From: boyle@kirkuk.berkeley.edu (Joseph Boyle)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Re: Pluralist Bosnia?
Date: 23 Jan 1993 22:06:16 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: kirkuk.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan22.Wy221920.7075@ennews.eas.asu.edu> medvidov@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu (Nenad Medvidovic) writes:
>country and many of its people were butchered up in a hurry.  But, unlike the
>western news media who would have you believe that it was the Serbian oppression
>of others that fostered the break-up, I claim that it was simply the fact that
>Slovenes, Croats, and Bosno-Herzegovinians (hopefully a politically-correct
1
>term) wanted a land of their own.  Of course, having a bad guy to blame it all
>on did not hurt at all.

I don't think the crisis was caused just because everyone wanted national
states at any cost.  I think it was because nationalists moved into the
post-communist political vacuum, and then because a cycle of fear and 
retaliation set it.  I think with different leadership, there could easily
have been a continued Yugoslav union, or a relatively peaceful breakup as
in the Soviet Union.

For a while it seemed like every JNA officer interviewed by the Western
press said something like, "Oh, we were such fools to give up living together
peacefully in one state."

>	So, now, as a Bosnian Serb, one has a country whose "government has a
>stated committment to human rights and pluralism," certainly more than the
>government in Serbia is supposed to have committed to, but ONE DOES NOT WANT TO 
>LIVE IN THAT COUNTRY.  I don't by any means excuse ANY of the ways in which
>that particular displeasure has been demonstrated any more than I accept the
>ways in which Slovenia, Croatia, and B-H arrived at their independence.  But,

Sure, it's not surprising that the Bosnian Serbs were dissatisfied, and that
their attempt at preemptive genocide is wrong, and that the declarations of
independence may not have been a great idea, although it seems pretty obscene
to equate the two.  But, the question is, what do we do now?  Just sit by?

>I ask you, if you lived in southern Arizona like I do, and the Hispanic majority
>voted to secceed from the union while claiming its committment to human rights
>and pluralism, would you stay here and live with it?  If the African-Americans 
>of Mississippi did the same thing, could you live with it?  It is easy for us 

Mostly I think we should work to avoid getting to that point!  Failing that,
if America is incompetent enough to fall into suicidal civil war, I would wish
that there was some outside party able and willing to restore order.  If not,
I'd probably flee the country if I could find a home somewhere.  If that wasn't
possible, I'd have to make a difficult choice based on the circumstances.  If
it was a choice between, say, a black-led local government with a good record
versus a white-supremacist central government, I might well go with the former.
By the way, I'm half white and half Asian, so I'm biased against seeing
separate ethnic states as an acceptable solution.  I understand that many
people in ex-Yugoslavia are in the same boat.-

>>>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.
>>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>	I think not!  I don't mean to insult anybody, but all these self-styled
>"experts" scare me much more than all the Chetniks, Ustashes, and 
>Mujahedeen combined.  Who and what is that outside intervention to target?
>The aggressor? Fine, but who is the aggressor over there?  Think about it
>before you blurt out: "the Serbs."  Are you absolutely sure?  If Ted Coppel
>says that they are and I say that they are not, who are you going to believe

Americans may have pitifully little idea of what's going on over there,
but intervention is still better than letting everyone fight to the death,
or establish states that depend solely on military force.  That's a recipe
for a something worse and longer-lasting than the Israeli-Palestinian
problem.

>and why?  See what I am trying to say?  I lived in Yugoslavia for 20 years -
>- he (and most other "experts") never did and probably did not know much
>about it before this war.  Yet, they will have us all believe each and every
>word they feed us.

What years did you live there?  From what I've read, Milosevic's rise to
power and everything since was a break from the past and quite unexpected
by most Yugoslavs.  You say "I don't buy the 'Serb-dominated' argument."
What does that mean?  I don't think anybody except maybe the most biased
Croat nationalists thinks the pre-Milosevic Yugoslavia was "Serb-dominated."

>
>>
>>>	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.
>>
>
>	Hey, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and Croatia is not exactly
>Japan economically right now.  When I said in my last post that there is
>plenty of blame to go around, that included the western-European countries
>as well.  They are, for the most part, not willing to take any more refugees

I wasn't trying to condemn Croatia for not taking on the entire refugee
burden, just to point out why the remaining Muslims are stuck in the area
controlled by the Bosnian government, to counter the Serb claim that they're
just fanatics trying to establish some xenophobic Islamic fundamentalist state.

I agree completely that the western European countries have not done enough.

>but are willing to bomb the hell out of the place (killing more innocent people)
>so that some fictional peace could be accomplished, the flow of refugees could
>stop, and the "new world order" could focus its attention on the next bad guy.
>Give me a break!

I'm surprised you say this.  EC countries have seemed very reluctant to
endorse bombing or any other military action.  The US has talked about bombing
military targets in Serb-held Bosnia or Serbia.  [The latter would be a big
mistake in my opinion]  As we just saw in Iraq, not everything ever hits the
intended target, but this would still be a far cry from "bombing the hell
out of the place", and far less than the suffering happening every day now
there.  

>	I don't believe I can make an effective counter-argument to your
>last paragraph.  The general dislike for the Serbs, fueled by many a news
>report (many of them true, others fabricated), is so pronounced everywhere
>one turns that, even when a genuine act of humanity and compassion
>is shown, it is interpreted as just another ploy to deceive.  Much as it
>bothers me, I would have about as much success in trying to pursuade you
>otherwise as I usually do trying to explain to my own mother that Serbs have
>done some darn awful things in the last two years (she lives in Belgrade).

I wasn't saying that Serbs are all awful people, in spite of all the 
atrocities.  I'm sure many individuals in Serbia do have compassion for
Muslim refugees too.  And several news reports have said that some Bosnian
Serbs have been killed by SRBiH military for refusing to rape and kill
their Muslim neighbors.  Even as for Serbs who go along with their government's
policies, probably most of them are guilty of no more than uncritical
acceptance of what they hear on TV, much like Americans.

I don't know why I have to repeat all this.  I'm insulted that you seem to
have confused me with some rabid Croatian nationalist who thinks Serbs are
evil and should be exterminated.  I'm not.  I just feel strongly that the
genocide has to be stopped, and that state sovereignty, international
boundaries, and ethnic divisions are all less important than human rights.