Politics and Massacres

Did thousands of Bosnian Muslims die last year because of a "gentlemen's agreement" between the French government and the Bosnian Serbs? That allegation is the centerpiece of a new TV documentary shown in various versions recently in Europe and the U.S. The show suggests that France agreed to use its influence to keep NATO from bombing the Serbs — if the Serbs would release some 400 United Nations peacekeepers, many French, who were being held hostage. That secret accord, says the documentary, lay behind the decision of French General Bernard Janvier, commander of U.N. forces in the former Yugoslavia, not to call for air strikes to stop the Serb assault on the "safe haven" of Srebrenica in July 1995. Some 3,000 Muslims are believed to have been killed in the ensuing massacre; 5,500 more are still missing.

The provocative show, which was put together by the Dutch TV news program IKON, Britain's Channel 4, and two newspapers — Holland's NRC Handelsblad and New York's Newsday — has stirred angry denials. "There was never any promise of no air strikes," Catherine Colonna, spokeswoman for French President Jacques Chirac, told TIME. Colonna stresses that Janvier was acting under U.N. rather than French chain of command and that "any decision belonged to the special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General and not to the troop commander." The controversy has been of particular interest in the Netherlands, where the public has agonized over charges that Dutch peacekeepers made little effort to prevent the massacre at Srebrenica. last week the Dutch Parliament called for an international commission to investigate the enclave's fall.

In the TV documentary, allegations are based on confidential U.N. documents. The records show that Janvier met with Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic on June 4, 1995. According to a communication from Janvier to the U.N. in New York City, Mladic was in "a frenzied mood" when he laid down the terms of an agreement: the Bosnian Serbs would stop threatening U.N. soldiers in exchange for a ban on air strikes on their territory. Janvier's signature would result in the immediate release of all hostages. Janvier did not sign, but one of his military aides asserted in an interview with the journalists who made the documentary that a pair of high-ranking French officers under orders from President Chirac arrived two days later to close the deal. On June 18 the last of the hostages were released. While acknowledging that the June 4 meeting took place, Chirac's spokeswoman insists that its purpose was "not to do a deal" and that Mladic's offer to release the hostages in exchange for a no-bombs pledge "was not accepted by us." A U.N. spokesman says, "There is nothing in our records that indicated any deal between Mladic and Janvier."

Of course, France was not the only nation involved in decisions on whether or not to bomb the Serbs. Air strikes were contingent on all the major NATO allies agreeing to let the bombs fly. A June 19 fax sent to U.N. Under Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Yasushi Akashi, then U.N. special representative to the former Yugoslavia, recounts Akashi's meeting with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic two days earlier and reads in part, "In the course of our discussions on air power, Milosevic stated that he had been advised by President Chirac of President Clinton's agreement that air strikes should not occur if unacceptable to Chirac." A senior White House official flatly denies that Clinton either knew of or tacitly approved any such agreement.

While this memorandum, based on a secondhand statement from Milosevic, is not proof of a deal, Annan found it worrisome enough to fire off a cable of his own to Akashi: "We have been troubled by reports that the U.N. [peacekeeping force] has been told to take no action without Serb approval. It would be unfortunate if we were now to give in to a mentality concerned mainly with the safety of our own personnel."

Notes from a meeting of U.N. military commanders in Zagreb on July 10 — the day before Srebrenica's fall — indicate that Janvier had already prepared an explanation for the absence of air strikes. Quoting Janvier, the document reads, "If someone says why there was no close air support, we can say it's because of an infantry attack and too dangerous." Throughout the Serb assault, Janvier stuck to this position despite the urgings of his military advisers for immediate air raids.

Most sources doubt that Chirac personally entered into any bargain. But many concede that some sort of tacit agreement may have been reached that led the Bosnian Serbs to believe air strikes would cease if they released the hostages. If there was indeed a secret deal between France and the Bosnian Serbs — and the documentary offers no definitive proof of that — there is perhaps only one good thing that can be said about the pact: it may have helped bring the war to a swifter, if bloodier, halt. The release of the hostages arguably cleared the way for the formation of the U.N.'s Rapid Reaction Force and for subsequent NATO bombing raids, which helped force the warring sides to make peace at the talks in Dayton, Ohio. Of course, the Dayton accords came much too late for the many dead and missing of Srebrenica.