EU’s credibility at stake in Bosnia, warns commander

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 14/07/05

The commander in charge of the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Major General David Leakey has warned that his force's credibility will suffer if troop levels fall below 5,000.

Leakey, who has commanded EUFOR, the EU's peacekeeping mission to BiH, since December 2004, said the EU could make only limited cuts from the current 7,000 level of troops.

He said that around 800 troops could be cut through reorganisation but that any further reductions would have to mean giving up some operations.

Leakey said BiH police and military would be able to take over the fight against organised crime and responsibility for implementing the country's international obligations but "not yet".

"There are some step reductions that we can make after reducing tasks and housekeeping, but after that there is not a glide path down to zero."

He warned that EUFOR was still needed to deter further violence.

"Then you come to the acid question, can you do the deterrence business, the reassurance business with a small force? And I have to tell you that I think we are probably, apart from housekeeping, once you come below a task force, a brigade-sized organisation of about 5,000, you then, in a country of this size...begin to lose the credibility."

He also warned that "ingredients for instability" remain in the country and that developments in neighbouring Kosovo, which is approaching talks on its final status, could affect Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"You have got the ingredients of instability here, but they are only the ingredients...what we need to do is to make sure that they are not stirred together.

"When there is political tension or a political problem here, whether it is over police restructuring or whether it is Srebrenica...people tend to homogenise into their ethnic groups, that is where they get their strength and defence from, that is where they feel safe, it is what protected them during the war...that in itself is a potentially destabilising influence because they get wound up by the rabble, by the extremist rabble."

But he said if Bosnia and Herzegovina concluded key agreements with NATO and the EU by the end of the year then the Union would have to have "a very serious look at how long we needed to keep the military [force] here".

The commander in charge of the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EUFOR, Major General David Leakey warned that his force's credibility would suffer if troop levels were to fall below 5,000. He warned that EUFOR was still needed to deter further violence and that BiH police and military would not yet be able to take over the fight against organised crime and responsibility for implementing the country's international obligations.

European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR): Homepage http://www.euforbih.org/

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