From: abrodnik@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: Re: Good News from U.S.
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:41:46 GMT

Some more comments on:

In article <1jn8ipINNh1p@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> jovanovic-nick@cs.yale.edu (Nick Jovanovic) writes:
>
>Now, here is where idealism and practicality clash: if you want to intervene
>in countries which have human rights problems, but which do not attack
>other countries, there is a terribly long list of countries to intervene
>in. The U.N. Secretary General himself identified at least TEN countries
>which have more severe internal problems with their populations than exist
>in B-H.

Can you list them, please? I'm not saying that they do not exist,
but all what I'm saying is this the reason to ``forget about B&H''?

>Countries make decisions based on the "rules" that the international
>community makes.  The world will not be a more orderly place unless these
>"rules" are applied fairly to all countries.  The Soviet Union and more
>recently Czechoslovakia demonstrated how the dissolution of a country can
>be negotiated rather peacefully.  They should be rewarded.  The territories
>of ex-Yugoslavia demonstrated quite the opposite so far.  None of them
>negotiated sincerely, and they should not be rewarded, i.e., Slovenia,
>Croatia, and B-H should not have been recognized.  

There is one major problem in this reasoning. Namely all sides in
peaceful solutions came to the point where they agreed that the
dissolving of country is the best solution for all sides. In ex-YU
case we have to say that Serbia and Montenegro were not even
considering such a possibility. So as long the negotiations would go
on, they would oppose. So what if we put the argument in the opposite
perspective; what if only Serbia and Montenegro are guilty of war
because they did not want to follow the voice of other four republics?

But the main point all together is:

>The final point here that I will make is that if you advocate intervention
>into another country, then other countries have the right to advocate
>intervention in your country according to the international "rules" that 
>are agreed upon.

and I have a big problem understanding this. Namely why the country is
so sacred that nobody is allowed to touch it? IMO country should be in
service of people and not vice versa.

>In ex-Yugoslavia,
>even international principles have been violated by the international 
>community:  Why were Slovenia, Croatia, and B-H allowed to change the
>external (international) borders of ex-Yugoslavia? 

Hm and the argument which as valid as this one is that no border was
changed (actually this is true in case of neighbouring countries)
hence no violation happened. But if country dissolved that is the
other issue. Furthermore, returning to the previous point, the country
was not serving their people any more and they decided to make another
one(s). What's wrong here?

>Secessions and border changes are supposed to be negotiated.
>Secessions which take compact ethnic regions out of a country against the
>will of those people is against international doctrine.  The secessions of
>Croatia and B-H took over 2 million Serbs out of their country (Yugoslavia)
>against their will.  These Serbs were not spread out homogeneously throughout
>Croatia and B-H; they lived primarily in certain regions which were both
>historically and presently settled by them.

Right. Therefore they should be given autonomy up to negotiated degree
(note here, that degree is not limited), but that is all. I see no
reason why fire the war all over ex-YU just to bring these distant
populations of Serbs into Serbia, do you?

>They represented 32% of the
>population of B-H at the start of the war; according to Vance and Owen,
>Serbs were majority on 60% of the territory of B-H.  Forcing them overnight
>to be separated from Yugoslavia against their will was most certainly
>a violation of international law.

In the same way, as I mentioned in previous posting, would be against
the law to force 68% of population to stay in Yugoslavia. Which
violation is bigger (if one can measure size at all)?

>The war is a consequence of the RECENT actions of Slovenia, Croatia, and
>B-H, not history.  Events such as ethnic cleansing of Serb villages in
>Croatia in the months prior to the start of this war.  Events such as
>secessions which forced people out of their own countries against their
>will without providing them with guarantees of minority rights.  Events
>such as secessions without settlements about borders or partition of the
>Yugoslav debt.  Events such as Croatian adoption of national symbols used
>by the Ustashe in WWII Nazi puppet State of Croatia (like Germany reviving
>the Swastika).  Laws which limited property rights, voting rights, 
>citizenship rights, worker rights, etc. of minorities in Croatia at the
>time of their secession.  Etc., etc., etc.

Hm, a couple thoughts here. Whatever is listed above, none of these
actions was fireing a bullet. Further, what if some (not all) of these
actions were provoked by something else? And, especially, can you
point out which of the above actions is the Slovene one? Or the
attempt was to put some actors in one bag, some actions in the other
bag and let the reader match them (allthough some of them do not match
at all)?

>In the past two years, the war came
>because of concrete anti-Serb actions in Slo/Cro/B-H; Serbs there did
>not have to guess what their lives would be like after secession--they
>were living through it (actually, some of them didn't live through it,
>they were slaughtered) when they were fired only because they were Serbian,
>when they were harassed in the middle of the night by thugs who wanted them
>out of town by morning, when they were prevented from selling their
>property if they decide to leave instead of fight, when their neighbors
>disappeared without a trace, when signs were posted ordering immediate
>evacuation of entire villages.  This is all in the RECENT past, and that
>is why there is war.

Please, give the accounts of these claims (specifically for Slovenia)
or are you playing again the game of two bags?

With the best regards,

Andrej