From: chetnik@infopls.chi.il.us (Andre Popov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: For Croatia, Help and a Challenge
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 23:58:37 CST
Organization: INFOPLUS support, Wheeling, IL

INFOPLS.CHI.IL.US AND ITS OPERATOR(S) ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
     THE CONTENT OF THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE.
 
 
       *           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     
        * * * * *       . *                                         * .
          * * *         .            THE SERBIAN DEFENDER             .
        * * * * *       .           ----------------------            .
      * * * * * * *     .     The official online publication of      .
        * * * * *       .     -The Serbian-American Online Info-      .
          * * *         .                 -Exchange-                  .
        * * * * *       .               (708) 581-1735                .
            *           .                P.O. Box 362                 .
Dedicated to Truth      . *          Skokie, IL. 60076-0362         * .
     Justice            . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      Peace                       
    Democracy                 ISSUE #:030            DATE:11/18/92
        &                 TITLE: For Croatia, help and a challenge    
    Freedom!!             ORIGIN/AUTHOR: The Chicago Tribune 2/15/92    
=======================================================================
     Although this article is a bit old, it outlines some basic
      facts necessary in understanding the conflict in Croatia.
=======================================================================
   The United Nations Security Council probably will act next week to
authorize a UN peacekeeping force for Yugoslavia, where a tenuous cease-
fire has sharply curtailed fighting between Serbs and Croats in Croatia.
   Thousands of people have died in the war that began after Croatia
declared its independence in June. If the dispatch of the blue-helmeted
UN troops does follow in the next few weeks, it will be an important
step toward permanately ending the killing.
   Because casualties still occur despite the six-week-old truce, UN
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has shrewdly recommended that a
plan to send up to 13,000 peacekeepers be implemented right away. He
believes hostilities dare not be allowed to worsen.
   The secretary general's proposal was based on the advice of Cyrus
Vance, the UN mediator in the conflict. It was endorsed by the five
permanent Security Council members. To their credit, they too recog-
nized the need to press ahead, even without total calm.
   As welcome as this development is, however, a durable peace will
depend upon more than the temporary stationing of UN troops.
   Just as all the main parties to the war had to marshal the will
to embark on peacemaking, so they must next summon up the commitment
and good faith to ensure that peacekeeping succeeds.
  Regrettably, neither is overabundant in a couple of crucial leaders.
One is Milan Babic, president of Krajina, an ethnic Serbian enclave in
western Croatia. An opponent of the UN plan, he warned darkly this 
week that "large casualties" would follow the peacekeepers' arrival.
  The more important leader, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, has
been sending mixed signals about the UN plan: criticizing it to
journalists while pledging support to diplomats.
   This should be no surprise, for Tudjman has been problematic for
some time. In fact, things reached such a bloody pass in Croatia in
part because he and his ultra-nationalist minions seemed to go out
of their way to alienate the territory's 600,000 Serbs.
   They changed the constitution to render Serbs virtually non-
citizens, for example, and banned the Cyrillic alphabet, used by
Serbs but not Croats.
   To many Serbs, these new manifestations of Croatian nationalism
were disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi-inspired atrocities of the
1940's, when Croatia was an Axis pupper state and hundreds of
thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were slaughtered.
   Many Serbs fear that attitudes of that period have yet to be
expunged from Croatian society and the government in Zagreb.
Tudjman's repugnant comments ("Thank God my wife is neither a
Serb nor a Jew," he once said) reinforce such fears.
  For Croatia to heal and thrive, it must wholeheartedly back
international efforts to restore peace. More important, it 
must resolve to eradicate all vestiges of that brutal, intol-
erant time. Only then can Croatia expect to win the respect -
and diplomatic recognition - of other nations and peoples.

--
chetnik@infopls.chi.il.us (Andre Popov)
Infoplus BBS, +1 708 537 0247, v32bis. Home of Infoplus.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia