GEN. LEWIS MACKENZIE

CANADIAN UN 'PEACEKEEPER' WHO RAPED FOUR TEENAGE BOSNIAN GIRLS IN SERB-RUN CONCENTRATION CAMP

 

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E-mail Nas! Last updated: May.06.2004                                              Language options: bosnian / english

Gen.  Lewis  MacKenzie   was   openly
pro-Serbian with strong   anti-Muslim sentiments.  When  68  civilians were killed in the   Sarajevo  marketplace   by  a Serbian shell (markale massacre
he  took the Serbs'laughable  position  that  the  Bosniaks set  it up.Whenever
a child was  killed  by  Serbian sniper  fire  in  Sarajevo, his UN command was as likely to  blame Bosnians and Serbs.

                     During the siege of Sarajevo, he partied  with  Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, the  two  most wanted war criminals still
at large. Mackenzie was paid $15,000 from a pro-Serb lobby group to   make a speaking tour in America speaking out against intervention."We'd be  foolish
to intervene. Those people are animals..." - he told the National Press Club and the White House. Mackenzie had a poor grasp of the scale of the  carnage taking place across the country and failed to understand that it was  a  war 
of aggression orchestrated by Serbia against an unarmed and    unthreatening civilian population in Bosnia.
Even though he was thrown out of Sarajevo  by the UN, he remained a media darling, lecturing and appearing on   the   news saying that both sides were evil, which created the vacuum that led to   the genocide of 200,000 Bosniaks - before the outside world woke up to the truth three years later. This is the legacy of General Lewis Mackenzie and the UN's version of impartiality."When   the   Serbs  kill me"    Bosnian    President 
Izetbegovic said, "the UN will say I committed suicide".

    
...but the real story of Gen. Lewis MacKenzie starts next!

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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


  • 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. 

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • A few months ago, the press ran photos of Canadian military engineers in Kuwait posing with body parts of dead Iraqi soldiers.

  • 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.

  • 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'.

  • 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)

  • 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.

  • 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).

  • 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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