The Washington Post
January 1, 1993
SARAJEVO, December 31 – Amid jeers, hoots and shouts of “killer,” U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali visited this shivering city today and was met by a cold blast of resentment from a besieged people who believe the United Nations has prolonged their ordeal.
In a tumultuous six-hour tour, Boutros-Ghali appealed repeatedly for Bosnia’s embattled Slavic Muslim community to put its faith in U.N.-sponsored peace negotiations, and he declared that foreign military intervention against Serb nationalists bombarding the city would be inappropriate just now.
Almost at the moment he was making this point to Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic at a government reception, chants from an angry street crowd of about 200 protesters wafted into the room. “Criminal! Fascist! Killer!” the demonstrators screamed. “Help Us Or Go Home,” read a placard carried by one of them.
When the 30-minute session with Ganic ended, Boutros-Ghali left the building and, ringed by heavily armed U.N. troops, passed within 10 yards of the clamorous protesters before heading off under armored U.N. escort to visit the city’s main hospital.
Along the way, he encountered more bitterness from the malnourished citizens of this shattered city, which has been shelled by the Serbs with little let-up for nearly nine months and has been without central heat, electricity or running water for the past three weeks. Many pedestrians, going about their desperate daily routine of scavenging for firewood or collecting well water, stopped to gaze and shout.
“The old bastard should be killed,” one man hissed as the U.N. motorcade passed along Marshal Tito Boulevard, which relentless Serb artillery fire has reduced to ruins. “Go away, we don’t need you idiots,” spat a middle-aged man at one of the U.N. armored vehicles.
It was like that everywhere the U.N. chief went. At the hospital, doctors muttered that Boutros-Ghali was making a mere show of concern during his 10-minute tour of wards filled with men, women and children wounded by Serb mortar fire and sniper bullets.
Leaving the hospital, a pedestrian, Izmet Spuzic, pressed his face against the window of Boutros-Ghali’s car and, jabbing his finger at the U.N. chief, shouted, “Killer! Killer! Killer!” The secretary general stared straight ahead.
Boutros-Ghali had said he wanted to bring a “message of hope” to Sarajevo, but his visit seemed to confirm to the 350,000 people trapped in this largely Muslim city that the United Nations is incapable of ending their suffering any time soon.
The view here is that this means a continuation of a hypocritical U.N. policy that calls for setting up a war crimes tribunal to prosecute Serb war crimes in Bosnia but refuses to intervene to stop the Serbs from committing more atrocities.
The assault on Boutros-Ghali continued even at U.N. headquarters here, where he held a wrap-up news conference. A young local journalist stood up, but instead of asking a question she delivered an emotional indictment of the U.N. leader.
“You too are guilty for every single raped woman and every single murdered man,” said reporter Vedrana Bozinovic. “How many more victims are needed in Sarajevo before you are willing to do something? Aren’t 12,000 enough? Do you want 15,000? Or 20,000?”
Boutros-Ghali listened patiently, then replied: “If I am guilty, mea culpa. I understand your frustration. I share your suffering. But there is no solution but to talk to your enemy.”
The reporter, close to tears, broke in again: “We are dying, Mr. Ghali,” she said.
“Let us have time to find a peaceful solution,” he responded.
But such pleas produce almost universal scorn here — from officials of the Muslim-led government to underfed pensioners dependent on U.N. humanitarian aid to survive — for U.N. efforts to halt the Serb onslaught and bring a just peace to Bosnia through negotiation and compromise.
Bosnia’s Muslims believe that the United Nations has stood by passively, even willfully, as heavily armed Serb nationalist forces have seized control of 70 percent of the republic, killing tens of thousands of people, raping thousands of women and creating nearly 1.5 million refugees — most of them Muslims. They do not understand why the United Nations has brought them food and other urgently needed supplies but refused to help them militarily or lift an arms embargo that has prevented them from defending themselves against the powerful Serbs on more even terms.
Boutros-Ghali, accompanied here by special U.N. envoy Cyrus Vance, told Ganic that continuing peace talks in Geneva among all parties to the Bosnian confict show signs of promise. “There is no reason why we will not be successful there,” the U.N. leader said. “I want to assure you that we will solve your problems.”
But Bosnian government officials say they have heard all this before. For the past nine months, different negotiators under different organizational umbrellas have come together in search of peace, all with no result. Countless accords and cease-fires have been agreed to, but each has been violated almost immediately.
For that reason, Bosnia’s Muslim leaders say they have grown weary of high-level visitors who, like doctors poking a patient, express sorrow about the sickness and then prescribe inadequate medication. The patient, Bosnia, could die by the time the right diagnosis is made, Ganic said.
“All the visits by foreign dignitaries produced hope, but after they left the situation became worse,” Ganic told Boutros-Ghali as the two men sat next to each other in overstuffed chairs, surrounded by journalists. “Unfortunately, one has to have war, great destruction, a cease-fire, and then the {U.N.} troops come.”
Ganic’s statements were punctuated by the occasional thud of falling artillery shells in the distance. But it was a day of light shelling; only four people died in Sarajevo today.
