From: pnmideast@igc.apc.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Date: 10 Nov 92 22:01 PST
Subject: GreenLeft #79, Bosnian Muslims Unpr
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1475300383:000:5322
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!pnmideast    Nov 10 22:01:00 1992


From: <pnmideast>
Subject: GreenLeft #79, Bosnian Muslims Unprepared for Serbian war


/* Written  6:30 pm  Nov 10, 1992 by greenleft@peg.UUCP in igc:greenleft.news */
/* ---------- "Green Left #79, November 11, 1992" ---------- */
Bosnian Muslims unprepared for Serbian war

By Peter Anderson

SYDNEY - The war in the former Yugoslavia has taken a tragic toll
and nowhere more than in Bosnia-Hercegovina where it is estimated
100,000 Muslims have lost their lives as a result of Serbian
aggression. Taken together, the Muslim dead and wounded add up to
half a million, and one million are refugees or displaced.

Bosnian Muslims were not only militarily unprepared; they were
also psychologically unprepared for the Serbian assault,
according to Dr Matko Marusic, a Croatian medical academic here
recently to give his account of the situation in the warring
republics.

``Bosnian Croatians were prepared for the war and still barely
succeeded in defending territories where they were in a majority.
They have been preserved through their fight. Unfortunately, the
Muslim population, which makes up 43% of the Bosnian population,
was defeated by Serbs: not just militarily, the Serbs are
exterminating Muslims'', he told Green Left.

While Serbia was occupied by the Ottoman Turks earlier and it is
closer than Bosnia to Turkey, there are today no Muslims in
Serbia because they were eliminated one and a half centuries ago.
At that time there were 20 mosques in Belgrade; there are none
now. Moreover, the call for a Greater Serbia has appeared in
Serbian literature and has been supported by Serbian politicians
since 1842.

Matko Marusic is head of the Immunology Division at the Zagreb
School of Medicine and a key member during the war of the
official Croatian Medical Headquarters. In that position he
participated in the careful documentation of Croatian war dead.

The purpose of this was not to blame Serbs but to inform families
about lost relatives, he said. Five thousand Croatian casualties
were verified, of which 40% were civilians and 20% were
arbitrarily massacred. Thirty thousand were seriously wounded.
Thirteen thousand are still missing after intensive search,
presumed dead.

There were clear cases of atrocities, Marusic said, one in which
20 bodies were exhumed from a mass grave in western Slavonia, all
of whom had been mutilated before death - penises cut off, eyes
taken out, wire around the hands.

While the Serbian-dominated federal army was not directly
responsible for the atrocities, he said, it set the stage for
them by first conquering a territory and then allowing in the
irregular Chetnik forces who were the real guilty parties.

Under the so-called Cyrus Vance agreements signed by Croatian,
Serbian and United Nations leaders, all heavy arms were to be
removed from the scene of battle, the local militias were to be
disarmed, refugees returned from all sides, and civil life
restored. But while they were fully aware the war would simply
have continued without UN intervention, Croatians were not
satisfied with the UN activity.

``The UN was slow in getting the heavy arms away, so the first
phase was late, but it was executed. But the second phase has run
into great troubles. The UN cannot use force, and the Serbian
forces will not give up their arms. The federal army supplied
them and left for them huge reserves.''

The UN forces arrived in Croatia to oversee the occupied areas
and not to reinforce the borders established by the conflict, but
``we are afraid of that possibility'', he said.

Marusic did not believe it was realistic to partition Bosnia-
Hercegovina into ethnic cantons, as has been suggested. ``Neither
in Croatia nor in Bosnia have Croats ever wanted to partition
Bosnia. Muslims never wanted it; they will not establish the
fundamentalist Muslim state the Serbs accuse them of wanting
because their territory is too small and they are most numerous
in the towns.''

On current reports, Serb forces hold 70% of the territory of
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croats 30%.

However, said Marusic, some kind of local autonomy for the
different ethnic groups should be established and absolute
equality guaranteed at the state level, ``and we would very soon
have peace in Bosnia''.

``Bosnia Serbs would easily be brought to peace if the UN would
close the border with Serbia, which supplies all the war
material. The solution is relatively simple: close the border
with Serbia and make a just solution for internal organisation of
the country.''

Marusic denied widespread reports of negotiations between
Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic
over the question of redrawing borders.

``No, the borders cannot be changed because this is a Pandora's
box. We will not accept that Serbs carve up Bosnia. This is part
of our involvement in Bosnia; we are involved politically and
intellectually. Our people live there, and we will not allow them
to be butchered, or discriminated against in peace.''

Croatia faces economic problems because ``we inherited the
communist way of working and the communist economy'', he said.
But the war itself has destroyed up to 40% of Croatian industry,
and some of the lost territories were rich in agricultural terms.
Added to this, the expenses of the war and of support to refugees
are tremendous.