ANATOMY OF DECEIT
Copyright©
1997 by Jerry Blaskovich. Electronic edition by Studia
Croatica, by permission of the author
Chapter 14: Peace for Our Time?
The hand that signed the paper felled a city
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath
Doubled the globe of death and halved a country
These five kings a king to death
The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the
brow
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven
Hands have no tears to flow
The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City
-- Dylan Thomas
Aside from
dashing British and French hopes for a Serbian victory, the unexpected Croatian
triumph in the Krajina unequivocally changed the
military and political equilibrium in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the Croats hadn't
liberated the Krajina, Bihac
would have met the same fate as Srebrenica and Zepa.
The
Croatian-Bosnian military alliance reclaimed 20% of Bosnian territory from the
Serbs that the Western powers had been unable to wrest through diplomatic
means. Just as the alliance was at the brink of defeating the Serbs, the
Western powers, especially Britain, placed tremendous pressure on Croatia to
desist in the Bosnian campaign. Once the Croats had disengaged, the Bosnian
army couldn't sustain the momentum alone and suffered defeats.
The Serbs had
already seized 70% of Bosnian territory and had no reason to accept the Contact
Group's offer of 51%. When the successful Croatian-Bosnian offensive changed
the balance of power, the Serbs, fearful that the alliance would retake even
more territory, suddenly changed their minds and accepted the offer.
By
successfully recovering all but 4.5% of its territory and rescuing Western
Bosnia, the Croats had inadvertently influenced politics in the United States.
Because Bosnia had disappeared from the front pages, President Clinton could
concentrate on policies that helped his 1996 reelection campaign. So Clinton
pressured the Bosnian government to join in peace negotiations with Croatian
and Serbian leaders at Dayton, Ohio. The West's indifferent reaction to the
savage aftermath of Zepa and Srebrenica had a
sobering effect on the Bosnian government. Izetbegovic woke up to reality and
accepted the fact that the Bosnians had to take whatever peace settlement was
offered to them.
In the October
12, 1992, presidential debate, Clinton called for air strikes and an end to the
arms embargo. Although Clinton took 3 1/2 years to initiate the first, he effectively
sabotaged the second. Bush's policy of inaction had found its rationale in the
information he was fed by Belgrade's cabal in the U.S. government. But the
reason why Clinton continued Bush's policies remains mysterious. The only
gesture the Bush administration made to help non-Serbian victims came when it
created a no-fly zone. But that step was simply a reaction to criticism from
the Clinton campaign. Once in office, the Clinton administration consistently
articulated that it wanted to preserve the integrity of an indivisible Bosnian
state, rightly condemning partition as a reward for ethnic cleansing. But at
Dayton the administration forced Kafkaesque surrender terms on the Bosnian
government and therefore actually accepted Serbian gains.
Even though
the Dayton Accords are loaded with absurdities that decimate Bosnia's
sovereignty, the treaty did stop the rampant slaughter of non-Serbs in Bosnia.
The Clinton administration's efforts have put the mayhem temporarily on hold,
at least until after the American presidential elections. To this end Clinton
sent American troops to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ostensibly the troops were supposed
to be home by Christmas 1996, but given the realities of Dayton they will, most
likely, come home when they cross Clinton’s metaphorical bridge in the next
century. Many have said that sending American troops to Bosnia was a political
time bomb for Clinton. But Clinton will reap political rewards as long as there
are no body bags. American casualties are unlikely because Clinton placed
enormous pressure on all the protagonists to adhere to his game plan until
after his election. Clinton may be many things, but he's no fool. Although the
Dayton Accords don't promise much of a future for Bosnia, they've certainly
helped Clinton's political future.
The behavior
of Brigadier General Patrick O'Neal and Colonel Gregory Fontenot, as reported
in the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 12, 1995), may reflect Clinton's true attitude
toward Bosnia-Herzegovina and prejudice toward the Croats because O'Neal and
Fontenot are products of war colleges, extensive briefings, and Clinton’s
foreign policies. When O'Neal's troops crossed an international border into
Bosnia, a local militiaman had the temerity to ask for passports and blocked
their way. The American general pointed at one of his soldiers' M-16 automatic
rifles and said, "That's our passport." His next logical statement
might have been: "Shoot first and ask questions later." O'Neal's
bravado was more appropriate for a successful invasion force than for one
engaged in implementing a peace accord.
In the same
article, Colonel Fontenot was quoted ordering his troops to adopt a cocky
posture during a pre-mission briefing. To illustrate, he had one of his
sergeants sling a light machine gun across his chest. "It's the casual,
yet 'I'll kick your a__ if you f__ with me'
look," the colonel said. He then turned to two African-American soldiers
who would be part of his convoy. "It'll be interesting to hear what you
two see, because the Croatians are racist," he warned them. "They
kill people for the color of their skins."
Since Fontenot
most recently taught at the Fort Levenworth School of
Advanced Military Studies, the U.S. Army’s most elite war college, this
prejudicial remark probably reflects current official military doctrine.
The Dayton
Accords have essentially partitioned Bosnia along ethnic lines and rewarded
Serbia by lifting the sanctions. Instead of condemning the consequences of
ethnic cleansing, the accords codify them. The U.S. has rewarded the use of
genocide, rape, and mayhem by consolidating Serbian gains and ordering U.S.
troops to patrol Greater Serbia's borders.
The accords
promise refugees the ability to return to their homes without risk of
harassment, intimidation, persecution, or discrimination--particularly in
regard to their ethnic origin. But the promises are empty. Even if the refugees
are allowed to return, it’s highly likely that their former homes which may
have survived the battles will be blown up before they have a chance to
resettle. But justifiable fear will hold most back. The same Serbian
"police" and thugs that ethnically cleansed whole towns and villages
will remain in control of those areas. No provision in the accords assures the
refugees' safety. Besides, most repatriates would only find heaps of rubble
where their homes had once stood. All infrastructure and institutions needed to
ensure civility have been destroyed.
With no
agricultural production or housing available to them, the refugees will most
likely have to be placed in ghettos or, more accurately, concentration camps.
Refugee centers typically lack schools, hospitals, or civil administrations and
are prey to epidemics. Under such conditions, refugees suffer the humiliation
of an aimless existence and total dependence on humanitarian aid. The West
shouldn't be surprised when the next Bosnian generation, if there is one,
matures into a band of terrorists. The surviving Muslim children won't forget
the dead or how those in the West watched while their fathers were wounded or
killed, and their mothers and sisters raped. Despite the fact that Bosnians are
the most secularized Muslims in the Islamic world, such camps will become
fertile breeding grounds for fundamentalism.
Although the
Bosnians continue to place trust in the Clinton administration's nebulous
gentlemen's agreement to arm and train its army, the accords make absolutely no
reference to arming anyone. Given the past performance of these
"gentlemen," the Bosnians will be awfully naive if they choose to
believe in them now.
The Dayton
Accords also call for a general disarmament. The Serbian forces, which had most
of the arms anyway, will retain 85% of their pre-Dayton level, while the
Bosnian Army will lose 87.5% of its weapons. The Serbs couldn't have received a
sweeter deal.
The Dayton
Accords seem more and more curious the longer they're analyzed. The agreement
may have sounded the death knell for the Bosnian state because when Bosnia
accepted Article II, "the rights and freedoms set forth in The European
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms shall
have priority over all other laws," it surrendered its sovereignty. The
new Bosnian Constitutional Court will have nine justices, two from each ethnic
group (Muslim, Croat, and Serb) and three appointed by the European Court of
Human Rights. But the foreign judges' authority will supersede that of the
local judges. In a March 4, 1996 Insight article, Duncan Hunter, chairman of
the House National Security Subcommittee on Military Procurement, concluded
that the U.N. appointed high representative will be the real government in
Bosnia.
All
stipulations indicate that Bosnia will be a U.N. Protectorate. A U.N. appointee
will monitor the peace settlement, promote compliance by local authorities, and
coordinate the activities of all civilian organizations and agencies involved
in rebuilding Bosnia. The high representative will give guidance to a U.N.
international police task force charged with advising, training, monitoring and
inspecting all law enforcement activities and facilities, including associated
judicial organizations. In the rare instances when the new central Bosnian
government arrives at a decision without input from non-Bosnian sources, the
government's decision can be vetoed by any of the other parties. This condition
isn't very conducive to governance because any law that doesn't accommodate the
Serbs will be thrown out.
Although the
Dayton Accords granted IFOR (the NATO Implementation Force in Bosnia) virtually
complete discretion to take police action, IFOR is neither obliged to do so,
nor does it have guidelines to conduct such actions. IFOR has been given the
task of creating conditions for free and fair elections, assisting humanitarian
organizations, controlling all Bosnian airspace, clearing the roads of mines,
and observing and preventing interference with the movement of civilian
populations, refugees, and displaced persons. But IFOR has neither the
mechanism to implement, nor the means to enforce these mandates. The accords
stipulate an international police force, but the force's only real mandate is
to train.
Human rights
monitors were wrong when they stated that 1992 will go down in history as the
year the Muslims of Bosnia were extinguished. Their estimate was premature.
Nevertheless, the future looks bleak for the Muslims under the Dayton Accords
because the treaty represents a peace only the West can live with.
The Dayton
Accords are rife with contradictions. One provision calls for general elections
among Bosnian citizens based upon where they had registered in 1991. This
provision sounds good because it will allow the people who fled a chance to
vote. But Serbian officials are now arguing that voters should be limited to
the people presently residing in Bosnia. Adding to the controversy, those
responsible for the balloting have sent forms printed in English to the
Bosnians. The West's history of pro-Serbian efforts makes this mistake suspicious.
Refugees desiring to vote are faced with another dilemma that has far reaching
consequences for their well being. If the several hundred thousand Muslim
refugees now living in Germany do vote, they may lose their refugee status and
be expelled.
The Western
nations have failed to understand the importance the Muslims place on pursuing
and prosecuting war criminals. For Muslims, justice is the very foundation for
reconciliation. Bosnian Ambassador to the United States Sven Alkalij has said to me on a number of occasions,
"Justice first, then talk about
reconciliation." Unanswered injustices, both real and perceived, may
result in future conflicts. For any healing process to occur, those responsible
must be tried for their crimes against humanity. Bosnian Ambassador to the U.N.
Muhamed Sarcibey said,
"[peace] will fail if the war trials tribunal is not supported and does
not bring about at least a minimum level of justice."
Bosnian
survivors felt encouraged when the U.N. finally set up the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1993. Although the tribunal has
no power to arrest criminals, it offers the prospect of accountability to the
perpetrators of murder, rape and havoc. But what the U.N. gives, the U.N. also
takes away.
In early 1994,
the U.N. announced that it would disband the War Crimes Commission, the
tribunal evidentiary body, for political expediency. The U.N. most likely
emasculated the tribunal in order to avoid complicating the peace process.
The U.N. had
intended for the International Criminal Tribunal to remain only symbolic. But
the tribunal took on a life of its own under the guidance of its Chief Justice,
Richard Goldstone. His tenacity to seek the truth has surprisingly legitimized
the judicial body.
While Goldstone’s
unexpected tough attitude lent a great deal of credibility for the proceedings,
the tribunal’s numerous breaches has raised a number of questions. Despite
voluminous evidence, only three JNA officers were charged for committing war
crimes in Croatia and no Bosnian Muslim has been charged for similar acts in
the Muslim-Croat fighting.
During the
trial of accused Serbian war criminal Dusan Tadic, the tribunal postponed its proceedings for six
months because the defense blamed NATO bombing for halting its search for
witnesses in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The trial was supposed to have begun in
November, 1995, but didn't actually commence until May, 1996.
Since Tadic's arrest, 56 other war criminals have been formally
accused. But as usual, the media has used a double standard in its coverage of
accused Croats and Serbs. The press has sharply criticized Croatia for not
turning over accused Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic to the Hague, but has been
loath to criticize and exhort Serbia for not turning over criminal master
planners Karadzic and Mladic. What the press
apparently failed to understand in the Blaskic case
was that legal procedures had to be followed before anyone could be extradited
from Croatia. Croatia had no law on its books to implement the
Hague's request. Once the legal questions were resolved, Blaskic
voluntarily turned himself in.
The U.N. has
made a number of colossal errors in judgment since the beginning of the
conflict. Under the guidance of Boutros Boutrous-Ghali, the U.N. saw the conflict as a civil war and
relegated itself to the role of a supposedly impartial peacekeeper. But the
U.N. proved entirely ineffective even in this limited capacity.
Despite the
fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina was a duly recognized sovereign nation, the
U.N.-imposed arms embargo prevented Bosnia from doing what all states have a
legitimate right to do--defend itself against transborder
aggression. The arms embargo helped prolong this conflict even more than France
and England's tacit complicity with the Serbs or the anemia of the
international media. The aggressors had all the weapons of modern warfare at
their disposal and the victims had few. But the West's argument, particularly
Britain's, that an end to the arms embargo would've increased the violence and
caused the Serbs to accelerate their aggression, is only partly valid. Until
1995, the Serbs had held back nothing and yet were relatively free of
casualties. The lifting of the arms embargo would've increased the Croats and
Bosnians' ability to defend themselves, so any
post-embargo increase in violence would've resulted in reduced Croatian and
Bosnian casualties and increased Serbian casualties. The effectiveness of the
Croatian-Bosnian offensive after the receipt of illicit arms proves the point.
The U.N. was loathe to express any sort of outrage when Serbia clearly
attacked another sovereign state across international borders. Britain, France,
the United States, and Russia failed to act decisively. In the process, the
major powers battered a host of fundamental international agreements including
the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, as well as some basic values like the rule of law, inviolability of
borders, and safety of innocent civilians.
According to a
CIA report on Bosnia, "More than half of the prewar population of
4,365,000 has either fled the country, been displaced
within the country, or been killed." After absorbing 272,000 displaced
persons from Serbian- occupied Croatia and 640,000 Bosnian refugees in
November, 1992, Croatia informed international bodies that it wouldn't be able
to admit more Bosnians. Typically, France and Britain, who had taken 3,000
refugees between them, and the United States, who had magnanimously offered to
accept 1,000, sharply criticized the Croatian government for its action.
Further illustrating blatant Western hypocrisy, in November, 1993, the
Independent exposed a secret pact among the European Union member states
barring Bosnian refugees.
U.N. peace
negotiator and former director of Kissinger and Associates Peter Carrington set
a precedent when he all but ignored the only legitimate parties in the war, the
governments; and instead negotiated with illegitimate parties, the warring
factions. All the Western leaders parroted Serbian propaganda by calling the
conflict a civil war between ancient ethnic rivals in which all sides were
guilty. Most perversely, the West blamed the victims. As the Serbians wished,
the West didn't take sides and played the role of supposedly impartial
peacekeepers. The West preferred Yugoslav unity and made it clear to the
Belgrade regime that no Western military would intervene.
The West, the
U.S. in particular, must share the blame for allowing the conflict to expand
and the slaughter to continue. For example, at the same time American
reconnaissance planes were photographing mass graves in Srebrenica, Washington
officials were seeking to rehabilitate the image of Serbian President
Milosevic.
Whenever the
Muslims were victorious against the Serbs, the Western powers protested via the
media.
More vitriolic
threats were lodged by U.N. officials against the Muslims for even the most
token advances than were ever made against the Serbs for their overt
atrocities. U.N. observers went to great lengths to report that Muslims had
mutilated Serbian prisoners, while later reports proved that the incidents
never happened.
The West's
role ultimately proved either counter-productive or abetted the Serbian
position. Any proposal that could've been meaningful came too late.
The breakup of
Yugoslavia exposed the fallacy that European security can exist without U.S.
leadership and intervention. Due to this conflict, the U.S. has had to bail out
the Europeans from their follies for the third time this century.
The West
preferred to rely on peace negotiations and peacekeepers to end the conflict
rather than allow the non-Serbs to freely defend themselves. Surely the Croats
and Muslims would've chosen to defend themselves if they had ever been given
the choice.
Europe must
now look inward and see that it has a vested interest in helping to rebuild the
infrastructure of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Europe, particularly Croatia,
has been inundated with refugees. As of September, 1992, according to the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Germany has taken 220,000
refugees, Switzerland 70,520, Austria 57,000, Hungary 50,000, and Sweden
47,000.
The Muslims
will be the big losers regardless of the final outcome of the Dayton Accords.
The only viable option for the Muslims is to put their differences with the
Croats aside and cement the historically friendly Muslim-Croat relationship.
Such an action would go a long way in helping both groups overcome the harshest
vicissitudes they've endured together on bloody Balkan soil.
Instead of
cooperating, the Muslims set a dangerous precedent. No sooner was the ink dry
on the Dayton Accords, when they began purging Croats from positions of trust
in the infrastructure of the military, government, economy, and education. For
example, not only have the Muslims made it difficult for Croats to enroll in
Sarajevo’s medical school, those already enrolled are subjected to a relentless
campaign of intimidation and coercion. To protect Croatian students and provide
them with an education without fear, the Croats are now in the process of
establishing a medical school in Mostar, which will
drive an even deeper wedge between them.
But it isn’t
only the Croats being discriminated against, Muslims adhering
to the pre-war mores of Bosnian society are also being ostracized. Muslim
fundamentalism has reared its head in the Bosnian government’s hierarchy.
Although it isn’t as serious as it is in Afghanistan there’ve been numerous
reported incidents of imposing fundamental standards on Bosnian Muslims by
coercion.
If the Croats
and Muslims don’t come to some sort of rapprochement, it’s a certainty that as
soon as the ground becomes frozen enough for tanks to maneuver the Croats and
Muslims will be at each others throats, especially in
the Mostar area. The Serbs will probably keep out of
it, but will occasionally lob a few shells to let them know they’re still
around. A healthy Muslim-Bosnian-Croat alliance loosely confederated with
Croatia would benefit everyone.
The West has
been shamelessly reluctant to call ethnic cleansing genocide despite the
Serbian actions' fulfillment of the tribunal's definition: acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
group. Instead, the West has elected to treat the genocide of the Muslims with
the same blindness it applied for decades to Stalin's murder of over 20 million
Russians, Poles, Balts and others. As has happened
with Stalin, perhaps some would-be historians will even come to question
whether the Muslim genocide really took place. Hitler and Stalin used similar
methods, mass murder and concentration camps, but Stalin killed twice as many.
Yet Stalin sat at the negotiating table as a man of honor in much the same way
that those responsible for similar crimes in Bosnia do now. The end result of
the conflict in Bosnia clearly signals the victory of Byzantine deviousness
over Western Machiavellianism.
The Balkan
conflict between the Orthodox Serbs and Roman Catholic Croats resulted in the
Muslims of Bosnia being squeezed out of Europe. A number of commentators and
opinion editors have speculated that the reason why the West could stand by and
watch the rape of Bosnia without getting emotional was because the victims were
Muslims. In his last book, Beyond Peace, Richard Nixon argued that if the
Bosnians had been Christians or Jews, Europe would've intervened. Instead,
during the first half of the 1990s, the European Community was a passive
collaborator in the Serbian attempt to purge the last remnants of the Ottoman
Empire from Europe.
The crisis in
former Yugoslavia was brought on mainly by the West's inability to deal with
the collapse of Communism. The masses have suffered the consequences of the
West's failure. But even at this late stage, if, by the illumination of the
facts, Western humanism can inject a level of justice into this rather hopeless
situation then the effort will be worth it. For the West must keep in mind that
although the surviving victims of war and injustice suffer, they never suffer
from amnesia.
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