By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday , January 28th, 1994:
UNHCR report that Bosnians are much worse off in food aid than Croat and Serban populations scandalous and outrageous
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR) report that the people living in areas controlled by the Bosnian government are getting much less food aid that those in Croat and Serb held areas is most scandalous and outrageous.
UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski has confirmed that the mostly Muslim population is suffering disproportionately in the Bosnian war. The Bosnian-controlled areas are much worse off than the Croat or the Serb populations because they are concentrated near the borders of Croatia and Serbia proper , where the convoys originate.
It has been estimated that about 20-30 per cent of food aid intended for civilians was being appropriated by the various armed forces.
Early this month , the UNHCR confessed that it managed to deliver only 10 per cent of food needs to central Bosnia in November and just under 18 percent in Decemer.
The United Nations , the United States and NATO countries must bear full responsibility for this scandalous and outrageous state of affairs , for this is the direct result of their failure to implement United Nations resolutions to launch air strikes against the Serb guns to lift the siege of Sarajevo and the other six ‘safe areas’ in Bosnia proclaimed by the United nations.
This is the time for renewed and relentless international pressure on the United States , NATO, the United Nations Security Council and UN Secretary – General , Boutrous , Boutros-Ghali for action to end the ethnic cleansing and atrocities in Bosnia-herzegovina and to reject the theory that the Bosnian conflict is a civil war and not a case of aggression to destroy an internationally-recognised sovereign nation.