From: pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Ana M. Shane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Re: News, 3 Jan 93 (fwd)
Date: 6 Jan 93 01:58:25 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

deniz@mandolin.ctr.columbia.edu (Deniz Akkus) writes:

>In article <Jan.5.12.53.16.1993.27381@andromeda.rutgers.edu> pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Ana M. Shane) writes:
>>deniz@mandolin.ctr.columbia.edu (Deniz Akkus) writes:

>Ana,

>Babies are really cute.  Nobody wishes them harm.  Their parents, some
>Muslim Slav woman and some unnamed soldier are not quite so cute.  Do
>you see any other help aside from offering to adopt these babies coming
>this way, for I do not.  There are many things that can be done to help
>the situation in ex-Yugo lands in the name of humanitarian help.  No
>country in Western Europe except for Germany has accepted refugees in
>any great numbers.  No country is really doing much of anything to help
>the *people* that are suffering.  I do not see help coming in the way of
>offering war victims some meaningful immigration quota.  I do not see
>help coming in in terms of temporary refugee status.  I do not see help
>coming in in terms of the French abortion medicine, or some hospitalized
>care, or pre-natal care, or food to be used for pregnant women, or
>psychiatric counseling being made available, or some *temporary* child
>care centers being set up for women who may not be able to deal with
>their child right now but might change their mind later on.  I do see
>lots of people interested in adopting healthy white babies though.  

>Babies are cute.  As a woman, I worry more about their mothers, they do
>not have the same cuteness factor.


The whole issue is exactly in what you have said now. Not in the offer
to adopt the babies. Even that will not save all of them, or maybe not
even half of them.

The mothers and the little children who are in the war now are a great
tragedy! I have just read an article about children in the war zone and have 
cried over it. But the politicians and the warmongers of the world
and of Yugoslavia, don't think of them. They talk in terms
of "national rights"; they send their troups to kill in the name
of the ones who in reality are their victims. If any of the Yu politicians
has topped to think for one splt of the second about the real people
they wouldn't have done what they have done. And now, the same politicians
are again sawing the fate of these unfortunate peoples, drawing lines
on maps somewhere in comfortable Geneva Hotels.
That is why it would be of a paramount importance for all the little people
of all the so called "nations" and "religions" in Yu, to turn to their
own and their neighbors childen, to hold them and feed them and not use
them for further political arguments. (Look at my posting: the Zagreb
Women's Lobby Initiative).

As for the "white babies" for adoption, it is, I agree, an issue, but
more an issue of the criminal trading with babies, than an issue
of the actual people at each end: the baby and the adoptive parents.
The ones "in between", the "baby profiteers" are the criminals to
be blamed.

And, just to add, I agree that the world countries could have done
and could do much much more for everyone else (raped women, refugees
in general, etc...). But, the world hasn't done much in that line
for any other war victims, so why should they have a special
treatment for Yugoslavs? (I say in resignation).

>regards,
>Deniz Akkus deniz@ctr.columbia.edu

Regards, and with a wish for PEACE

Ana M. Shane