From: pavlovic-milan@CS.YALE.EDU (Milan Pavlovic)
Subject: Is Mr. Gazis-Sax really a peace activist?
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 19:11:28 GMT

In article <1475300360@igc.apc.org> Lynn Gazis-Sax <lgsax@igc.apc.org> writes:

>Three incidents should illustrate some of the peculiar difficulties of peace 
>witness in the new Yugoslavia:

>1.  I and other members of the Peace Camp in Subotica meet with Drusko 
>Stepanovic, the local head of the Serbian Socialist Party, the same party as 
>Slobodan Milosevic.  He considers himself a Yugoslav because he has 
>Serbian, Bunjevac, and Croatian ancestors.  He denies that there are any 
>ethnic problems in Vojvodina or anywhere else in Yugoslavia and insists 
>that the Yugoslav National Army has completely withdrawn into the 
>borders of Yugoslavia.  

>Over the deep murmurs and outraged whispers of my fellow peace 
>activists, I manage to tell him that I am willing to accept his word that the 
>Yugoslav National Army has withdrawn from Bosnia and Croatia.  "But 
>what," I add, "is your government doing to ensure that Serbs from 
>Yugoslavia are not crossing into Bosnia or Croatia to join the irregulars?"
>
>"What can it do?" he responds.  "When somebody feels that he is a Serb and 
>he sees that his fellow Serbs are suffering, there is nothing I can or want to
>do to stop him from helping his brother Serbs."
>
>ABOUT THE TITLE:  Brethren theogian Dale Brown once counted the ability 
>to believe in miracles as an essential component in the psychic constituency 
>of the peace activists.  "Mir" is the word for "peace" in Croatian, Serbian, 
>and most other Slavic languages.  The title, therefore, reflects the writer's 
>personal belief in persistant peacemaking.

Mr. Sax, day in and day out you post your propaganda to this group claiming to
be a peace activist who is interested in stopping the war in Yugoslavia. You
seem to be well informed on all things happening in Yugoslavia, and yet you
have not sent a report to this group about the recent arrest of 70 Serbian 
irregulars who wanted to fight in Bosnia.

Please don't insult my inteligence by saying you never heard of this report.
It was quite well publicized in Serbia and I maintain that not only did you
deliberately keep quiet about it on this group, but you also never had that
imaginary conversation with a Dusko Stepanovic - as he most certainly would
have answered your question about the irregulars by referring you to this
report - as I said, the arrest of the 70 irregulars was quite well publicized
in Serbia and I find it hard to believe that one would not hear of it.

Henceforth, Mr. Sax, I find your entire "Zagreb diary" and "peace" activity
highly questionable and unreliable. Although you maintain that you are indeed
interested in reaching peace, I don't think that your actions here reflect
that. Your one-sided, biased reporting against the Serbs is unprecedented.

Let me quote an article from TANJUG to finish my point about the 70 Serbian
irregulars who have  been arrested:
==============================================================================
	Yugoslav Prime Minister: Karadzic's Arrest of Members of 
	   Serbian Paramilitary Formations is First Step to 
	      Settling of Conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina


     Belgrade, August 4 (tanjug) - The first concrete step towards the settling
of conflicts in the civil war raging in the former Yugoslav republic of 
Bosnia-Herzegovina, is the fact that soldiers under the command of Bosnian 
Serbs' leader Radovan Karadzic have arrested 70 members of paramilitary
formations, said Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic on Tuesday at a press
conference attended by domestic and foreign journalists.

  Panic said that he had been informed of the action personally by Karadzic,
and underscored that this was the first time that members of a paramilitary
formation had been arrested since the start of conflicts in the former 
Yugoslav republics.

  Panic expressed hope that Croatia and the Moslem side would undertake the
same step against terrorists of their nationality.

  For the past four months local Moslem-Croatian forces aided by the army of
neighbouring Croatia have been fighting against Bosnian Serbs.  Clashes
escalated after the European Community (EC)  recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina
at the request of the Moslem-Croatian coalition without the agreement of 
the Serbs who make up one-third of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  Bad news, was the way Panic described Bosnian Moslem leader Alija 
Izetbegovic's latest request to the United Nations calling for a lifting of 
the arms embargo, precisely at a time when Panic was proposing the 
demilitarization of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  Panic reiterated his support for calling of a peace conference on 
Yugoslavia, and assessed that it was a realistic proposal, and that given
minimal conditions the conference could resove many problems.

  "I have no conditions for peace," said Panic. (end)

nem-mlk/sr
===============================================================================

Mr. Sax, if you really were a peace activist, how come you never wrote to us
about Prime Minister Panic's proposals to demilitarize Bosnia? Or about his
sincere peace plans?

Regards,
Milan Pavlovic
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia