Customer Reviews

Dubious Mandate : A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia, Summer 1995

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Philip Corwin's captivating memoir reveals the dark secrets of the UN mission in Bosnia during its last days. By mid-1995, the UN had become resigned to playing mercenaries to the Muslim government in Sarajevo, harassed by the cheerleading international press, pushed around by Washington and held hostage by the local gagster-leaders. Corwin describes how the mission degenerated from a supposedly good-faith, impartial peacekeeping effort into an open war against one belligerent. His notes reveal the crippling internal politics of UNPROFOR and the enormous pressure of NATO to come in, guns blazing. Corwin escapes the temptation to moralize and preach to both the world and the Bosnians. Instead, he exposes the malicious incomprehension of the situation on part of the foreign factors, and blasts the thuggery of Bosnian leaders - Serbs, Muslims and Croats alike. Though he does not absolve the Serbs from a shred of responsibility for the horrors of the Bosnian war, by giving them a voice at all he has probably risked vitriolic condemnation by various "Muslim partisans," among whom you will find some familiar names... Corwin's book is not THE ONE BOOK you need to understand the Bosnian tragedy. But between him and general MacKenzie, the UN side of it is told as it was. If you want to know how today's world of mercenary peacekeeping and random bombing came to be, read this book. It is a must.

Philip Corwin is not a professional apologist, advocacy journalist, propagandist or self-aggrandizing Imperial shill, the kind one would expect writing a book about Bosnia. Corwin, an American in UN service, was the head of UNPROFOR Civil Affairs in Sarajevo during those crucial months of 1995 when the UN became NATO's handmaiden. As a result, he is a disillusioned, embittered witness to Imperial ascendance.

...Right from its very title, Dubious Mandate gets to the heart of the matter. As the Bosnian War unravels, so does the UN peacekeeper mission, whose mandate is self-contradictory, ill-defined, and under constant political and military pressure. From his position in Sarajevo, Corwin witnessed the disintegration of the last shreds of UN credibility and impartiality. His journal entries read like a Greek tragedy, with growing awareness of the impending disaster literally rolling in over the hills.

Arguably the best features of the book are Corwin's "hindsight" notes. Unlike other memoirs, Dubious Mandate

contains the author's reflections alongside the original writing, clearly marked to avoid confusion. This provides the readers with an insight into how Corwin thought then, and how subsequent events and understandings impacted his earlier opinions. It is exceptionally difficult to write an honest memoir, avoiding the temptation to spruce up the original notes with hindsight. Dubious Mandate has found a way, and it works extraordinarily well.

Corwin does not mince words. He is not anti- or pro- anyone, often describing the local Balkans leaders as "thugs in suits." But his insistence that there were legitimate concerns among the Serbs (even though their methods were reprehensible) and that the Sarajevo Muslims were far from angels, earns Corwin the undying hatred of the international diplomats, western Press, and, of course, the Izetbegovic regime.

Read the complete version of this review- and many more- at Balkanalysis.com

Ever wondered why the UN "failed" in Bosnia, only to be replaced by NATO? Ever thought about what causes UN missions to fail in some situations (as in Bosnia) and succeed in others (as in East Timor)? From historical evidence it appears that there is no inherent institutional flaw in the UN structure but that the Security Council, by assigning different mandates and rules of engagement, determines the likely outcome of various missions. Who interests does this kind of "peacekeeping" serve?

This book adds to our understanding of the critical role of outside factors in the partition of Yugoslavia. It sheds some light on the reasons for (intended? ) failiure of UNPROFOR and the subsequent insertion of NATO. It is required reading for anyone trying to understand the Yugoslav mayhem beyond superficiality of mainstream media coverage.

It was only because of military intervention in Bosnia that the war finally ended. The fact that war ended had nothing to do with the UN's humanitarian mission, from the start a disgrace and a failure. It is amazing how hard it is to find UN personel willing to admit their policy, prior to military intervention, was disastrous. This year finally, the Secretary General, in a report framed by the massacre of Srebrenica, did admit the UN's total failure.