BOSNIA: BOSNIAN SERB ARMY COMMANDER RATKO MLADIC ACCUSES UN PEACE-KEEPERS OF TURNING INTO AN "OCCUPYING FORCE" ALLIED AGAINST HIS TROOPS

Record ID: 350235

  • Title: BOSNIA: BOSNIAN SERB ARMY COMMANDER RATKO MLADIC ACCUSES UN PEACE-KEEPERS OF TURNING INTO AN "OCCUPYING FORCE" ALLIED AGAINST HIS TROOPS
  • Date: 24th September 1994
  • Summary: PALE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (SEPTEMBER 24, 1994) (AGENCY POOL - ACCESS ALL) QUALITY AS INCOMING 1. SCU BOSNIAN SERB COMMANDER RATKO MLADIC ACCUSING UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPERS OF TURNING INTO AN OCCUPYING FORCE (SERBIAN) (4 SHOTS) 1.21 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 9th October 1994 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PALE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
  • Reuters ID: LVA1K6H3EDFC2YI86OQMNWD9VMJG
  • Story Text: Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic accused United Nations peace-keepers on Saturday (September 24) of turning into an "occupying force" allied against his troops.

    "Either through carrying out air raids or using actively their hardware on the ground the United Nations is more and more becoming an occupying force rather than a peacekeeping one," Mladic said. He was speaking two days after U.N. commanders ordered a NATO air strike against a Serb tank west of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

    The hardline general threatened NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and U.N. officers with retaliation on Friday over the air strike that followed a series of Serb attacks on peacekeepers around Sarajevo.

    The U.N. Security Council decision late on Friday to tighten travel and financial restrictions on the Bosnian Serbs over their rejection of the latest peace plan was "unpleasant news," Mladic said.

    But he added: "However, I believe that sooner or later the (international) community will take into account our position and give us equal treatment." Mladic said that his soldiers had done their best to cooperate with UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) troops in Bosnia, even cooperating with forces who had occupied the land in the past.

    "Now it appears to me some U.N. personnel have apparently sided with our enemies whom they provided with everything they needed to start with and secondly they openly threatened with air power.

    "We can no longer tolerate this arrogant behaviour of theirs because there is nothing that concerns NATO here," Mladic said. "We have to find a political solution to this, not through the use of NATO air power. Otherwise the presence of the organisations such as NATO can only make this war spill over and intensify." Asked about the effect of isolation on the Bosnian Serb army Mladic said they had always been practically isolated, the embargo imposed by Yugoslavia was merely a notch more. He said this had emboldened the Moslems to take provocative action against the U.N.

    troops in order to entice them into pinning the blame on them and retaliating against them.

    He stressed that since the war started no U.N. soldier had been killed on his territory, but said that whatever the circumstances he would defend his people and their homes.

    He said that they only had the one country. They wanted the war to stop but certain outside quarters were keeping the war going for profit.


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