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EU takes over Bosnia peacekeeping
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-02 00:01 The European Union began its biggest-ever
military operation Thursday, formally taking over NATO's peacekeeping mission in
Bosnia with 7,000 troops.
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| German Army private Tulenkow, member of peacekeeping forces in
Bosnia, gets the new EIFOR sign attached to his uniform sleeve by an
officer at the German military base Rajlovac near Sarajevo, on Tuesday,
Nov. 30, 2004.[AP] | The operation is a major step in the
EU's drive to develop a military arm, an initiative launched after the bloc
failed to halt the war that tore Bosnia apart in the early 1990s.
The European Union flag replaced NATO's at the transfer ceremony in Sarajevo,
attended by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the Secretary
General of the Council of the European Union, Javier Solana, as well as the
Bosnian three-member presidency.
"This is a truly historic occasion," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "This is a
watershed in Bosnia-Herzegovina's development and proof of the developing
cooperation between NATO and the European Union."
"The progress Bosnia-Herzegovina has made was unimaginable in the earlier
1990s," he said.
A 60,000 troops strong, multinational NATO-led force crossed the border of
wartorn Bosnia in December 1995 to silence the guns of the three armies locked
in Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Bosnia's 1992-95 war between its Muslim Bosnians, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic
Croats killed 260,000 and forced half of the country's 4 million people to flee
their homes. It ended with a U.S.-brokered peace agreement, which the alliance
implemented without any combat casualties.
The troops separated the three ethnic armies, pushed them back to their
barracks and disarmed them. The peace allowed diplomats to start rebuilding
Bosnia's state institutions.
Over the years, the security situation improved enough to allow NATO to
decrease the number of troops to the current level of 7,000. Under NATO
leadership, the country started slowly melting its three ethnically divided
armed forces into one army to apply for NATO membership.
NATO is handing EU forces a peaceful Bosnia with a multiethnic Defense
Ministry and former enemies — Bosniak, Serb and Croat soldiers — obeying to a
joint command.
Although still wearing different insignia on their uniforms, Bosniaks,
Serbs and Croats stood shoulder to shoulder under one flag in the honor guard at
Thursday's ceremony.
Borislav Paravac, chairman of the Bosnian presidency, thanked NATO and
paid tribute to peacekeepers killed while serving in Bosnia.
Paravac said that the EU takeover is "a major step toward sustainable
peace and European integration."
"All this is part of a journey with only one destination — institutions
of the European Union," Solana told the ceremony. "The people of Bosnia do not
deserve anything less than that."
The Alliance will keep a headquarters in Sarajevo to help finish Bosnia's
military reforms and hunt war-crimes suspects still at large.
"NATO's Bosnia mission has been one of the Alliance's greatest successes
in its 55-year history," U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns in Brussels
said.
Dubbed EUFOR, the EU peacekeeping force will monitor the peace with a
7,000-strong force.
British Maj. Gen. David Leakey, the commander of EUFOR, told reporters last
week his force had a mandate as strong as its predecessor.
The United States also plans to keep about 150 of its own troops in the
country.
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