Bosnia Rescue Plan Rejected, Paris Panel Told

Britain rejected a French proposal for a joint parachute assault in 1995 to rescue the doomed Bosnia-Herzegovina town of Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 residents were massacred by Serbs, a parliamentary commission was told Thursday.

“The idea was for 600 paratroopers, flown directly from France, to jump and capture an airfield [inside Serbian lines near Srebrenica] and hold it while reinforcements were landed to break the siege,” witness Gilles Herzog told the panel.

“But Prime Minister Alain Juppe said that, for diplomatic reasons, we should not do this alone and needed the British.

“But they refused to supply their paratroopers,” said Herzog, invited to testify as director of an acclaimed documentary film on the massacre.

Srebrenica was protected by only a few hundred demoralized and poorly armed Dutch peacekeepers when the enclave was overrun in July 1995.

Herzog said his information came from Gen. Christian Quesnot, then personal military advisor to newly elected President Jacques Chirac, who wanted to hit back at the Serbs.

The filmmaker quoted Quesnot as saying a separate suggestion to Washington that large numbers of French troops be flown behind Serbian lines aboard U.S. helicopters had been rebuffed.