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The shell that landed in Sarajevo on August 28, assuming
that the Serbs fired it, delivered five messages: first,
Serb nationalism must be recognised and given full
importance; second, there can be no compromise with
Croatian imperialist ambitions Imitating those of the
Zagreb regime (1941-45) of quisling Ante Pavelic, which
had received Bosnia as a gift from the Nazis; third,
there can be no Islamist regime in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
fourth. the UN and the West will only intensify and
prolong the sufferings of the people if they indulge in
partisan intervention on the side of the Muslims; and,
finally, any massive air-strike by NATO will eventually
provoke a massacre of the Muslims and then of the Croats
in Bosnia. On the other hand. if it was tired by the
Croats. simply to trigger a NATO response, it was an act
of utter irresponsibility and callousness, and a
supremely unintelligent move. It showed how little the
Croats really care for the Muslims with whom they struck
a convenient and temporary anti-Serb alliance.
Those who think that the problem in Bosnia is merely one
of villainous Serbs killing poor, innocent Muslims
without any reason at all ought to recall and remember
two facts of history together with a fact on the ground.
Throughout the Balkans, it is customary to refer to
Muslims as Turks Oust as in some parts of India), and the
term cannot but evoke the memories of Ottoman oppression.
Whenever the Serbs look at the Turks, they recall October
7-22. 1813, in Belgrade. Having welshed on Art. VIII of
the Russo-Turkish Treaty (Bucharest, May 1812) the Turks,
in July 1813, summoned the rebellious Serb nationalists
to surrender, which the latter naturally refused to do.
After defeating the Serbs, the Turkish Army re-entered
Belgrade on October 7, 1813. Thereafter, for a whole
fortnight, every Turk was permitted to kill any Serb over
15 years old, and to enslave women and children. There
was no counting of the dead, but, in a single day, for
example, i,800 slaves were sold at Belgrade. Such a
trauma cannot be wished away.
The second fact relates to what took place after Hitler
invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. The victorious
Nazis carved up that hapless country, and, apart from
what Germany misappropriated, largesses went to Italy,
Hungary and Bulgaria. Like Babrak Karmal later on, the
Croatian extremist. Ante Pavelic, rode back from exile
in the baggage-train of the Nazis, and was proclaimed by
his patrons as the ruler of an Independent State of
Croatia (minus a part of Dalmatia) to which the Nazis
annexed Bosnia. Armed resistance against the Nazis began
in Bosnia, and. there, the Croatian Fascists began a
massacre of the Serbs. which. in the whole annals of
World War II, was surpassed for savagery only by the mass
extermination of the Jews by the Germans. Having allied
themselves with the proto-fascist Prime Minister
Stojadinovic by joining his Yugoslav Radical Union in
1935, the Bosnian Muslims were, from mid-1941, pitted
against the Bosnian Serbs. Is it any wonder than,that
the Serbs, particularly the Bosnian Serbs, should detest
both the Croats and the Muslims? Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman's plan to carve up Bosnia now provolies a
savage response from the Serbs.
In fact, the hostility of the Bosnian Serbs towards the
Muslims goes back 400 years. The Ottoman administrative
arrangements made in 1580. appeared to the Bosnian landed
aristocracy, the wielders of real power, to be a threat
to their vested interests which were threatened also by
the Hungarian ambitions. At the same time they were in
deep trouble with the Church because of their adherence
to the Bogomil heresy. As a way out of all these
problems. and mainly to protect their land and power by
ingratiating themselves with the Turks, they apostatised
en bloc to Islam. Many others followed that example for
more or less the same reasons. The Serbs considered this
an act of betrayal. It is the descendants of that
aristocracy, who have the lion's share of power in Bosnia
today thanks to. the opportunistic support from the Croat
minority.
Enmity between the Serbs and the Croats is historic and
is a 'given' factor in the current crisis in which the
Croats are seeking only their own aggrandisement in the
tradition of Pavelic, and in complete disregard of the
fact that the Serb belt in Croatia had for centuries been
a formidable barrier against Ottoman expansionism. Both
Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina have longer histories of
independence than Croatia which had been a part of the
Austro-Hungarian empire till 1918. Although South Slavs
by origin, the Croats never really reconciled themselves
to the formation of the 'Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes' in 1919, nor to the idea of a Yugoslavia 1929).
Ideological differences were unbridgeable-the Serbs for a
strong, centralised state, and the Croats for
decentralisation and a federal structure.
The cobbling together of Alexander's kingdom in 1919 had
created a land of diverse nationalities, of peoples with
different histories. different currencies, and different
legal and administrative systems. Language was generally
the criterion of nationality, but the Montenegrins were
geographically defined while the Muslims were given a
separate status.
The Muslims could have. if they so wished, eliminated
this distinction, but they themselves perpetuated it by
refusing to join any of the three Serbian political
parties, and forming a separate group of their own. They
made their position worse by supporting the Zagreb
Resolution of November 1932, in which the Croats, having
already broken off with the Serbs in 1928, denounced old
Serbian hegemony, and demanded recognition of the
principle that no one nationality could be dominant.
Thus, 63 years ago, the Bosnian Muslims, living amidst
the Serbs, proclaimed themselves a separate nationality
based on religion alone. The Serbs naturally looked at
them as stooges of the Croats, and thus the battle lines
were drawn more than six decades ago. This hostility
reached the level of an irresolvable conflict when the
Bosnian Muslims, gaining a slight numerical edge over the
Slavs with the help of the Croat minority, opted for an
Islamist state. and thereby signed their own death
warrant. They are fools to believe that the Croats have
any genuine commitments to them. If Tudjman is able to
carry out his design of partitioning Bosnia between
Serbia and Croatia, the Muslims will be ditched and left
to perish. If Croatia gobbles up Bosnia, that will be
the end of the Islamist dream.
As this is being written, NATO and the USA, in a paroxysm
of supreme folly and arrogance, have commenced massive
air-strikes on Serb positions, and, thereby put paid to
all hopes of achieving some sort of peace in the
foreseeable future. The Serbs will never let themselves
be 'bombed back to the negotiating table.' If necessary,
they will fight as they had once fought the Nazis. If
anything. these air-strikes will harden Serb intention to
right the Muslims and the Croats to the last. In the
end, the Muslims will be the worst sufferers. In
historical terms, these air-strikes will prove to be an
act of criminal irresponsibility. When the trouble in
Bosnia had first broken out, President Clinton, in his
self-arrogated role of the Chief Constable of the world,
wanted to send in US troops. The then Chairman, joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen Colin Powell asked, "To do what, Mr
President?" The President had no answer. For those who
have eyes to see and brains to understand', there is
still no answer.
Already there is evident confusion about the objective of
the air-strikes. Are they meant only to relieve the
pressure on Sarajevo? Are they meant to bomb the Serbs
back to the negotiating table? There is no unanimity.
One cannot but wonder what madness seized the NATO
leadership. Or is it a case of neo-Nazi inspirations ?
All those who are interested in the return of peace to
the area. and that includes us, must accept three
imperatives: first, the Croats must give up their
imperialist dreams and remain satisfied with the original
Croatia, second, there cannot be an Islamist state in the
heart of the Balkans: and third, whether Bosnia-
Hercegovina will remain an independent entity but as a
secular, pluralistic state, for become a part of old
Serbia must be left to the peoples concerned to decide.
The alternative Is unending conflict and bouts of 'ethnic
cleansing.'
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