More than 200 activists from around the US and Canada met in Washington, DC on February 3-4, 1996 to discuss future policy for the American Committee to Save Bosnia. The ACSB had until the fall of 1995 focused its grassroots energies on lobbying Congress to lift the arms embargo. The Dayton Accords have changed the situation on the ground in Bosnia, but have not solved its problems. Issues of concern at the conference included providing support for the UN war crimes tribunal, pressuring Congress to use oversight in the implementation of the peace plan, and fostering the development of democracy in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).
Over 40 humanitarian, citizen advocacy, student and religious organizations, at a December 1993 conference, founded the American Committee to Save Bosnia. Its Executive Director, Steven W. Walker, resigned from the State Department in August 1993 in protest over US policy toward Bosnia. Speakers at this year’s ACSB conference included Sven Alkalaj, the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina’s Ambassador to the United States; Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor of The Nation and Vanity Fair; Susan Sontag, author, director, literary theorist and human rights activist; Branka Magas, author of The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-Up, 1980-92 and founding member of the London-based Alliance to Defend Bosnia-Herzegovina; and David Gelber, Emmy-award-winning Executive Producer of ABC-TV's Peter Jennings Reporting.
It was an intense weekend, with hours of speakers and panel discussions. But equally intense was the atmosphere, which one could taste throughout the day in the bar, and during the coffee breaks and dinners at which people from around the country met to share their ideas and concerns. It was comforting and inspiring to be with over 200 people who are all struggling with the same problems -- recruiting new activists, dealing with an apathetic public and a confusing media, and having too little money and time to accomplish their goals. The diversity of the group intensified the inspiration. The activists were between the ages of 18 and 60, and included Republicans and Democrats, Christians, Muslims and Jews, and Bosnians, Croats and Americans with widely varying backgrounds. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, and students were all present. The issue in Bosnia is not a partisan issue, nor is it based in religion -- an act of genocide has occurred, and the United States has appeased and rewarded the perpetrators.
The complexity of the conflict should not intimidate anyone who would like to understand what has happened. In fact, the situation is not nearly as complex as the media would have you believe. Don’t feel bad if you don't understand the situation after listening to NPR, or watching the networks and Larry King and CNN -- the producers of most of the stories and interviews that you hear and see haven’t a clue themselves.
No one knew for sure that genocide was occurring in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Today, we haven’t that excuse. The information is available -- not only on what is happening, but also on how you can help. Below are some common questions, with answers that will, hopefully, illuminate the situation.
There were six republics in the former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The federal capital was Belgrade, also the capital of Serbia, and Serbs dominated the government and the military. Slovenia seceded in 1991, and Croatia soon followed. In March of that year, the presidents of Serbia and Croatia, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman, respectively, agreed to a partition of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia. The Bosnian parliament responded in October 1991 by passing a Declaration of Sovereignty within a Yugoslav federation.
At this point, the population of Bosnia was 44% Bosnian Muslim, 31% Bosnian Serb, and 17% Croat (mainly inhabiting Hercegovina, a southwest region in Bosnia). In a February, 1992 referendum, with 63.4% voter participation, 99.7% of the voters opted for sovereignty and independence. Reinforced by forces from the Yugoslav National Army, Serbian paramilitary forces under Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic began a campaign in March 1992 to create a Serbian republic in Eastern Bosnia. The United States and the European Union recognized the sovereignty of Bosnia and Hercegovina in April 1992.
No, this is a war of aggression launched by nationalist Serbs in the rump Yugoslavia -- this fact is evident through their military support of the Bosnian Serbs, by the methods of the Bosnian Serb forces, and by propaganda used by the Milosevic regime in Belgrade.
When Yugoslavia fell apart, Serbia, under Milosevic, inherited the Yugoslav National Army, the fifth largest army in Europe. Milosevic supported the Bosnian Serbs' military campaign with troops and weapons from this army. Although announcing in May 1992 that it would withdraw from Bosnia, the Yugoslav National Army and the Milosevic regime continued to support the Bosnian Serbs throughout the fighting.
Methods for creating a Serbian republic in Bosnia and Hercegovina included expulsion of non-Serb (or non-nationalist Serb) populations, mass killings, concentration camps, systematic rape, and cultural genocide (deliberate destruction of Muslim and Croat culture in the region -- churches, mosques and libraries were bombed and leveled.) All these methods converge in nothing less than genocide. Therefore, this is a Serbian war of aggression aimed not only at creating a Serbian republic in Bosnia, but also at destroying non-Serb populations and culture in the region.
Long before the fighting began, the Milosevic regime had launched a campaign of propaganda to arouse Serbian nationalist sentiments in Serbia and Bosnia. There is clear evidence that Belgrade planned this war long before fighting began in 1992, like the partition agreement between Croatia and Serbia. In addition, as early as 1991, Serbs in Bosnia were 'warned’ of the war. It is also important to keep in mind that Yugoslavia was a communist country -- Milosevic’s regime in Belgrade inherited not only its army, but also control over its few television and radio stations. While committing genocide in Bosnia, Belgrade television and radio stations bombarded the Serbian public with images (mostly fabricated) of the atrocities that the Bosnian Muslims were committing. These 'atrocities', by instilling irrational fears in the population, were used to arouse Serbian nationalist sentiments, and propagated the idea that Serbia deserved redemption for its past and present sufferings. The Belgrade propaganda, methods of the Bosnian Serb forces and its aid from the Yugoslav Nation Army all point to the fact that this is a war of aggression, involving carefully calculated genocide.
In September 1991, at the request of the Milosevic regime (. . . could they have foreseen a war?) the United Nations imposed an arms embargo on all six republics of Yugoslavia. Though the Serbs had a monopoly on heavy weapons, the UN maintained the embargo even after the break-up of Yugoslavia -- even after the UN itself recognized the sovereignty of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Article 51 of the UN Charter states that member states have the right to self defense. Meant to prevent escalation of fighting in Bosnia, the embargo actually drastically increased the potential for destruction by creating a huge imbalance of forces. The arms embargo paralyzed the Bosnian army, while it had virtually no effect on Bosnian Serb forces and Serbia -- they had control over the Yugoslav National Army, the fifth largest European army. Milosevic did agree to stop sending troops and weapons to the Bosnian Serbs in 1992 -- to follow through with this agreement, he had Serbian soldiers fighting in Bosnia simply change into Bosnian Serb uniforms. This clever tactic not only indicates how much (not at all) Slobodan Milosevic values international agreements with the UN, NATO, and Western governments, but also shows that these institutions' closest thing to a Balkan policy was, and still is, naivete and complacency. The illegal arms embargo, denying the independent state of Bosnia and Hercegovina the right to self-defense, gave the Serbs a huge advantage.
Yes -- over 200,000 are dead, 2.5 million expelled and between 110,000 and 900,000 women raped and abused. Serb forces have destroyed hundreds of mosques and churches, replacing them with parking lots or grass. In September 1992, a BBC reporter asked Serbian gunners on the hillsides overlooking Sarajevo why they had shelled the Holiday Inn, knowing that it was where the foreign press was staying. The Serb officer in command apologized profusely, explaining that they hadn’t been aiming at the hotel but at the national museum behind it. Zvornik, a town on the Drina, was 60% Muslim in 1991. Today it is 100% Serb, and the new mayor of the city now tells visitors that there were never any mosques in Zvornik. Genocide, expulsion, and assimilation -- for example, the mass rape of Muslim women and subsequent denial of access to abortions -- are the three components of ‘ethnic cleansing’, which aim to create an ethnically homogenous state devoid of political opposition.
Clearly, genocide has occurred in Bosnia. But neither international organizations nor individual governments will use the word. The reason is simple and straightforward. The UN Declaration on Human Rights states that member states have an obligation to intervene when genocide occurs. Thus, those states that did not want to intervene -- they make up virtually the entire international community -- needed simply to avoid using the word genocide in order to justify inaction.
In the Dayton Accords, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia agree to recognize one another’s sovereignty, and to cooperate with all organizations involved in implementation of the “peace settlement” and with the investigation and prosecution of war criminals. There has been a cease fire since October 5, 1995, which will continue. A multi-national military force, the Implementation Force (IFOR), under the command of NATO and with authority from the UN, has the right to "monitor and ensure compliance with the agreement on military aspects." But there is already evidence that NATO is continuing its ‘Balkan policy’ of ambiguity. A Western diplomat in Sarajevo reported in early March this year that “NATO has allowed people to be beaten and killed and property to be destroyed without intervening. There are risks to intervention but there are even greater consequences to inaction.” During the same week, the AP reported that "UN and NATO officials say Serb gangs [torching and looting buildings, beating citizens and responsible for at least one murder in the Sarajevo suburbs of Ilidza and Grbavica] apparently are being directed by the hard-line leadership in the Serb stronghold of Pale, which wants to create ethnically segregated areas of proof that Serbs, Muslims and Croats cannot live together."
Bosnia and Hercegovina now has an Inter-Entity Boundary Line between the Bosnian Federation and Republika Srpska, reflecting the same 50-50 ethnic partition that Slobodan Milosevic accepted under the Vance-Owen Plan in the summer of 1993 (Radovan Karadzic rejected this plan based on a "democratic" decision in the Bosnian Serb parliament in Pale. There is a central government consisting of a president, a two chamber legislature, and a constitutional court, with direct elections for the presidency and one of the legislative chambers. The central government controls the monetary system, foreign policy, air traffic control, law enforcement, and communications. But, each entity has veto power over any decision by the central government. The Bosnian Serb republic is committed to merging with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, so this veto power could come in very handy.
Refugees are given the right of return or "just compensation." This is not only a blatant violation of international law, which states that refugees have the right of return, but will also be impossible to implement. There is no definition of "just compensation" in the Dayton Accords. Nor is it likely that Bosnians and Croats will want to return to their homes in the Republika Srpska, which Serbian forces seized during earlier fighting, and which those same forces still command. The Dayton Accords also disenfranchise these refugees, with provisions that they can only vote for ethnic Serbs to represent them in the central Presidency and the upper house of the Parliament.
The Accords require all parties to cooperate with the UN War Crimes tribunal. But the language is vague -- so far not only the FRY and Republika Srpska, but also IFOR, have failed to cooperate. In the week of February 12, 1996, indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic passed through more than 5 NATO checkpoints. The following excerpt from a press briefing with IFOR spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Rayner, dated February 11, 1996, suggests that NATO has not created an Implementation Force, but rather a fiasco.
Q: If your obligation under Dayton as you’ve admitted is to apprehend these [indicted war criminals] if they come your way and in course of your duties, the only way you can apprehend them is if the average soldier on the ground knows what they look like and has been given some briefing about his obligations and his responsibilities . . . have they been briefed and told what to do . . . ?
Rayner: They know how to apprehend an indicted criminal if they come across one, naturally in the course of their duties, and that is the extent of their instructions.
Q: Have they been given photographs so they can recognize these individuals? Rayner: No, they haven’t. That would send a confusing message to a soldier wouldn't it? If you tell a soldier on the one hand that you are not here to hunt down indicted war criminals and then on the other hand you give him a photograph which helps him do just that, that would send a confusing message and one thing NATO is clear of is the clarity of our mission on that purpose and it is not to confuse the soldiers to whom we give very clear instructions.
Q: I’m sorry, but I don’t know how the 60,000 soldiers would know who was a war criminal or who was not if they didn’t have a photograph.
Rayner: And you're right, they don't. They won't necessarily recognize a war criminal or know that they have bumped into one, you’re absolutely right and they can't be expected to.
To understand why the Dayton Accords cannot possibly be the final settlement to this conflict, read them.
The American Committee to Save Bosnia is not choosing sides based on ethnicity or religion, but on ethnic diversity and democratic pluralism versus extreme nationalism. The Bosnian government has repeatedly stated that it supports a multi-ethnic, pluralistic society. The ACSB supports democracy, pluralism, and adherence to international human rights laws. It opposes extreme nationalism, ethnic partition, and genocide.
First, the US, NATO and the UN have all broken international law that they themselves wrote and ratified in the immediate post-war years. The events in Bosnia discredit all three, and NATO and the UN will have to seriously reconsider their roles in international security.
Second, the Dayton Accords send a very clear message to communities and ethnic groups around the world: Western institutions, through their lack of comprehensive action, will indirectly support ethnic cleansing and ethnic partition. There are undoubtedly countless nationalist politicians around the world eager to create ethnically homogeneous nation states like Republika Srpska.
Finally, genocide and aggressive nationalism are a 20th Century phenomenon which the international community does not have the means or the will to control. For three years the NATO and the UN appeased an aggressor in a war whose aim was to kill, assimilate or expel anyone of non-aggressor ethnicity. After W.W.II, the international community created the UN to prevent future acts of genocide. Bosnia, and, of course, Rwanda, mean that the UN is not equipped to prevent genocide -- it did not even intervene to stop it.
The American Committee to Save Bosnia's current goals include the arming and training of the Bosnian army, apprehension of indicted war criminals, realization of an open media, free elections and the right of return for Serbs in Croatia, and formation of a coherent US Balkan Policy. The Dayton Accords have not brought peace to Bosnia. Unless there is a significant public outcry in the US and other Western countries, this Partition Plan may simply mean the beginning of the end of the very existence of Bosnia and Hercegovina.