From: faruk@bcars6f5.BNR.CA (Faruk od Bosne)
Subject: Re: Haris Silajdzic
Reply-To: faruk@bnr.ca
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Canada
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 22:59:56 GMT


In article <1993Jan12.133648.203453@uctvax.uct.ac.za>,
snggab01@uctvax.uct.ac.za writes:
|> Haris Silajdzic appeared on Larry King Live spouting a pack of lies.
|> 1) According to him ,it was the 'brave' Muslim resistance partisans who tied
|>    down 16 German Divisions in Yugoslavia in WW2 while the Serbs
collaborated
|>    with the Nazis.

Haris Silajdzic was right. Out of 7 Nazis offensives, 6 of them were on the
Bosnian soil. Since BH had predomonantly Muslim population, and since this
was guerilla warfare, the whole population was involved, and Muslims carried 
the biggest burden. That's why Muslims had the biggest number of casualties. 
Tito had broad ethnic mix but no Chetnics (nor Ustasha's for that matter).
Remember the President of the first AVNOJ in Bihac was Muslim (Pozderac).
|> 
|> False:The Mufti of Jerusalem ,Amin Al-Husayni travelled to Yugoslavia
to round
|>       up 20000 Muslim Croats to fight on behalf of the Axis,more notably the
|>       Muslim S.S. Handschar Division which fought for the Germans on the 
|>       Russian Front and was actually of very poor fighting quality.Also 36
|>       German divisions and not 16 were tied down and they were tied down
|>       by Tito's forces who had a broad ethnic mix as well as by
Mikhailovic's
|>       Chetniks,NOT by any predominantly or exclusively Muslim forces.

Mikhailovic's Chetnics never faught any battle with Nazis (you tell me if you 
know of any). The only thing chetnics did were atrocities against unprotected
civilians dominantly Muslims (see Vladimir Dedijer's book: Genocide over 
Muslims 1941-1945, collection of documents and testimonies, Svjetlost - 
Sarajevo 1990, 880 pages of gruesome Chetnic's bestialities in the WWII).
Number of German's divisions in ex-Yu varied. Most of the time it was 16,
since they have collaborators in NDH as well as in Nedic's Serbia.

Handzar Division was formed by Germans (H. Himmler) in May 1943 (battle
for Stalingrad was end of 1942), after repeated Chetnic's bestialities 
over Muslim/Albanian population in BH and Sandzak. It had 60% Muslims/
Albanians and 40% Germans, with the primary purpose to protect Muslims/
Albanians from genocide. Even Nazi's were fed-up by chetnics bestialities 
over the Muslim population.
|> 
|> 2) According to him,the Jews and Serbs are welcome in Bih and always
have been.
|> 
That is very correct statement. As then, like now. Present Bosnian
governement never discriminated by ethnicity or religion. However it 
strongly discriminates between murderers (the whole world says that are
by and large serbs) vs. innocent unprotected and unarmedelderly, women and
children. It strongly discriminate between rapist and raped. You call those
rapists/murderers the fighters. That's the whole point.

|> False:Muslims burned down the synagogue in Sarajevo in 1942.The
aforementioned
|>       Handschar Division was outstanding in one respect and that is the mass
|>       murder of Jews and Serbs in Yugoslavia.
|> 
I have been in Sarajevo's sinagogue, and I think you have invented this
statement about burning. The fact is that Bosnian Jews went along best
with Muslims during the WWII (some of them converted to Islam), since both
religions were equaly prosecuted by chetnics. 
Since Handzar Division was formed much later than "burning" it could not 
participate in it.
Bosnian Muslims always, since the times of Spanish prosecutions in 14-th 
century, offered a genuine shelter to Jews, and Jews know it very well.
They offered same hospitality to Serbs when they were prosecuted by Ottomans. 
However I wonder will it be so in the future.
|>  
|>  
|> ----------------------------------------------
|> University of Cape Town, South Africa 
|> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|> Power comes from the barrel of a gun.(No prizes for guessing who said that)
|> 
|> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who's power lies in the gun (topuz) he stinks on a monster. (No prizes for
guessing who said that).

Faruk.

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