Author: Patrick Brendan O'Shea

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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In September 1994 I was selected by my superiors in the Irish Defence Forces to join the European Community Monitor Mission in Former Yugoslavia (ECMM) and after a time as a Monitor and Team Leader in Eastern Slavonia, and then as a Monitor in the Krajina near Bihac, I was appointed to the Headquarters' Staff in Zagreb as the officer responsible for evaluating and reporting on the war in Bosnia together with the general situation in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo. In that capacity I was one of very few afforded the opportunity to work with the 'big picture', where my core function was to make some sense of the conflict in order to better inform the policy makers of the European Union. My reports found their way to EU HQ in Brussels, the Foreign Ministries of all EU governments, and to the United Nations in New York. However it also became apparent at an early stage that irrespective of what my colleagues and I actually wrote, in the world of real-politik individual agendas were still pursued relentlessly with the best and worst example unquestionably being Germany's single-minded determination to recognise Croatia when the Badinter Commission, Lord Carrington, and EC Monitors on the ground all advised against it. Equally, I experienced this frustration myself when during the Spring of 1995 I continually advised my superiors that Radovan Karadzic simply had to be included in all negotiations on the future of Bosnia if any meaningful and comprehensive resolution was to be achieved. Together with former US President Jimmy Carter, Karadzic had managed to secure the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in December 1994 and I believed that this success could and should have been built upon in a serious and meaningful way. Unfortunately the leaders of the International Community thought otherwise and followed their own agendas determining that there would be no place for an indicted war criminal at the peace-conference-table - and a unique possibility for progress was squandered. I firmly believed that a distinct opportunity existed at that time to bring the war to an end, albeit that it would have left the Bosnian Serbs in a position of strength. Deplorably, influential people, particularly President Bill Clinton, were not prepared to tolerate that scenario, so the war went - needlessly. Nevertheless ECMM continued to gather information and make evaluations. With teams spread right throughout the region, daily, weekly, monthly, and special reports on the military, political, economic, and humanitarian situation came flooding into the Headquarters in Zegrab and were processed through a complex evaluation system. Thereafter assessments and predictions were distributed internationally and either accepted or rejected. ECMM's mission statement was simple. We were in theatre to observe and report at first hand on Former Yugoslavia's wars of dissolution, the activities of the numerous parties involved, and the shifting alliances into which they entered - and for the most part I am satisfied that we did it well. However, it was also during this time that I first became aware of the chasm which existed between the common perception of the conflict as portrayed in most of the popular media and the actual grim reality which I was dealing with on the ground. There was a difference, and in many instances it was huge. In order therefore to address these issues, and drawing on all resources available, including original material from both UN and ECMM sources, this thesis seeks to identify the true origin of Former Yugoslavia's war's of dissolution and thereafter critically examine the programme of violence which erupted between 1991-1995 culminating eventually in the vicious dismemberment of a sovereign federal republic with seat at the United Nations.

Download or read book Perception and Reality in the Modern Yugoslav Conflict written by Patrick Brendan O'Shea and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1994 I was selected by my superiors in the Irish Defence Forces to join the European Community Monitor Mission in Former Yugoslavia (ECMM) and after a time as a Monitor and Team Leader in Eastern Slavonia, and then as a Monitor in the Krajina near Bihac, I was appointed to the Headquarters' Staff in Zagreb as the officer responsible for evaluating and reporting on the war in Bosnia together with the general situation in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo. In that capacity I was one of very few afforded the opportunity to work with the 'big picture', where my core function was to make some sense of the conflict in order to better inform the policy makers of the European Union. My reports found their way to EU HQ in Brussels, the Foreign Ministries of all EU governments, and to the United Nations in New York. However it also became apparent at an early stage that irrespective of what my colleagues and I actually wrote, in the world of real-politik individual agendas were still pursued relentlessly with the best and worst example unquestionably being Germany's single-minded determination to recognise Croatia when the Badinter Commission, Lord Carrington, and EC Monitors on the ground all advised against it. Equally, I experienced this frustration myself when during the Spring of 1995 I continually advised my superiors that Radovan Karadzic simply had to be included in all negotiations on the future of Bosnia if any meaningful and comprehensive resolution was to be achieved. Together with former US President Jimmy Carter, Karadzic had managed to secure the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in December 1994 and I believed that this success could and should have been built upon in a serious and meaningful way. Unfortunately the leaders of the International Community thought otherwise and followed their own agendas determining that there would be no place for an indicted war criminal at the peace-conference-table - and a unique possibility for progress was squandered. I firmly believed that a distinct opportunity existed at that time to bring the war to an end, albeit that it would have left the Bosnian Serbs in a position of strength. Deplorably, influential people, particularly President Bill Clinton, were not prepared to tolerate that scenario, so the war went - needlessly. Nevertheless ECMM continued to gather information and make evaluations. With teams spread right throughout the region, daily, weekly, monthly, and special reports on the military, political, economic, and humanitarian situation came flooding into the Headquarters in Zegrab and were processed through a complex evaluation system. Thereafter assessments and predictions were distributed internationally and either accepted or rejected. ECMM's mission statement was simple. We were in theatre to observe and report at first hand on Former Yugoslavia's wars of dissolution, the activities of the numerous parties involved, and the shifting alliances into which they entered - and for the most part I am satisfied that we did it well. However, it was also during this time that I first became aware of the chasm which existed between the common perception of the conflict as portrayed in most of the popular media and the actual grim reality which I was dealing with on the ground. There was a difference, and in many instances it was huge. In order therefore to address these issues, and drawing on all resources available, including original material from both UN and ECMM sources, this thesis seeks to identify the true origin of Former Yugoslavia's war's of dissolution and thereafter critically examine the programme of violence which erupted between 1991-1995 culminating eventually in the vicious dismemberment of a sovereign federal republic with seat at the United Nations.