Why Bosnia Is Not a 'Quagmire'
MIHAJLOV, MIHAJLO
Perspectives WHY BOSNIA IS NOT A 'QUAGMIRE' BY MIHAJLO MIHAJLOV Soon after his 1948 falling-out with Joseph Stalin, Marshal Josip Broz Tito won the unconditional support of the United States. No...
...Simultaneously, anti-Nazi guerrillas (General Draza Mihajlovic's Chetniks and Tito's Partisans) waged their campaigns with strong backing from the Allies...
...In addition, except for the fanatical nationalists of various ethnic groups, the guerrillas had the support of virtually every Yugoslav...
...As a result, the U.S...
...If the international community were to intervene to stop the present senseless bloodshed and human suffering, it would be embraced by the ordinary people as a liberator, not an occupier...
...Milosevic has set an example in Yugoslavia that may yet be repeated in Russia, to cite the most obvious case...
...But as their problems go from bad to worse, it will become more attractive—especially if his territorial grabs and "ethnic cleansing" are left unchallenged...
...Involved as well is the nature of the future world political order...
...The conquerors not only permitted, they encouraged ethnic conflicts, including genocide practices similar to those we have lately been witnessing in shocking embryonic form...
...For only peace with a modicum of justice can discourage catastrophic developments elsewhere in the Balkans and in the Soviet Union-and that requires a broad, unequivocal response to the present lawlessness...
...The situation would hardly be different than it was after the fall of fascism in 1945...
...It will be impossible to avoid international intervention at some point, particularly since people everywhere are becoming increasingly outraged by daily television and newspaper reports of what is being allowed to go on...
...So far, the leaders in Moscow have rejected his approach...
...But the longer leaders in this country and Europe remain paralyzed by their visions of a "quagmire," the more difficult and costly it will be to restore even a minimum of justice where terrorism reigns...
...During World War II Yugoslavia was cut into pieces by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, Albania, and Bulgaria...
...This helped lay the groundwork for the country's destruction...
...My friends in Belgrade-not just Sarajevo-are constantly asking me when the international community is going to put an end to Yugoslavia's nightmare...
...And it failed to realize that this would inevitably lead to separatism...
...Now Serb extremists are asking for a UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia to permanently secure their latest plunder...
...Today, the main argument against taking direct action to halt the atrocities being committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina is that U.S...
...and European forces would find themselves caught in a "Vietnam-like quagmire...
...The Bosnians, on the other hand, are being denied arms, we are told, so that "peace'' can be restored...
...It will certainly lead to more trouble in the future, however...
...President George Bush, Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, and Europe's leaders all keep recalling how in World War II Germany was barely able to pacify the region with 37 divisions...
...Mihajlo Mihajlov, a longtime NL contributor, spent seven years in Yugoslav jails for his dissident activities...
...In any event, it needs to be understood that the issue here it not simply a humanitarian one...
...Despite much pious rhetoric and moral handwringing, in Croatia the international community has in effect ratified Milosevic's actions...
...A second mistake was the early sympathy displayed for the present dictator, former Serbian Communist Party chief Slobodan Milosevic, by prominent American officials...
...Thus it was after dismemberment by the Germans et al...
...Lacking both popular and foreign support, they would not be in a position to "bog" anyone down...
...Such a peace could also be achieved by massacring Bosnia's Muslims...
...No effort was made to have the totally dependent dictator initiate democratization, and thereby establish a viable federal structure in Yugoslavia...
...was slow to recognize his determination to use Serbian nationalism to dominate all of Yugoslavia...
...Perhaps equally important, no outside power would be supplying the nationalistic diehards...
...Their reading is wrong...
...that Yugoslavia became the fierce battleground so many fear, and before anyone attempted to put the pieces together again...
Vol. 75 • August 1992 • No. 10
