A Soldier's Conversion?

Until he surprised his critics, his superiors and perhaps himself, General Philippe Morillon seemed too much the canny soldier-diplomat to be caught up emotionally in the tragedy of civil war. Yet there he was last week with all the panache of a musketeer, risking his life, his honor and the U.N.'s dwindling credibility to stay with 80,000 people caught in the Serb siege of Srebrenica. "The Serbs say I'm a human shield," the general proclaimed. "Yes, I am a shield. I will remain in Srebrenica as long as I consider the safety of the inhabitants at risk."

Brave words from a soldier whose actions until then won few plaudits. Through much of his six-month-old assignment Morillon had come across as erratic and even indifferent to the mayhem around him. In his Sarajevo quarters, he bizarrely gave formal-dress dinner parties, even as Serb shells pounded the city. His private conversations with the Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic, branded a war criminal by the U.S., triggered disapproving comments from fellow U.N. officers. Punctilious about maintaining neutrality in a humanitarian mission, Morillon drew fire for not denouncing Serb aggression. Earlier this month, for example, during a visit to the now fallen Muslim village of Cerska the general astounded observers by saying he had not "smelled the odor of death."

On his foray to Srebrenica, Morillon found he could no longer use the diplomatic deodorant that goes with neutrality. For several frustrating days the general tried to persuade Serb siege forces to open the road to allow convoys carrying food and medicine to reach the town. When the Serbs at first refused to yield, Morillon pushed ahead to Srebrenica. The scale of sheer suffering there — the dying children, above all — apparently changed his mind. Said an aid worker: "I think Morillon saw something in that town that he had never seen before." To convince the townspeople of his determination, Morillon stood his 13-man escort at attention and had the U.N. flag hoisted over the post office. The crowd around him burst into cheers. Said Georges Dallemagne, a doctor with Medecins sans Frontieres: "Morillon is playing one of his last cards, perhaps his strongest, to save the town." Finally, late in the week, a U.N. relief convoy, led by Morillon himself, entered Srebrenica, to the cheers of its inhabitants.