Interventions by Kofi Annan Page B

contingents of troops on the ground and deeply opposed to U.S. ideas of air power, sought another option. The result was resolution 836, adopted on June 4, 1993, again extending the mandate of UNPROFOR in the safe areas, affirming its responsibility for their protection and allowing for the potential use of air power in or around the safe areas.
    At this moment I was acutely aware of the complexities of our new plan in Bosnia and how difficult it would be to raise more troops. The force was already stretched dangerously thin on the ground, and I was alarmed at the ambiguous and imprecise wording of the resolution. Although members did not appreciate being reminded of the gap between mandate and resources, I was determined to raise my concerns regarding the troop numbers that would be required to implement the safe-areas plan.
    In this case, none of the cosponsors—the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Spain, and the United States—offered to increase their contingents, nor were they willing even to redeploy existing contingents in theater to the newly established safe areas. This was concerning enough, but I was particularly eager to clarify three aspects of the resolution: the precise meaning attached to the word “deter,” the provisions they envisaged for demilitarizing the safe areas, and the conditions under which air strikes would be justified and under whose authority they would be initiated. I asked the force commander in Bosnia at this time, Lieutenant-General Lars Eric Wahlgren, to draw up a staff study of the implications of the safe-area concept, asking in effect what it would take to make the concept at all credible and if it could be done with their existing force.
    At a meeting with the cosponsor countries, I asked my military advisor, General Maurice Baril, to give an oral presentation on UNPROFOR’s preliminary military staff study. It called for thirty-two thousand
additional
troops “to credibly implement the safe areas concept.” I did not expect that we would be able to raise that number, but I was determined to get the message across about the consequences of taking on new commitments. The cosponsors, especially Britain and France but also the United States, reacted with anger to the presentation, accusing DPKO of incompetence and failure to do its job properly. Their preference and what they wanted DPKO to spend their time on was the “light minimum” option, which had been drawn up earlier by France and which envisaged the deployment of only five thousand troops.
    David Hannay, the UK permanent representative, was especially unhappy with our performance and did not mince words. As for the actual language of the resolution, he made it clear that the phrase “to deter attacks against the safe areas” had been chosen deliberately rather than “to defend” and, likewise, that “to promote withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces” had been chosen rather than to “ensure or enforce.” The cosponsors, he stressed, wanted UNPROFOR’s “deterrent capacity” to derive from its
presence
in the safe areas—not from its actual military strength. As for demilitarizing the safe areas, UNPROFOR should “seek assurances” and, if possible, negotiate “voluntary agreements” with the Bosnian government. Reporting back on the meeting to General Wahlgren, I wrote that none of the six representatives present “seemed to envisage a force capable of effectively defending these areas” and, crucially, that none of them were willing to contribute any additional troops to UNPROFOR.
    Justifying their stance, the cosponsors stressed that the creation of the safe areas was only a “temporary measure” adopted in anticipation of an overall political settlement. We knew however that “temporary” measures had a habit of becoming permanent and of acquiring a life and logic of their own. Moreover, even if