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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Mon, 13 Apr 1992 00:16:00 CST
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Russia and Bosnia, comments, (#699)
Comments: To: val-l@ucf1vm.BITNET, jwales@iubvm.BITNET,
              kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com, mleeuwen@fwi.uva.nl,
              issjem@byuvm.BITNET, christic@igc.org, 76701.103@compuserve.com,
              politics@ucf1vm.BITNET

As I boil down towards semester's end, I hope you will bear with my
occasional gaps of silence while I slog through papers. I finished
one today after 7 hours at the keyboard, on the ruling behaviors of
Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, probably to be part of
Val-L's Filelist by mid-week - to be called Rulers Paper. Two more
long ones to go!

Russia-

Most of this is less news than commentary, so feel free to delete if
you wish. AP is reporting via my newspaper that the Russian Cabinet
is pondering whether to resign in the wake of the Congress of
People's Deputies' vote on Saturday ordering Yeltsin to put together
a new cabinet by July. Yeltsin had asked to extend his power to rule
by decree, and to remain Prime Minister until 1 September of this
year. The 1,046 member Congress was having no part of such an idea,
and voted through an amendment by a vote of 647-69 requiring Yeltsin
to appoint a new cabinet and nominate a new Prime Minister in three
months. The Parliament Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov refused to sign the
resolution, which is a rule of the Parliament, until the Congress
resumes its session on 13 April.

This "amendment" is being said by Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar
and State Secretary Gennady Burbulis to be reason for new elections,
and perhaps signalling "A death knell to reform." As the Cabinet
mutters very publicly about resigning, Yeltsin is also being urged to
stage a referendum on his reforms, as he is prohibited by the
constitution (of '77?) from "disbanding Parliament and calling new
elections on his own," the AP article said, but he CAN hold
referendums. It might go badly for him. One continues to believe that
this leadership, regardless of the stature it has in the West (as did
Gorbachev before them), is an interim process towards leadership that
has not yet clearly emerged.

Bosnia-

This writer heard one of the most racist things stated up to now
relating to this conflict on Saturday - that the Serbians were
creating an ethnically "clean" area (devoid of Bosnians AND Muslims)
along the Bosnian/Serbian border IN BOSNIAN TERRITORY, and sending
"tens of thousands" into refugee status to further such a racist
policy. It is VERY hard to have much sympathy for the Serbs when this
kind of report floats across the news outlets, because the policy
would seem to really care only for the Serbian "Communist" position,
and damn anyone who gets in their way, to the point of death and/or
dislodgement from homes held for generations. What is equally
shocking is the muteness of the so-called "democracies," will to
cluck about Peru, smash Iraq and kill thousands to prop an
anti-democratic regime in Kuwait in the name of democracy, but ignore
attempts (save by hollow recognitions) of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia to achieve democratic nationhood (Our
refusal to recognize Macedonia appears to revolve around our "ally"
Greece's objections to Macedonia using THAT NAME, as if the Greeks
held a world copyright on the use of the name - and WE ARE GOING
ALONG WITH IT!).

It is difficult to stomach some of things one sees in the world. I
know individual Serbs are not bad people, no more than any other
group in the region. But, the Serbian-led "Yugoslav" army, and the
actions of "Serbian militias" in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina
border on war crimes or a "war of aggression" at the least. The
apathy and silence of the UN and the so-called "free nations" of the
West amounts to moral lassitude of the worst kind. I'm not of any of
these groups, but I empathize most with the uprooted families in
Bosnia and Croatia, who are losing everything as Serbia furthers what
would appear to be racist goals that no one is calling them on. Might
and murder should not make right, nor should ANY side be forgiven for
promoting ethnic hatred and racism. Thast appears to be what's
happening here, the world loses every minute it continues without
efforts more overt than at present to stop it. With deep sorrow, VMS
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