it will contribute to clarifying what really happened in Srebrenica.

Was Srebenica a hoax?

It is now two years since the Muslim enclave, Srebenica, fell into the hands of the Serbian army in Bosnia. Much has been written about the matter. Nonetheless the majority of reports have been limited to a broad media exposure of the event, with very little analytic rigor.

Discussion of Srebrenica cannot be limited to genocide and mass graves.

A rigorous analysis of the events must take into consideration the background circumstances, in order to understand the real motives which led to the fall of the enclave.

The zone of Srebrenica, like almost all of Eastern Bosnia, is characterized by very rugged terrain. Steep valleys with dense forests and deep ravines make it impossible for combat vehicles to pass, and offers a clear advantage to defensive forces. Given the resources available to both parties, and the characteristics of the terrain, it would seem that the Bosnian army (ABiH) had the necessary force to defend itself, if it had used full advantage of the terrain. This, however, did not occur.

Given the military advantage of the defensive forces it is very difficult to explain the absence of military resistance. The Muslim forces did not establish an effective defensive system and did not even try to take advantage of their heavy artillery, under control of the United Nations (UN) forces, at a time in which they had every reason to do so.

The lack of a military response stands in clear contrast to the offensive attitude which characterized the actions of the defensive forces in previous siege situations, which typically launched violent "raids" against the Serbian villages surrounding the enclave, thus provoking heavy casualties amongst the Serbian civilian population.

But in this instance, with the attention of the media focused upon the area, military defence of the enclave would have revealed the true situation in security zones, and demonstrate that these had never been genuinely demilitarized zones as was claimed, but were harboured highly-armed military units. Military resistance would jeopardize the image of "victim", which had been so carefully constructed, and which the Muslims considered vital to maintain.

Throughout the entire operation, it was clear that there were profound disagreements between the leaders of the enclave. From a military viewpoint, there was total confusion. Oric, the charismatic commander of Srebenica, was absent.

The Sarajevo government did not authorize his return in order to lead the resistance. Military power fell into the hands of his lieutenants, who had a long history of incompatibility. The absence of Oric's clear leadership led to a situation of total ineptitude. The contradictory orders of his successors completely paralyzed the forces under siege.

The behavior of the political leaders is also interesting. The local SDP president, Zlatko Dukic, in an interview with European Union observers, explained that Srebrenica formed part of a business transaction which involved a logistical support route to Sarajevo, via Vogosca.

He also claimed that the fall of the enclave formed part of an orchestrated campaign to discredit the West and win the support of Islamic countries. This was the reason for Oric to maintain a distance from his troops. This thesis was also defended by the local supporters of the DAS. There were also many rumours of a trade within the local population of the enclave.

Another curious aspect was the absence of a military reaction from the 2nd Corps of the Muslim army, which did nothing to relieve the military pressure on the enclave. It was common knowledge that the Serbian unit in the region, the "Drina Corps", was exhausted and that the attack on Srebenica was only possible with the aid of the units from other regions. Despite this fact, Sarajevo did not lift a finger in order to launch an attack which would have divided the Serbian forces and exposed the vulnerabilities created by the concentration of resources around Srebenica. Such an attack would have reduced the military pressure on the enclave.

It is also important to register the pathetic appeal of the president of Opstina, Osman Suljic, on July 9, which implored military observers to say to the world that the Serbians were using chemical weapons. The same gentleman later accused the media of transmitting false news items on the resistance of troops in the enclave, requiring a denial from the UN. According to Suljic, the Muslim troops did not respond, and would never respond with heavy artillery fire. Simultaneously, he complained of the lack of food supplies and of the humanitarian situation. Curiously, observers were never allowed to inspect the food reserve deposits. The emphasis given by political leaders on the lack of military response and the absence of food provisions loosely suggests an official policy which began to be discernible.

In mid 1995, the prolongation of the war had dampened public interest. There had been a substantial reduction in the pressure of public opinion in the western democracies. An incident of this importance would nonetheless provide hot news material for the media during several weeks, could awaken public opinion and incite new passions. In this manner it would be possible to kill two birds with one stone: pressure could be laid to bear in order to lift the embargo and simultaneously the occupying countries would find it difficult to withdraw their forces, a hypothesis which had been advanced by leading UN figures such as Akashi and Boutros-Boutros Ghali.

The Muslims always harbored a secret hope that the embargo would be lifted. This had become the prime objective of the Sarajevo government, and had been fuelled by the vote in the US Senate and Congress in favor of such a measure. President Clinton, however, vetoed the decision and required a two thirds majority in both houses. The enclaves collapse gave the decisive push that the campaign needed. After its fall, the US Senate voted with over a two thirds majority in favor of lifting the embargo.

It was clear that sooner or later the enclaves would fall into the hands of the Serbians, it was an inevitability. There was a consensus amongst the negotiators (the US administration, the UN and European governments) that it was impossible to maintain the three Muslim enclaves, and that they should be exchanged for territories in Central Bosnia. Madeleine Albright suggested this exchange on numerous occasions to Izetbegovic, based on the proposals of the Contact Group.

As early as 1993, at the time of the first crisis of the enclave, Karadzic had proposed to Izetbgovic to exchange Srebrenica for the suburb of Vogosca. This exchange included the movement of populations in both directions. This was the purpose of secret negotiations in order to avoid undesirable publicity. This implied that the western countries accepted and encouraged ethnic separation.

The truth is that both the Americans and President Izetbegovic had tacitly agreed that it made no sense to insist in maintaining these isolated enclaves in a divided Bosnia. In 1995 nobody believed any longer in the inevitability of ethnic division of the territory. In the month of June 1995, before the military operation in Srebrenica, Alexander Vershbow, Special Assistant to President Clinton stated that "America should encourage the Bosnians to think in terms of territories with greater territorial coherence and compactness." In other words this meant that the enclaves should be forgotten. The attack on Srebrenica, with no help from Belgrade, was completely unnecessary and proved to be one of the most significant examples of the political failure of the Serbian leadership.

Meanwhile the western media exacerbated the situation by transforming the enclaves into a powerful mass-media icon; a situation which Izetbegovic was quick to explore. CNN had daily broadcasts of the images of mass graves for thousands of corpses, obtained from spy satellites. Despite the microscopic precision in the localization of these graves, it is certain that no discovery to date has confirmed such suspicions. Since there are no longer restrictions on movement, we inevitably speculate on why they have still not been shown to the world.

If there had been a premeditated plan of genocide, instead of attacking in only one direction, from the south to the north - which left the hypothesis to escape to the north and west, the Serbs would have established a siege in order to ensure that no one escaped. The UN observation posts to the north of the enclave were never disturbed and remained in activity after the end of the military operations. There are obviously mass graves in the outskirts of Srebrenica as in the rest of ex-Yugoslavia where combat has occurred, but there are no grounds for the campaign which was mounted, nor the numbers advanced by CNN.

The mass graves are filled by a limited number of corpses from both sides, the consequence of heated battle and combat and not the result of a premeditated plan of genocide, as occurred against the Serbian populations in Krajina, in the Summer of 1995, when the Croatian army implemented the mass murder of all Serbians found there. In this instance, the media maintained an absolute silence, despite the fact that the genocide occurred over a three month period. The objective of Srebrenica was ethnic cleansing and not genocide, unlike what happened in Krajina, in which although there was no military action, the Croatian army decimated villages.

Despite knowledge of the fact that the enclaves were already a lost cause, Sarajevo insisted in drawing political dividends from the fact. The receptivity which had been created in the eyes of public opinion made it easier to sell the thesis of genocide.

But of even greater importance than the genocide thesis and the political isolation of the Serbs, was blackmailing of the UN: either the UN joined forces with the Sarajevo government in the conflict (which subsequently happened) or the UN would be completely discredited in the eyes of the public, leading in turn to support for Bosnia. Srebrenica was the last straw which led western governments to reach agreement on the need to cease their neutrality and commence a military action against one side in the conflict. It was the last straw which united the West in their desire to break "Serbian bestiality". Sarajevo was conscious of the fact that it lacked the military capacity to defeat the Serbs. It was necessary to create conditions via which the international community could do this for them. Srebrenica played a vital role in this process.

Srebrenica represents one of a series of acts by the Serbian leaders intended to provoke the UN, in order to demonstrate their impotence. This was a serious strategic error which would cost them dear. The side which had everything to win by demonstrating the impotence of the UN was the Sarajevo leadership and not that of Pale. In 1995 it was clear that the change in the status quo required a powerful intervention which would overthrow the Serbian military power. Srebrenica was one of the pretexts, resulting from the short-sightedness of the Bosnian Serbian leaders.

The besieged forces could have easily defended the enclave, at least for much longer, if they had been well led. It proved convenient to let the enclave fall in this manner. Since the enclave was doomed to fall, it was preferable to let this happen in the most beneficial manner possible. But this would only have been viable if Sarajevo had political initiative and freedom of movement, which would never occur at the negotiating table. The deliberate fall of the enclave might appear to be an act of terrible machiavellian orchestration, but the truth is that the Sarajevo government had much to gain, as proved to be the case. Srebrenica was not a zero-sum game. The Serbians won a military victory but with highly negative political side-effects, which helped result in their definitive ostracization.

We might add a final curious note. As the UN observation posts were attacked, and proved impossible to maintain, the forces withdrew. The barricades set up by the Muslim army did not let the troops past. These troops were not treated as soldiers fleeing from the front line, but rather with a sordid differentiation.

The Muslims not only refused to fight to defend themselves, they forced others to fight on their behalf. In one instance, the commander of a Dutch vehicle decided after conversations with ABiH to pass the barrier. A Muslim soldier threw a hand grenade whose fragments mortally wounded him. The only UN soldier to die in the Srebrenica offensive, was killed by the Muslims.

Carlos Martins Branco, a Portuguese military officer who served in Bosnia as a UNMO (UN Military Observers) Deputy Chief Operations Officer in the UNPF (UN Peace Forces) at theatre level, teaches at the European University Institute, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Badia Fiesolana, Italy

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WAS IT A HAOX?