Posted on 08/25/2004 3:12:36 PM PDT by joan
Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard admits to being confused -- and angry. He has rejected Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to use him as a witness at his war crimes trial, but Pritchard says The Hague now wants him as a witness -- but not against Milosevic.
Instead they want him as a witness for atrocities and human rights abuses committed by Croats when they overran the centre of Knin, capital of Serbian-occupied Krajina, which Croatia attacked and conquered in 1995.
"I don't get it," says Pritchard. "Film footage I shot for the National Film Board around 1995 was turned over to prosecutors at The Hague, as evidence of massacres of people and all livestock in Knin. My tapes and testimony mysteriously disappeared -- were supposedly lost. Now they are found. Equally mysteriously."
After a report in the Sun last weekend, Pritchard says he was phoned yesterday by the RCMP working in The Hague, saying his video footage has since been found and he's wanted to testify.
"Something seems fishy," Pritchard says. "The Sun article was quoted, and I was told my tapes and testimony had been turned over to the Croats for prosecution."
He said RCMP officer Tom Steendoordan phoned him from The Hague, reported finding his "lost" material and it was now intended to investigate what happened in Knin.
Pritchard has fretted over the ignoring of Knin atrocities for years -- one of the Balkan war's horror stories.
When the Croats -- re-armed by the Germans -- occupied Krajina, attention focused on the Medak pocket where Canadians came under Croat fire.
"I was in Knin, where Maj. Gen. Alain Forand was in command of some 32 Canadians and gave sanctuary to about 800 Serbian refugees, feeding and protecting them for close to two months."
The UN insisted these Serbs were not refugees and should not be protected. "We all knew they'd be killed if we didn't protect them. Forand told the world 'not on my watch' will they be turfed out to be killed. In my eyes, Forand is a hero for refusing to turn these people over to the Croats."
Eventually the 800 were safely delivered to Serbian territory, and Knin was relegated to the Memory Hole.
"But I had it all on video," Pritchard says. "Livestock slaughtered, women eviscerated, raped, burned."
He says Steendoordan told him 82 bodies were found in Knin, and that the Croats want to follow up on war crimes.
"That makes me suspicious," says Pritchard. "Croats investigating Croat war crimes in Knin? They've got to be kidding. It smells of coverup." As for Kosovo, Pritchard says, Steendoordan corrected his claim of only 3,000 bodies found, not the widely accepted 200,000 dead in mass graves.
"He said 3,000 was accurate then. Now 5,080 bodies have been found -- but still no mass graves." Pritchard is pleased that some of the truth is beginning to come out. Pritchard told the Sun that Milosevic could "rot in hell" before he'd testify on his behalf that there were no mass murders in Kosovo.
Bosnia, yes, but not Kosovo.
"Yes, I want the truth to come out, but as a journalist I have no intention of testifying on behalf of Croats either. They only got my video footage in the first place because the film board owned it and gave it to them."
A test of The Hague's sincerity in exposing war crimes in Knin will be if Gen. Forand, now retired, testifies.
"This is a man whose courage and integrity saved the lives of 800 Serb refugees, when his Canadian superiors and the UN wanted them sacrificed to expediency." He adds: "Frankly, I don't trust much that happens at The Hague."
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UN leadership or those controlling it wanted those Serbs to be turned over to Croats where they'd be tortured (Croats are among the best at extreme torture) then killed. Only because these Canadian UN soldiers disobeyed were civilians' lives saved. The UN is unhappy those Serb civilians weren't killed and they got away.
I think the Serbs should take over all UN property and buildings in Serbia and give it to the refugees.
I have consistently criticized UN peacekeepers as mere "witnesses" to slaughter, who would not act to save anyone without explicit orders, and maybe not then. Their record in Congo, Rwanda, and Bosnia doesn't speak well of them. Their usual practice is to hide until the fighting is over, and only then come out to count the bodies.
It is heartening to read that, on that day and in that place, those Canadians had the grit to act, even against orders, to save lives who were counting on them.
And in Rwanda, the UN left promptly after the Tutsis had all crowded into schools, hospitals, etc. where the UN was based, the Hutus knew exactly where to get at the Tutsis once the UN departed. There were Tutsis BEGGING the departing UN soldiers to shoot them because they preferred that over being slaughtered by machetes - the main killing tool of the Hutus. The UN wouldn't even take a pleaing woman with them on their truck - but all the pet dogs of foreigners departing were shipped out. The UN makes these massacres EASIER. The massacres and the wars happen AFTER the UN has been established in these places.
You've probably seen the interviews with the Canadian commander in Rwanda. He says his pleas for permission to act were turned down by Kofi Annan. He said he had a breakdown after his service there, where he witnessed things no one should have to see.
Somewhere I read an interview with a Norwegian soldier who also had a nervous breakdown after service there, where he said women were killed right in front of his eyes, close enough to splatter blood on his uniform. But he was not permitted to intervene.
And my thought, in the case of both of them, was that you were there, you were armed, you could have saved some of them. You could have saved someone. You could have stopped someone.
Were you really so concerned about your career in a make-believe army?
It is one thing to do nothing when you are powerless to act. It is another to stand by with a loaded gun and watch. These men deserve their mental breakdowns. They deserve to be haunted by their consciences until the day they die.
So, again, it is heartening to read of these Canadians who did find their nerve, even against orders, and did what decent men ought to do.
doesnt the 5080 sound eerily similar to my numbers I've provided? But these numbers are off by thousand plus.
"there were no mass murders in Kosovo"
UN leadership or those controlling it
Try those controlling it. The US didn't want the atrocities of Op Storm or the plight of those "refugees" to be publicised because the US leadership was complicit in what happened during Op Storm (MPRI, clandestine arms shipments, etc, etc.) Everything was aimed at Clinton's "triumph" at Dayton, let's not forget.
The people sheltering in Knin and other UN compounds were not in fact refugees. They had not crossed an internationally-recognised border and therefore were not legally refugees -- they were IDPs or Internally Displaced Persons. The laws and mandates are different for refugees and IDPs. They were citizens of Croatia on Croatian territory. And therefore subject to Croatian law. It took a lot of negotiation on the part of the UN to continue to shelter these people (when they had no such mandate) and then to get the Croats to agree to provide transportion (yes, they were transported on Croat busses!) and protect the "Safe Passage" convoy from Knin to Lipovac.
Remember what happened in the original "Op Safe Passage" in August 1995 when Croats were beating the Serbs with pipes and throwing rocks off overpasses at them? Well, for this "Op Safe Passage (Knin)in September there were Croat police stationed at every overpass and Croat guards the whole way. Do you really think this was such an easy thing to negotiate? But we did it!
And it is to be remembered that the Croats did have rights on their own territory -- they didn't want any war criminals slipping away.
Yes, Forand was a hero. There were lots of heroes, both civilian and military. Col. Andy (I think his last name was Leslie) was also a hero. I was lead humananitarian officer for "Op Safe Passage (Knin)" and Col. Andy was terrific and had a great deal to do with it happening in the first place and it running as well as it did. Lots of other UN did, too. And it wasn't just Knin. Up in Sector North, we sheltered IDPs in Topusko and Glina in Sector North and they had their own "Op Safe Passage (SN)" not long after the one from Knin. I did that one by myself.
Of course one never reads about Sector North, only Knin, because there were no journalists there (the Croats shot the BBC guy in the head) and we didn't have the Canadian battalion. We did have a very heroic Canadian UNMO who got his legs blown off, though.
And before you slam the UN to pieces -- yes, there is a lot wrong with the UN. But there WERE UN people on the ground during Op Storm who risked their lives and stood up to it all. And you might be amazed at what we did and how many lives we saved at risk to our own. Just ask Toso Pajic, the only member of the RSK leadership who stuck around to try to help his people and negotiate some relief for them.
The Americans, who could easily have stopped it, could easily have done something, had to be arm-twisted into putting pressure on the Croats to behave. That's how things are done. The Americans call the shots.
The UN is unhappy those Serb civilians weren't killed and they got away.
That's really over the top, joan. And an insult to all of us who DID actually go out in the very middle of Op Storm to save lives. And certainly an insult to those who were injured or died in the process. Those words really make me boil. When was the last time YOU went into a minefield or stood down a red-eyed jittery soldier with a very big gun who'd been killing people? I can give you dates and times I did those things. Why didn't YOU go do something about it? (Don't use being a woman as an excuse--I'm one, too.) If you haven't done anything, you have no right to critisize those who did, especially as you have no clue what we really did.
As for the UN disarming the ARSK (Krajina Serbs), well, it didn't happen. Sorry. Unless you count the weapons buyback programme in UNTAES in 1997, per Dayton/Erdut.
Are you sure the Norwegian was armed? Only "Batt" soldiers carry arms. I don't think there was a NORBATT in Rwanda. UNMOs (military observers) don't have any arms at all.
And how the heck were they supposed to save anyone in Rwanda? These hordes of thugs are slaughtering away, and yeah, you might shoot one of them before they kill you, but then they'll go right on slaughtering everyone. You can't save anyone's life in such a situation. If you try, you die in vain, with no hope of perhaps helping anyone if the situation should change and no hope of trying to make the situation change via communication with the powers that be in NY and Washington about what is happening.
The Canadians in Knin simply allowed the refugees to come into the compound. They didn't have to battle an army of crazed thugs, or even leave their compound to help those people. What the Canadians did in Knin did was admirable, but they faced nothing like what happened in Rwanda.
So, if you'd been in Rwanda, you would have died in vain and the people would have been killed anyway. You really think you would have done that? If so, then you're way past dumb.
True, Diocletian, and it's good to have you back, BTW! In the south, around Knin, nearly all simply fled over the hills in those directions. And the HV/HVO offensive up through the Livno Valley during the week or so prior did leave an opening for the Krajina Serbs to flee from the Knin area as you said. I remember watching the HV/HVO troop movements there on the maps about a week before Storm and realising this was what they were doing. And if dumb little civvie me could figure it out, anybody could. Nearly all of the 800 IDPs in the Knin compound were elderly, infirm and/or handicapped. They couldn’t easily flee and wound up sheltering in the compound. Also, some had been wounded in the shelling.
But, for everyone in northern Lika (from north of Korenica), and in all of Kordun and Banija, there was only one way out: the Vojnic-Vrginmost-Glina-Dvor route to Bos. Novi -- a long and circuitous route as you well know.
And we all know that route was cut and then the fleeing Serbs backed up into a huge pool around Topusko (there were at last 30,000 in Topusko proper – not a square inch without a person or tractor on it). And all along the road from about Maja down to Dvor, it was a bloody mess. That route was no more by sometime on 6 August (I no longer remember the hour). It was a true mess by 7 August. The Terms of Surrender negotiated on 8 August included the “Op Safe Passage” of 10-12 August through Glina-Moscenica-Sisak and on to Lipovac because that was the only way out left.
Much of the mess on the Glina-Dvor road was the work of ABiH’s 5th Corps. Remember the pile of dead sheep at Zirovac we talked about? That was 5th Corps of course. And they slaughtered a number of elderly Serbs there – I’d guess over 100 in Zirovac and its surrounding hamlets. Ostojici Hamlet was really a disaster. Chopped off some heads, too.
But the Croats did their share, what with the MiGs strafing the “refugee” column and so forth. Certain HV elements acted with extreme heroism and humanity, for example those who actually directed “refugees” out of the killing zone on that road to safety in the village of Pedalj on the “HV side” of the road. There were some ZNG elements who did not act at all honourably on that road, however. And yes, I know, atrocities happen in all wars, no matter who is fighting them, and even moreso in civil wars.
Op Storm was planned and organised as a massive ethnic cleansing, not a mass slaughter. You are right. I couldn’t agree more. And there was a deal between Milosevic and Tudjman. True. And the RSK leadership sold out their own people. It was still ethnic cleansing, though.
And speaking of 5th Corps, what I really, really don’t get is why no one has ever gone after Dudakovic. You Croats could deflect a lot of criticism for Op Storm onto him. And possibly solve the Santic mystery into the bargain?
I spent two days in Bihac last summer, and no one dared speak about Vlado Santic.
The 5th ABiH are the most ungrateful bunch of SOB's around.
Maybe.
Are you sure the Norwegian was armed?
I did some checking, and Norway was not part of Dallaire's operation. Norway did send some field hospitals, apparently, so it may be that my Norwegian was security for that. I can't find the original article to be sure, but if he was standing guard at the perimeter of a clinic you can assume he had orders to defend the hospital and nothing more.
I just read an interview with Dallaire's #2 who agreed with Dallaire that they could have done more had they been given authority by New York to do so. Their first plan was to seize the weapons caches, arrest the leaders, and shut off the radio that was coordinating the slaughter; they had information from informants, but were denied permission.
Their second plan was to create safe zones where refugees could gather, but there it gets a little weird. There was a political problem, in that they saw themselves as "neutral", and defending Tutsis violated their sense of neutrality. It also brought them into conflict with the mobs and the Rwandan soldiers.
In the interview Colonel Marchal recounts the case of a political leader under their protection. He had assigned 4 UN soldiers to protect him. A group of 15 or 20 presidential guards came to kill him, and did so while Marchal was on the phone with him. The guards offered no resistance. The interviewer asked Marchal why he didn't give permission for the guards to open fire, and his answer was that he couldn't get them on the radio, and he couldn't get their Ghanaian commander on the radio either.
Which means, incredibly, that soldiers assigned as bodyguards needed authority to shoot? Granted, the odds weren't good, but there were other UN troops in the vicinity. I can't imagine US troops giving up their man without a fight in such a case.
The more famous case is that of a school where refugees had gathered under UN protection. The troops there decided they could create a more secure perimeter at the local airport, and decided to move. They told the refugees to go home. Asked if he didn't know they would be killed, Marchal said that he had no reason to believe harm would come to them.
Which is silly, if there were no danger, they wouldn't be huddled inside the school grounds, surrounded, and fearing for their lives. If there were no danger, there was no need to abandon the school to move to the airport. The history is, of course, that they left the people there and they were killed as the UN soldiers were leaving the compound. As another poster noted, they begged the UN soldiers to kill them to spare them what was coming next.
You are right that there weren't enough UN troops there (Dallaire had 2500, and the French eventually sent a thousand paratroopers who operated separately from the UN) to stop a massacre involving hundreds of thousands. My criticism is that they didn't even protect the people under their protection. Since the mobs in many cases were armed with knives and axes, it seems an armed, disciplined force might have saved some were they willing to fight.
But there were cases where they actually surrendered their arms rather than risk a confrontation.
So, I find it hard to be respectful of UN peacekeeping based on what I have read here, and based on the reports coming out of the Congo, in which UN efforts seem even more ineffectual. They stay inside their compounds, apparently, and come out when its safe to count the bodies. Which makes me wonder what the point is. I suppose they offer security to aid organizations trying to operate there, feeding and offering medical services, but having fed the refugees must stand by and watch while they are killed just outside their fence.
I note from your posts that you have personal knowledge and experience, which must make my comments most annoying. A friend keeps a sign in his office "Everything is easy to the guy who doesn't have to do it". My comments must seem like that to you.
You evidently witnessed, and lived, moments of risk and courage, and saw from close up how things can work, when they work, and you probably have good insight as to why they don't work when they don't.
Which is why I have followed up with this comment. How things work, and how they don't, matters because these things will happen again, of course. One of the main problems, which you alluded to, and which Dallaire has mentioned, is that they could have done so much more had the Americans helped them.
Two things come to mind from that. One, is that few countries maintain serious militaries anymore, capable of operating far from home. Dallaire believed he could have done his job with 5000 men, but was only given half that number. Countries with a stake in the region couldn't find the political will to act.
And the US couldn't be roused to take an interest either. Since there was no direct national security interest, few people here would support an intervention, and there is a great fear of getting bogged down in another country's civil war. I would take a potshot at Clinton here, but I doubt Bush Senior would have deployed troops there either.
We are seeing in Liberia and Sudan GW Bush's approach to the same story, which is that he at least is interested, but not enough to take any decisive action. His preference is to offer support to other countries to put their troops on the line. Sounds nice, but it means that the killing continues.
If I may ask, how did you get involved? Were you in the US military, and seconded to the UN? Do you mind my asking?
thks for the clarification Sgt Major - always helpful
Pritchard should go and testify what he knows not only at the trials of the Croats but also at the Milosevic trial (here is Pritchard's Toronto Sun article). To avoid being branded "Milosevic apologist", he should request to testify as "court witness" instead of "witness for the defense" (just as Lord David Owen did, refusing to testify as "prosecution witness"). He perfectly understands the attachment of the Krajina Serbs to their ancestral land and their fear for their lives in the hands of some Croat fanatics. He surely also understands, and should testify so, that the aforementioned reasons were, as far as he can tell, adequate for the creation of RSK and that he never got the impression that Serbs wanted to stay in Krajina because they were somehow convinced or forced by Milosevic to do so for the sake of "Greater Serbia".
The outcome of the Milosevic trial is mainly not about the fate of a flawed politician but about the attempt to grossly distort the historical record . ICTY's primary goal is to absolve Clinton and NATO leaders from their criminal responsibility in the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia and to ensure that Serbia (essentially the nation as a whole except the DS party and its supporters) is assigned 90% of the blame (10% going to the other local actors). A Milosevic conviction is critical for this gross distortion of history to succeed. The Orwellian "Greater Serbia" absurdity is the core of the indictment. Honest witnesses like Pritchard, Scott Taylor, Gen. MacKenzie, Maj. Gen. Forand and you, wonders, can do a lot to expose it.
All of those soldiers were killed holding open the fork. D.K was killed for the people and not for Martic nor Slobo, but died as an example of honor.
Few years later, the local Croatian rep wrote an unauthorized letter here recalling that fight. DK's Garde recieved a military funeral by the Croatians for their heroism. They gained their respect and others as well.
Martic was feeding the Serbian population the theory how Slobo would rescue them if attacked. In turn, the day-day readiness was non-existant. The VRS sent trooops in to slow the advance til they regrouped. Even Arkans boys raced in, but they deviated from their orders when the slaughter was becoming overkill. They turned-to Rescue Force by holding open roads, corridors and bridges so civilians can pass. They did so against orders for the most part.
People may say what they want about Arkan but if people want to believe the media hype about how "bad" he was, so be it.
He did alot of good for the Serbian Church and people. Bad had to occur for the good to be realized. Unfortunately, alot of the truth is suppressed about the Serbian Krajina being occupied and other events.
As Tropo and I have stated, Knin was pre-arranged to fall along with many other sectors of the RSK.
Truth to be told, when the pre-established lines were breached by the Federation forces, the VRS reversed those grounds and began doling out punishment to the muslims. The Croats stopped where they were supposed to. The muslims got greedy and were smacked down and being wacked good with Croatians providing arty for the advancing Serbs.
When the Serbs were assured by NATO (who were amazed the VRS were able to amount such a formidable counter-attack after the air attacks) the muslims were behaving. Then the Serbs began falling back to the lines pre-arranged.
Well, then we just don't know whether or not he was armed. I don't know what the deal is for Norwegians in such an instance. Your Norwegian may have been some medic, some poor corporal who was told to stand lookout and he was unarmed. Or he may possibly have been armed. I don't like to assume anything. The fact is, you and I weren't there, we don't even have an account of what happened other that some pieces of what you remember about an article. So far be it from me to judge that poor guy and say he "deserves" anything. If you can find the article, then we can debate it.
his answer was that he couldn't get them on the radio, and he couldn't get their Ghanaian commander on the radio either....Which means, incredibly, that soldiers assigned as bodyguards needed authority to shoot?
That's one of the problems with this type of Mission: there isn't exactly a single chain of command. It was once believed or hoped that the mere presence of "bluers" would act as a deterrent. But, sadly, such is not often the case.
I can't imagine US troops giving up their man without a fight in such a case.
The point is, no US troops were there. The US wasn't willing to put its soldiers' lives at risk.
Ref the school, if you could provide a link to that story, I could comment on it better.
Since the mobs in many cases were armed with knives and axes, it seems an armed, disciplined force might have saved some were they willing to fight.
The operative phrases here are "in many cases" and "it seems". That fact is, you and I weren't there. What "seems" to you may in fact be very different from the reality. It's really hard for armchair warriors to know what such situations are really like. I've read that there were mobs of machete-wielders with armed soldiers among them. And it may not have been impossible to "fight" or "fire on" the perpetrators without harming the victims. Sorry, I'm not going to judge those guys or put them down or say they "deserved" anything.
So, I find it hard to be respectful of UN peacekeeping based on what I have read here...
What you'll often read here are lunatic ravings about how the UN is trying to take over the US.
Yes, there are many problems with UN peacekeeping. The UN has been asked to do these big peacekeeping missions over the past 15 years which are not what the UN was ever designed to do. Often, the missions are given impossible tasks and mandates and very little support. That way, the powers that be can look like they're "doing something about it" and then critisizing the UN when it falls apart. Cheap route to the "moral high ground."
Critisize peacekeeping all you like, but I do take exception to your critisizing the peacekeepers on the ground. You haven't walked in their mocassins.
Here's what really frosts me: They deserve to be haunted by their consciences until the day they die. Perhaps you would have done no better, and not even as well as Gen. Dallaire had you been in his place. Better to say, "There but for the Grace of God go I."
I happen to have a great deal of respect and admiration for Gen. Dallaire. Rather than merely critisizing, he's looking for solutions. A voice of experience to be listened to. I consider him a great man, a very thoughtful man, a man of conviction and vision who is doing much good in the world.
It's not just that "few countries maintain serious militaries" -- it's whether they are willing to send them to these peacekeeping missions. And under what conditions. And whether countries are willing to make the necessary financial contribution. Whether there is the political will to contribute blood and treasure. When it came to Rwanda, nobody gave a flying fig.
Here's a little speech by Gen. Dallaire where he touches on these subjects: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Nope, not US military or any military at all. Just another "stupid UNPROFOR". Before that, I was in Cambodia.
You guys wishing you'd left them twisting in the wind now?
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