Editorials
CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 6 Correspondence 2 Editorials ...
...I had such wonderful our reading of the situation: that while the Vance-Owen Plan care...
...Portland, Me...
...The new enlarged force under the command of NATO and, She is a lifelong adherent of Gandhian nonviolence...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to dilemmas...
...the unrelenting, coldblooded cleansings in Bosous: introducing more weaponry will only increase the carnage...
...This means not only lifting the siege of Sarajevo visiting her in a hospital room, where she was recovering from and other cities and towns, but taking back territory from the a broken hip, head lacerations, and seven broken ribs...
...Business Manager: Richard Haas For Bosnia's political leaders, therefore, there hardly appears to be even the neat Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, choice between the lesser of two evils...
...Unlike some of those on the absolutist wing of the peace movement (or those on the realist extreme of the military-policy esOVERCOME EVIL BY GOOD tablishment), I felt then-and do now the challenge of the EILEEN EGAN & HER ILK bishops' letter, most keenly in their discussion about developing nonviolent means of conflict resolution...
...with refugees in all the world's most troubled When I read these words I think of people like Eileen Egan spots...
...Before her the other....Christ's own teachings and example provide a retirement from Catholic Relief Services sev- model way of life incorporating the truth, and a refusal to reeral years hack, she had worked for four decades turn evil for evil...
...04106 (207) 799- death now or attrition and extinction later...
...But Serbs...
...Ten years ago this spring, the Catholic bishops of the U.S...
...a force of between 50,000 have to be willing to face capture and even death, yet who would and 150,000 troops, including 20,000 Americans, has been sug- be strong enough internally and spiritually to carry on their hugested...
...Diplomatic negotiations The Heart of the Sky: wax and wane around the Vance-Owen plan for the ethnic partition of Bosnia, Nancy M. Haegel 22 which, if successfully negotiated, would provide the occasion for sending a major Latinos: Edward L. Cleat-IN, 23 military force under the auspices of the United Nations and the command of English Music: NATO...
...the Rodney King replay...
...participating governments, but a group of international volunIf the Muslims and Serbs agree to it, the plan will be the vehi- teers, unprotected and unsecured by force of arms, who would cle for sending an enlarged UN force...
...We could published biweekiy except Christmas/New Year's...
...The Bosnian Serbs refuse Lawrence S. Cunningham 26 to accept the plan because, among other reasons, they would be required to cede territory they now occupy...
...Yet despite that, I keep returning to my visit with Eileen American troops is not sent to defend Bosnia, then arms should Egan in the hospital: to her lack of despair, to her compashe sent so that Bosnia can defend itself...
...It hasn't been hard this Lent to cone up with apocalyptic There is another alternative, one that has been steadily re- images on which to meditate: The standoff in Waco, Texas: sisted by the Europeans, the United Nations, and the United the World Trade Center bombing...
...it is searching for Commonweal 26 March 1993: a way in that can also provide an easy way out...
...the Haitian ferry selves...
...current contingent of UN peacekeeping troops whose want of She spoke of how the Israeli pilot Abie Nathan had repeatedenforcement powers is in danger of making them as much a ly flown such airlifts into Biafra during that terrible civil conpart of the problem in Bosnia as they once seemed to be part flict...
...But can it be that there flan Stavans 20 are no answers at all...
...Edward T. Wheeler 25 Only the Bosnian Croats have signed onto the plan, but then they have little to Religious booknotes: lose and much to gain from the decentralization of Bosnia...
...In the center's recent newsletter and a co-worker with her, Egan has spent her life caring for the (The Wolf...
...sion...
...Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...It was not a surprise to hear Eileen Egan talking this way...
...When Michael T. Kaufman wrote a piece about is a second risk...
...dying may provide an easy way in, there is not going to be an easy of cold...
...Display advertising Only a multilateral effort is appropriate...
...All-out war with the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia itself is Eileen's concerns were with the Bosnians, and unfortunately a real risk, probably the primary risk of this operation...
...Winter 1993), Richard asks why there was no non4: 26 March 1993 Commonweal...
...But I kept thinking of all those people in Bosnia...
...Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell The Muslims must choose between continued shelling and ethnic cleansing by Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt the Serbs and becoming a rump state with little economic or geographical cohesion...
...That The journey of Richard Rodriguez: Ttragic fact has been clear for some time...
...But I had not coincidentally, of an American general, will have the au- imagined we'd probably talk about other things that evening, thority not only to enforce a cease fire by military means, but perhaps even her own recent mugging, experienced while she as well to monitor and maintain the conditions of the Vance- was on the way to evening Mass...
...The Bosnian Muslims resist because, in effect, the partition STAFF of the country by ethnic zoning would mean the end of the sovereign and multi-ethEditor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels nic state of Bosnia-Herzegovina in which they form the single largest group...
...New York...
...But there they still are...
...This sounds suspiciously like a quagmire and the Clinton administration will want none of it...
...Thus my operation there was not much pain...
...way out...
...For me they have formed a sort of self-repeating tape, But if the Vance-Owen plan should fail to be signed, the Serbs a Bruce Willis film spliced with scenes from Hieronymous will continue the carnage on their own...
...AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK sinners all, like the rest of us-published The Challenge of Peace...
...After all, that was why I was Owen plan itself...
...lift the sanctions and arm them...
...A founding member of Pax Christi in this country, a long- and Alain Richard, a Franciscan at Pace e Bene, a nonviolent time editor of the Catholic Worker, a biographer of Mother Teresa center in Las Vegas, Nevada...
...Effective intervention will require a long-term and patient commitCommonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...She administration has now realized that, yes, it is a bad idea ex- was not proposing a well-financed or heavily armed convoy of cept for all of the others, including the idea of doing nothing...
...decide to fight on for the sake of the country, but then we might not have people to and monthly July and August, by Commonweal live in it...
...The bishops wrote that "nonviolence is not the way of the weak, the cowardly, or the impatient," and made it clear that "in its practice, the objective [of nonviolence] is not to avoid causing harm or injury 0 ne evening last September, I stopped uptown to another creature, but, more positively, to seek the good of for a brief visit with Eileen Egan...
...of the solution...
...from the start that a deployment of larger forces is a very high- So it was no surprise that evening that Eileen would he talkrisk and long-term operation...
...ing about the need for an international team of peacemakers to But after initially rejecting the Vance-Owen plan, the Clinton bring relief supplies to the besieged Muslims in Bosnia...
...The Muslims, who have clearly been the chief her recently for the Nen' York Times (January 23), there was victims, may press to recover homes and villages that Serbs the Bosnian angle again: "You know," she told Kaufman, "after have seized and overrun...
...But by saving my people, I believe we can eventually save the country...
...Pamela Quatse In pressing for further negotiations under Vance-Owen, President Alija Izetbegovic Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor of Bosnia put the matter this way to his fellow Bosnians (who are, let us remember, Publisher: Edward S. Skillin not only Muslims, but those Bosnian Croats and Serbs who support an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina): "I cannot sacrifice my people for the sake of saving the counConnnonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is try...
...CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 6 Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 Editor's notebook: Patrick Jordan 4 The tissue issue: Liz Leibold McCloskey 5 The leaning tower of truth: Robert L. Spaeth 6 A role of one's own: John Garvev 8 The `state' of `defense': J. Bryan Hehir 9 Things Danny taught me: Francis X. Maier 1 I No right choice Poetry: Les Murray 12 Screen: Richard Alleva 16 here are no easy answers to the continuing carnage in Bosnia...
...10038...
...Design: Emil Antonucci Screen: Richard Alleva For if the partitioned Bosnia-Herzegovnia devised by Vance-Owen, once established, Stage: Gerald Weales were to fail, which is very possible, the Serbs and Croats would simply take their Media: Frank McConnell provinces and merge them with Serbia and Croatia...
...visions from Sudan, States: Give the Bosnian Muslims the means to defend them- Somalia, and India...
...10038, ment to establishing peace and then maintaining it...
...Of course, Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan no small part of their foot-dragging has rested on the hope that the United States will Associate Editor: Paul Baumann rescue them from their tragic dilemma...
...The current effort at the United Nations in New York to end the fighting in Bosnia is caught up in a miasma BOOKS of Serb maneuvers and Muslim anxieties...
...So even were they to agree to Poetry: Rosemary Deen the Vance-Owen plan, the Bosnian Muslims, with only three provinces, would be Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, left without a contiguous territory and continue an easy prey to the voracious Serbs...
...If a UN force with Bosch...
...But only the United States has the correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, leverage and the will to save the Bosnians from this terrible choice of defeat and I I Graffam Rd., So...
...Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...It will he tempting to help them...
...nia...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...But that choice too presents its own 4387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 Dutch St...
...This enlarged force will have duties broader than the manitarian mission without the threat of responsive violence...
...The objection is obvi- disaster...
...But there victims of war and offering nonviolent ways of ending or easmay be none such, and it would be prudent to acknowledge ing various conflicts...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 6
