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Bosnian Blunders
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20560 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
2,301 Words |
| Author
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Janusz Bugajski
Janusz Bugajski is a research associate at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is
coauthoring a forthcoming book, East European Fault Lines:
Dissent, Opposition, and Social Activism. |
If the first casualty of war is truth, then the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina has claimed many victims. Misinformation about the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war is principally promulgated by Belgrade, unwittingly reported by journalists, and repeated by Western governments. The vocabulary of "ethnic war," "ethnic cleansing," and "Vietnam quagmires" now dominates news coverage, often without context or explanation, and serves to obfuscate the issues and dampen initiatives to end the war.
The conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina did not begin as a Hobbesian war of all against all, or the culmination of all-consuming ethnic hatreds. Of course there are historical, cultural, and religious differences between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims, and at certain moments in history these have been exploited by radicals to fan hatred and provoke bloodshed. This was most notable during World War II, when Croat fascists slaughtered Serbs and Serb ultranationalists mass-murdered Muslims. Few nations in Europe have been immune from extreme and grisly acts, but we should not uncritically assume that they are forever destined to be locked in conflict with neighbors.
For generations Slav Muslims, Croat Catholics, and Orthodox Serbs coexisted, often in close proximity. Thousands intermarried and millions worked together.
There were no ethnic or religious ghettos in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Sarajevo itself was widely recognized as a tolerant capital by east European standards. The "ethnic war" was manufactured and forcibly imposed on Bosnia by unscrupulous politicians and military commanders who needed a pretext and a smoke screen for their territorial ambitions. In fact, given the money, weaponry, and media monopoly, any cunning politician can provoke en "ethnic" or "racial" war in virtually and multiethnic or multrireligious village, city, region, or state.
Serbian opposition leaders in Belgrade and Croatian activists in Slavonia have described to me how such a war was unleashed in Croatia in 1991 and in Bosnia this summer by a Serbian-Yugoslav leadership intent on carving out a Greater Serbia. Armed guerrillas enter a village, neutralized local authorities, and disarm the police. They capture and shoot a few Croats or Muslims, often in a prominent public place, mobilize and arm local Serbs who hold some grievance against neighbors, and encourage them to burn a Croat house or evict a Muslim family. Two objectives are thereby achieved: You terrorized the people you want to drive out, and you make local Serbs coresponsible for the crime and
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