Bosnia: 'Many countries violated UN arms embargo during war'
The Hague, 8 Oct. (AKI) – Many western and Muslim countries had violated the United Nations arms embargo during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, a prosecution witness told the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Friday. Former British general Michael Rose, testifying in the trial of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told the court that implementation of the arms embargo was a “task of NATO and the United States”. “UN forces had no intelligence capacity and their main task was to supply humanitarian aid to civilians in Bosnia,” said Rose, who served as chief of the UN's peacekeepers in Bosnia in 1994. Rose said he saw an Iranian plane with a cargo of arms landing in the Croatian capital Zagreb, on its way to Bosnia, but the UN peackeeping mission “had no mandate to conduct an investigation to determine whether arms embargo was violated”, he added. Wartime Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic at one meeting complained to United States general Wesley Clark that the Muslim army was being supplied with American uniforms and equipment, Rose stated “Clark didn’t deny this,” he said. “Fifteen years later, it turned out that many countries had violated UN arms embargo,” Rose said during cross-examination by Karadzic, who is conducting his own defence. The Hague tribunal has charged Karadzic and Mladic on multiple counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mladic, and the wartime leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, Goran Hadzic, are still on the run. http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=3.1.1077584090
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