by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, April 28,1994:
The world must not allow the latest Serb massacres and violation of the Gorazde ‘safe haven’ to go unpunished – or more ‘Gorazdes’ are merely waiting to happen
The United Nations, NATO and United States have heaved a collective sigh of relief that the Bosnian Serbs had withdrawn their heavy weapons from an exclusion zone around Gorazde and that they do not have to carry out air strikes against the Serbs.
In fact, the UN, NATO and US seem to be very grateful to Bosnian Serbs at the ‘co-operation’ for complying with their ‘ultimatum’, so that an UN spokesman in Sarajevo could report a “quiet night in Gorazde, with all but one or two broken-down tanks and damaged artillery piece still in the 20 km zone”.
Fully forgotten were the latest Serb massacres and violation of the Gorazde ‘save haven’, and that in the three-week Serb assaunt on Gorazde, 715 people had been slaughtered and nearly 2,000 wounded.
The world must not allow the latest Serbian massacres and violation of the Gorazde ‘save haven’ go unpunished, or more Gorazdes are merely waiting to happen!
When new Serbian onslaughts and massacres against Bosnians occur, is there going to be another replay of world denunciations, new ultimatums of air-strikes by UN, NATO and US, followed by another Serbian ‘compliance’ with such ultimatums after several hundreds more of Bosnians have been murdered and thousands wounded?
The international community must demand that the Serb massacres in Gorazde must be punished, and that the Bosnian Serbs as well as Serbia, must pay a heavy price for such massacres – if there is not going to more Gorazdes in the future.
Otherwise, it must be on the conscience of the world community, and in particular the UN, NATO and US, when more Gorazdes occur in the new few months with more Bosnian massacres and ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.