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- arhived article -
COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street, Room 506
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364
ANSWERS NEEDED TO CHARGES OF UN MISCONDUCT
IN BOSNIA
EDITOR'S NOTE:
For half a year charges of sexual
misconduct filed by a Sarajevo prosecutor against a high UN official have been
circulating widely in Arab, European and Canadian media, and in UN and human
rights circles in New York. While the official named denied the charges, to date
there has been no formal acknowledgement let alone inquiry into them, raising
troubling questions for some about who polices the peacekeepers. PNS associate
editor Dennis Bernstein is an award-winning investigative reporter. Bernstein's
research was funded in part by the Washington, D.C. based Fund for Investigative
Journalism.
BY DENNIS BERNSTEIN, PACIFIC NEWS
SERVICE
Last November the chief Bosnian military prosecutor in Sarajevo charged a high
UN official with sexual misconduct against civilians while on duty in Bosnia.
The prosecutor publicly demanded that the Bosnian president press the United
Nations to remove the official's diplomatic immunity.
Although reports of the alleged war crimes have appeared in the Arab, European
and Canadian press, have been circulating in UN circles and even surfaced in a
briefing for U.S. Congressional aides by a human rights group, there has as yet
been no formal response from the UN. While the official has denied the charges,
those attempting to investigate them -- journalists, human rights advocates,
foreign policy
analysts, and at least one U.S. legislator, not to mention Bosnian officials and
Sarajevans themselves -- believe they raise troubling questions about the
overall accountability of the UN: just who is policing the peacekeepers?
Some months after he unexpectedly stepped down from his assignment last
August, General Lewis MacKenzie, Canadian head of the UN peacekeeping force in
Bosnia Herzegovina, was charged in a bill of indictment by chief military
prosecutor Mustafa Bisic with sexually molesting four Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) women
held by Serbian forces in a prison camp in a Sarajevo suburb.
In a letter to the Bosnian president dated Dec. 3, 1992, Bisic cited the
eyewitness testimony of a Serbian guard who had worked at the camp, known as Kod
Sonje. The guard claimed he saw MacKenzie and several escorts arrive in a
military transport vehicle with the UN insignia. The eyewitness claimed guards
were then ordered to release four Bosniak women prisoners to MacKenzie.
According to the prosecutor's complaint, the women were later murdered by camp
guards under orders to "erase evidence" of this "unusual
gift."
The prosecutor's charges, aired over Sarajevo television, were
denounced by MacKenzie in several interviews with European and Canadian media as
a propaganda tactic by one side in the three-sided
civil war to gain international sympathy. "I can understand why they
(Bosnian officials) would do something like that," the former UN
peacekeeper told the Vancouver Sun in an interview published Feb. 13. "If I
had been in their position and found that the peace-keeping force was not what I
wanted, I can envision my devious mind working out a story to discredit
them."
Nevertheless, in February new information about the possible existence
of a videotape placing MacKenzie at the Kod Sonje camp helped refocus attention
to the charges. In an interview with Pacific News Service, U.S.
Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) says she is "very
concerned" about the charges and has informed U.S. ambassador to the UN Madeline
Albright that her office "is trying to ferret them out as best we
can."
Slaughter learned about the videotape from Safeta Ovcina, a Bosnian
nurse who testified at a special briefing conducted by Helsinki Watch for
Congressional staffers. The briefing was held February 23 amid growing
concern in the West over media accounts of mass rapes of Bosniak women by
Serbian soldiers.
Ovcina, who spent ten months tending war victims at a frontline hospital before
fleeing Sarajevo for the United States, testified she had been shown the
videotape by her neighbors whom she described as members of the Bosnian
military.
"I looked at the tape and saw General MacKenzie, whom we always saw
on TV news, with Serb chetniks. There were three or four girls on both sides of
him...MacKenzie was hugging them."
In a telephone interview with Pacific News Service at her home in St. Louis,
Ovcina says she recognized some of the young women as formerly involved in a
hair cutting business. "They didn't laugh, they
didn't cry, they just sat there...The feeling I had is that they were surrounded
by a bunch of drunken people, and they were very unhappy," she
recalled.
Ovcina says her neighbors told her the women were later killed and
buried in a grave on the outskirts of Sarajevo. In her testimony at the Helsinki
Watch briefing, she also described witnessing other abuses and indiscretions by
UN personnel, including the selling of protection, food, cigarettes.
Bosnian officials in the United States interviewed by Pacific News
Service say they do not know the whereabouts of the videotape nor do they have
any verification that it exists. Although the allegations are now widely
accepted as truth in Sarajevo, according to Bosnian Ambassador to the UN Muhamed
Sacirbey, at this point "there is no proof to justify them."
Interviewed by phone from New York, Sacirbey
said his government had not formally challenged General MacKenzie's diplomatic
immunity at the UN.
Another eyewitness to the alleged Kod Sonje incident
is Borislav Herak, a Serbian soldier captured by Bosnian forces in early
November and now awaiting execution for war crimes. Herak was interviewed on
film by award winning Bosnian film maker and TV producer Ademir Kenovic several
days after his arrest.
According to a transcript of the interview provided by Kenovic, Herak
said he was at the camp when MacKenzie arrived in a white UN vehicle and met
with the camp warden Miro Vukovic. He was then taken to a room "for big
shots" where he was served whiskey and food.
Later, Herak said he saw MacKenzie and several other UN soldiers "taking
four or five girls in this vehicle to have fun." Asked if he were certain
it was General MacKenzie, Herak replied, "Yes, I am sure. I saw him on
television."
To date, General MacKenzie has not been questioned by U.S. media about
the charges and repeated phone calls to him by Pacific News Service in
Washington DC were not returned.
Congresswoman Slaughter says while she doesn't want to spread "what could
be a smear campaign," she considers the allegations serious enough to
warrant investigation. If proven true, they could
undermine the UN's entire peacekeeping mandate. "But I don't know who is
authorized to handle such an investigation," she added. Slaughter
was especially troubled to learn that twice when he visited Washington last May,
General MacKenzie was represented by the public relations firm of Craig Shirley
and Associates which is closely identified with the Serbian government. The firm
also represents Serb-Net Inc., a Chicago-based association of Serbian American
organizations which a spokesperson says "works to counter the negative
press images about Serbia."
(06041993) **** END **** COPYRIGHT
PNS
Related reading material
suggested by our readers: I Begged Them to Kill Me - published by the
Center for Investigation and Documentation of the Association of Former Prison
Camp Inmates of Bosnia-Herzegovina; pages 183-189. Chapter: An Officer
with a Rose.
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Canadian Armed Forces, Peacekeepers BRIEF
PERFORMANCE SHEET
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Somalia 1993: Carol Mathieus troops
(elite Canadian Airborne Regiment) referred to Somalis by racial epithets
and joked about hunting them as trophies. They hung Nazi and U.S.
Confederate flags in their barracks, perhaps influenced by the time they
spent training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fort Bragg is home to the 82nd
Airborne Division, which included white supremacists charged in the murder
of a Black couple in Fayetteville. Two examples: In the Somalia video,
Master Corporal Matt McKay, a former member of the Aryan Nation, complained
that he "ain't killed enough niggers yet." In the other, a Black
recruit with the words "I love KKK" written on his back in
excrement crawled through a gauntlet of blows and urination.
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On March 4, 1993, Canadian
soldiers shot down two unarmed, fleeing Somalis. Wounded and struggling,
both were shot again from behind; one, Ahmed Afraraho Aruush, died. Two
weeks later, a hungry teenager named Shidane Arone entered the Belet Huen
aid camp, hoping to be fed. Instead, he was grabbed, beaten all night, and
tortured to death by drunken soldiers.
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In 1993 in Bosnia, Canadian
military personnel who took over the Bakovici mental hospital shot at,
raped, and battered patients; others engaged in countrywide black
marketeering and fraud.
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A few months ago, the press ran
photos of Canadian military engineers in Kuwait posing with body parts of
dead Iraqi soldiers.
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Dec. 27, 1996 - Gen. Armand Roy, the deputy chief of defence staff, is fired after a military investigation found he received money to keep two
residences. Roy 54, was ordered to repay $70,000-$80,000.
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Dec. 22, 1996 - In a survey, commissioned by the Armed Forces, troops say they don't trust their leaders and view them as 'yes-men'.
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October, 1996 - Gen. Jean Boyle, chief of defence staff, is axed in the
wake of document a charges at the Somalia inquiry. (Somalia teenagers were tortured and murdered by Canadian peacekeepers)
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August, 1996 - Canadian military investigators head to a mental hospital in Bakovici, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to probe sex and drinking allegations
involving 30 Canadian soldiers and four officers.
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Capt. Sandra Perron, Canada's first female infantry was beaten and tied to a
tree at a training centre commanded by the head of the army. With her boots
removed, she was left sitting barefoot in the snow and repeatedly hit for over
two hours, during which "trophy photographs" were taken. (The Calgary
Herald, Dec. 31, 1996).
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In May, Maclean's Magazine reported that rape cases in the Canadian Forces have been kept quiet for years. They interviewed 27 women who said they were raped while serving in the army. Days after the article came out, 11 more female soldiers, currently and formerly serving, came forward claiming the same. "The
cases also reveal a culture -- particularly in the navy and combat units --
of unbridled promiscuity, where harassment is common, heavy drinking is a
way of life, and women ... are often little more than game for sexual
predators," said an article published by the magazin. The report
includes harrowing tales told by 13 women who were assaulted. One woman who
was 18 at the time, simply carried off during a party into another room guarded by other soldiers and raped.
(Maclean's, May 25th 1998).
And more...
Toronto
Star reporting - October 02 1999.
OTTAWA — In another blow to the military, a senior commanding officer with the Canadian contingent in Kosovo has been relieved of duty and sent home over an alcohol-related incident.
Lt.-Col. Steve Bryan, effectively the number two in the Canadian contingent in Kosovo, is being investigated by military police, the defence department announced late yesterday.
A terse, three-paragraph press release said that Bryan, commanding officer of the Canadian infantry battle group, had been relieved of command following a “recent alcohol-related incident in Kosovo.'’
A spokesperson for the defence department, Lt.-Cmdr. Denise LaViolette, said no more details of the incident are being released because of privacy considerations and possible administrative or disciplinary action.
Bryan is accused of being drunk, but it is not clear whether he was on duty at the time.
Another officer, Maj. Cliff Reeves, was also relieved of his duties at the same time, the press release said.
LaViolette said because of the special powers conferred upon a commanding officer, Bryan had to be relieved of duty because he is being investigated for wrongdoing, and therefore was in no position to be in charge of disciplining his juniors.
Another officer already serving in theatre, Lt.-Col. Shane Brennan, has assumed command of the battle group.
The latest incident is just one of a number of embarrassing alcohol-related events to tarnish the reputation of the Canadian Forces.
The straw that broke the back of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, disbanded in 1995, was a video that showed drunken soldiers urinating on each other and vomiting during an initiation party.
In Bosnia, drunken Canadian soldiers were accused in 1993-94 of mistreating patients and cavorting with nurses during wild parties at the Bakovici mental hospital, which they were guarding.
A January, 1997, military report revealed that 47 Canadian peacekeepers were involved and that one of them committed sexual misconduct with a patient at the hospital.
In Rwanda, in 1994, several soldiers were disciplined after getting drunk and firing off their rifles into the night.
And in Haiti, after a New Year’s Eve party in 1996, the commander of the Canadian battalion, Lt.-Col. Roch Lacroix, was relieved of duty and flown home in disgrace after he had too many drinks and waved his pistol at a crowd.
The Somalia inquiry also heard abundant evidence of some soldiers routinely getting drunk while on a dangerous peacekeeping missions abroad.
There was even testimony about senior officers being drunk in the field in Somalia and commandeering cases of beer, despite a policy of two drinks per day.
The problems with alcohol are so prevalent that Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Maurice Baril threatened at one point to completely ban booze in the field.
Baril has often stated that operations and alcohol don’t mix and indeed, when Baril commanded the international force that entered Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1996, the mission was dry at his request.
But the military still allows commanding officers in the field to set their own policy on alcohol, with approval from headquarters.
In the case of Kosovo, soldiers are allowed to consume two 350 millilitre containers of beer per day.
About 800 soldiers in the battle group are affected by the change in command.
They arrived in Kosovo in June for six months of peacekeeping.
Other incidents in the falling fortunes of the Canadian military include:
In August, military police launched a criminal probe into the alleged shredding of documents removed from the medical files of soldiers who served in Croatia.
Allegations also surfaced that former peacekeeper Matt Stopford may have been poisoned by his own troops during a 1993 stint in Croatia.
Stopford is now blind in one eye.
He also suffers from a range of ailments — intestinal bleeding, aching joints and severe headaches — that he blames on his time in Croatia.
Several other peacekeepers have complained of similar symptoms.
A military board of inquiry is studying whether soldiers got sick because of exposure to toxins on duty in Croatia.
In December, 1996, later proven allegations surfaced that Capt. Sandra Perron, the country’s first female infantry officer, was set up for easy capture during a 1992 army training mission.
She was tied to a tree and interrogated for four hours, then blindfolded and subjected to a mock execution during which a shot was fired.
In March, 1996, a colonel accused Gen. Jean Boyle, then chief of defence staff, and others of backing a plan to falsify and reclassify military documents aimed at thwarting journalists’ attempts to obtain them through access laws.
Boyle blamed document alterations on his subordinates, though he signed them, and said his subordinates have no moral fibre.
In October, 1996, then-defence minister David Collenette resigned over a letter he wrote to an immigration tribunal.
He was followed by Boyle, who resigned to take a job in the private sector.
In March, 1993, during the Canadian Airborne Regiment’s ill-fated Somalia famine-relief mission, two Somali infiltrators were shot by Canadian sentries.
One died.
That same month, Shidane Arone, 16, was caught sneaking into an army compound at Belet Huen in Somalia. He was tortured to death.
Nine Canadian soldiers were eventually charged.
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