ABSTRACT
Only much later did the real reason for the location of the headquarters become clear. In late 1991, Itzbegovic had pleaded for a preventive deployment in BiH, but this was refused. According to Warren Zimmerman, then US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, ‘Vance and the U.N. leadership in New York took the traditional if puzzling line that peacekeepers are used after a conflict, not before’. As a sop, the Headquarters of UNPROFOR, with some UNMOs (United Nations Military Observers), was located in his capitol as a sort of combination of ‘good offices’ and deterrent measure.5 Unfortunately for the soldiers, no one told them of their real role, which they had assumed to be the command and control of a divisionsized force. This was made difficult enough by being over 350 kilometres from their nearest units, without becoming directly involved in a different civil war. Nevertheless, less than one month after their arrival, the ‘deterrent’ having swiftly failed, they of course were.
