UN Envoy: Bosnian Govt ‘Didn’t Want Permanent Ceasefire’

Testifying for Mladic’s defence on Monday, Japanese diplomat Akashi said that Bosniak leaders and US officials believed in 1994 and 1995 that a permanent ceasefire would allow Serbs to keep large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina which they had taken by force previously in the war.

Akashi added that the Serbs at that point had 80 per cent of Bosnian territory, but in the end, in November 1995, signed the Dayton peace deal that gave them 49 per cent of the country.

Bosnian Serb Army chief Ratko Mladic is charged with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats which reached the scale of genocide in six municipalities. He is also on trial for genocide in Srebrenica, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Akashi was the UN secretary-general’s envoy in Bosnia and Herzegovina for most of 1994 and 1995.

Answering questions from Mladic’s lawyer Dragan Ivetic, the Japanese diplomat said that the Bosnian Army was being “actively assisted militarily” by the Americans, Germans and some Islamic countries.

Akashi also said that UN-designated ‘safe areas’ – such as Srebrenica and Sarajevo – weren’t demilitarised despite the fact this was a precondition in the agreements.

He said that a UN investigation determined that the mortar which killed dozens of citizens at Sarajevo’s Markale market in 1994 could have been fired by either Serb or Bosniak forces.

“The conclusion of the commission, which I accepted, was that the attack could have come from both sides,” said Akashi, adding that the international media only blamed the Serbs for the attack.

According to Mladic’s indictment, the Bosnian Serb Army fired a projectile which killed 66 civilians and injured more than 100 other at the Markale market in February 1994.

Defence lawyer Ivetic quoted from Akashi’s book about the Bosnian conflict that US President Clinton’s administration was prone to seeing the Sarajevo-based Bosniak government as “good”, and the Serbs as “evil”.

The Japanese diplomat said that he stood by his claims but “within the context of the events described in the book”.

Akashi will continue his testimony at Mladic’s trial on Tuesday.