Xref: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu soc.culture.arabic:19956 soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna:3969 soc.culture.iranian:23649 soc.culture.jewish:65421 soc.culture.pakistan:40167 soc.culture.turkish:35449 soc.culture.yugoslavia:17961 talk.politics.mideast:77298
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!darwin.sura.net!mojo.eng.umd.edu!josip
From: josip@eng.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna,soc.culture.iranian,soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.yugoslavia,talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Europe vs. Muslim Bosnians
Date: 13 May 1993 19:53:50 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 63
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <1su90eINNocq@mojo.eng.umd.edu>
References: <C6z334.3Juz@austin.ibm.com> <C6z3JD.ApB@news2.cis.umn.edu> <1su2tf$f7r@venus.haverford.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: orbit.src.umd.edu

In article <1su2tf$f7r@venus.haverford.edu> Michael Sells <m_sells@haverford.edu> writes:
>
>Thus, while a war rages between Serbs and Croats as a continuation of
>WWII, and older agenda, the annihilation of Islam and Muslims from
>Bosnian, is being carried out under the cover of the Serbo-Croat war.
>

The annihilation of Islam ("Turks") is an older Serbian agenda.   But
I strongly dispute your notion that Croats had a similar older agenda,
in fact, for the past century or two, Croats and Muslims have seen
themselves as having a lot in common, and they generally had friendly
relations.  Your suggestion that Croat-Muslim relationship is 
anything like Serb-Muslim relationship is completely wrong.

To say that Croats and Muslims have a lot in common does not imply
they are not separate peoples.  The events of the past two years
clearly show Muslim determination to remain separate: in their alliance
with Croats, they maintained this separation.  Croats would have
accepted a much closer relationship, I think.  This century plus
of building bridges between these two friendly peoples is now at
risk, because of the inexorable logic of war.  

Since Bosnian Serbs (32% of population) have 10 times more heavy
weapons than Bosnian Muslims (44%) and Croats (17%) combined, they
have squeezed Muslims and Croats into only 30% of the territory.
Muslims lost more territory than Croats (who built defenses early on).

Under these conditions, any alliance is bound to fall apart since
it is easier to recover lost land from Croats than from Serbs.
The only thing keeping this in check was the hope of reversal of
fortunes through foreign military intervention and lifting of the
arms embargo.  Since Warren Christopher had no luck persuading
the Europeans to go along with this, this hope was dashed.  Having
no prospect of outside help, the former allies turned on each other,
like two starved animals in a tight cage.

This inexorable logic, of course, got plenty of help from Serbian
intelligence operatives, who were doing everything to build
mistrust between Croats and Muslims for over a year.  A timely
intervention to stop Serbian aggression would have prevented this.

Sadly, nothing was done to create a balance of power on the
ground.  As long as the Serbs enjoy 10:1 advantage, they can 
break any alliance, even among friends.  This is tragic, but
hardly new: "divide et impera" was used by ancient Romans
with success.  In my view, Bosnian Muslims and Croats managed
to resist this divisive strategy reasonably well until May 9, 1993,
when the hope of reversal of fortunes was lost.  

I have a question for the distinguished diplomats: do they
believe Balkan peoples are experimental cannon fodder?  I'd like to know
what did they expect when they decided to enforce the arms embargo which
solidified Serbian 10:1 advantage in heavy weapons; how did they expect
to prevent fragmentation of the Muslim and Croat defense forces;  and how
on Earth do they hope to restore peace without justice?

The implications of this immoral approach I cannot begin to predict,
but I am filled with foreboding...

Sincerely,
Josip


