From: boyle@kirkuk.berkeley.edu (Joseph Boyle)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Pluralist Bosnia?
Date: 22 Jan 1993 01:33:50 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: kirkuk.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan21.210836.18027@ennews.eas.asu.edu> medvidov@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu (Nenad Medvidovid) writes:
>	I do not intend to dispute your statement that Bosnian gov't and
>armed forces do indeed include Croats and Serbs.  Probably true, although I
>would for once like to see a name, any name, associated with the Bosnian army
>or gov't that wasn't Muslim.  But then, of course, it would just make me wonder

I thought they were about to hand the presidency to Stepan Kljuic, a Croat.
And, for the reasons I gave, it's not surprising that mostly Muslims are left
in the government-held areas.

But, the main thing I was saying was just that the Bosnian government has a
stated committment to human rights and pluralism, and could be made to stick
to it with adequate foreign pressure, and so should be supported over the
murderous Serbian Republic of B-H.

>further how it is that, while they had no intentions of living in the same
>country - Yugoslavia - Muslims, Croats, and Serbs (at least some of the latter
>two) have no problem living together and fighting for B-H.  And, please, do not
>give me the "Serbian dominated" arguments.  I lived in the ex-Yugoslavia most of
>my life and can be the judge of that for myself (i.e. I don't buy it for a
>moment).

I'm sure a lot of people would love to have the old Yugoslavia back;
it's being considered an enemy minority in someone else's rump state
that they object to so strenuously.  I'm not dogmatic about how many
pieces Yugoslavia is divided into, just that they all have governments
that respect human rights.  And I don't expect it to happen by itself;
that's why outside intervention is necessary.

>	However, I would appreciate it if you could substantiate your claim that
>"only Serbs and Croats are welcomed as refugees in Serbia and Croatia."  Whereas
>it has only been hinted by the press that there are a number of Muslims who
>escaped to Serbia (this claim has been floating around relatively often lately),
>how can you possibly deny (or ignore) the fact that Croatia has embraced (more
>or less) tens of thousands of Muslim refugees?
>	There is plenty of blame to go around in Yugoslavia.  Let's give some
>credit where it is due as well.

I credit Croatia with sheltering Muslim refugees, but they closed the
border to new refugees quite a while ago (June?) after Western
countries wouldn't take anybody.  Press reports said Croat refugees
were still allowed through.  Later, flight of Muslims into
"Herceg-Bosna" was turned back by the Prozor massacre.  Most recent
press reports said 400,000 (!) Muslim refugees were in Croatia, but
that the Croatian government was threatening to send them all back to
punish the Bosnian government for not withdrawing from Gornji Vakuf,
etc.

I've repeatedly seen estimates of 50-60,000 unregistered Muslim
refugees in Serbia, as compared to 600,000 registered Serb refugees.
Apparently the refugees who are officially welcome are Serbs who are
not evading being drafted into the Serb army.  Let's give Serbia
credit for not hunting the Muslims down and killing them like the
Serbian Republic of BiH would.  But then, hunting them down would
make the pretense that Serbia is not involved in the war look even
less believable.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.yugoslavia:10605 soc.culture.europe:11321 soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna:1296 soc.culture.croatia:458