From: TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: SLOW DEATH OF BOSNIA'S IDENTITY
Date: 12 Oct 1992 13:54:01 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

SLOW DEATH OF BOSNIA'S IDENTITY

The  fall  of Bosanski  Brod  points  a  finger directly  at  the
conscience of  the free world,  and quite especially  of Britain,
still president of the European Community.

Another  historic part  of Bosnia  has become  instead a  part of
Serbia and its  inhabitants are dead or on their  way into exile.
What   was  traditionally   a   remarkably  unstressful   society
comprising Muslims and Christians, Croats  and Serbs, all of whom
saw  themselves  as  Bosnians,  will be  turned  into  a  further
monolithic extension of a nationalist state.

When Melaine  McDonagh recently visited Bosanski  Brod and talked
to its  defenders (The  Tablet, September 12)  she found  she was
actually  speaking to  a Serb.  I hope  he has  escaped from  the
Chetniks (the name  everyone in Bosnia uses  for Karadzic's armed
gangs). The  defenders of Bosanski  Brod were fighting  and dying
for something  of enormous  value, perhaps the  most consistently
tolerant society Europe  has known, ever since it  began with the
Bogomils and then went out of its way to welcome Jews. It is only
Western ignorance which  makes most people in  this country, even
historians, unaware of what is at stake.

Bosnia's historic identity  is as worth dying for  as any culture
in  Europe but  it cannot  now survive  the shells  and bombs  of
Milosevic  and  his  tool  Karadzic if  Europe  continues  to  do
nothing.  Hitherto we  have indeed  done less  than nothing  even
arbitrarily denying  Bosnia's defenders the weapons  to counter a
heavily armed aggressor, while refusing to intervene.

Britain in particular has blocked  every attempt to impose an air
exclusion zone,  although it  is the daily  bombing from  the air
which is  doing so much  to render town after  town uninhabitable
through the coming winter.

Our  sanctions have  been  a fraud,  unmonitored and  effectively
unenforced. We have left Yugoslavia's  old embassy in London open
and in  Serbian hands,  the centre  of constant  propaganda where
Bosnia is quite unrepresented. Resolutions passed at the UN have,
in some cases, not even begun to be enforced. No hard attempt has
been made to carry out the decisions of the London conference, so
absurdly described by the Prime Minister as "successful".

All that it has done is to continue the pathetic conversations of
which Lord Carrington finally tired  at a rather higher level but
to  no better  purpose. Discussions  in Geneva  about the  future
constitution of Bosnia are no  less than macabre when its capital
is being daily  pounded to death and its attackers  have shown no
intention at  all of moving  from their  stated aim of  a Serbian
take-over of most of the country.

For Karadzic the Geneva  discussions are useful precisely because
they leave him  free to destroy Bosnia while  furnishing him with
the weapon  that he can  threaten to withdraw from  discussion if
anything is done to stop his murderous campaign.

No part  of Bosnia will  escape the fate  of Bosanski Brod  if we
continue  as   hitherto.  Our   so-called  humanitarian   aid  is
fundamentally unhumanitarian in that  it relieves our conscience,
covers up  our inactivity,  while simply  keeping the  victims of
aggression alive until their homes are finally destroyed and they
die of cold,  have their throats slit in  concentration camps, or
escape into exile.

None  of this  would have  happened if  Europe had  intervened or
seriously threatened  to intervene four  months ago. For  that Mr
Hurd is  more responsible than  anyone and history in  due course
will make that  as clear as it has made  Eden's complicity in the
1956 Israeli invasion of Egypt.

We can  still save Sarajevo, Travnik  and Gorazde but only  if we
act quite differently and cease to  be deterred by the threats of
Karadzic, a man who is not  a Bosnian but whose paranoid ambition
to turn Bosnia into a Serbian province was recognisable by people
who knew him years before this war began.

(Prof) Adrian  Hastings.
Dept of Theology  and Religious Studies,
University of Leeds.

THE GUARDIAN, (Letters to the Editor), October 10, 1992


THE MYTHS OF SARAJEVO

(...)

During the  Nazi occupation in  the Second World War,  the city's
Muslims  tried to  shelter  Sarajevo's Jews,  descendants of  the
Shephardic  community  exiled from  Spain  in  1492 who  in  1581
founded  a settlement  in Sarajevo.  When the  Serbs began  their
siege last  April, perhaps 700  Jews remained - survivors  of the
Holocaust and their descendants.

The Serbs are now helping  to complete Hitler's work, albeit less
savagely. Last  week they allowed 150  Jews to leave the  city by
bus, almost  a quarter  of the entire  community. And  why should
they stay?

Even the old  Jewish cemetery is now part of  the front line. The
Serbs  - so  Sarajevo's  defenders have  told  the city's  Jewish
leader, Ivan Ceresnjes -  have dug their  trenches through Jewish
graves.

(...)

THE INDEPENDENT WEEKEND, 26 September 1992
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< {"God protect us from ceasefires. It seems that
                    whenever we have a ceasefire, the level of
                    fighting goes up." Major Lewis Mackenzie,
                                       UN Commander in Sarajevo}