]]O<߭G*ZF6ߙ9i3)y,fz(ڴ[9oR>SMteTSjh_?0G/GP *E*uG(ujAz>FWFPJFѷD=P}MIk_zZ!UhuѵѴA*ʨɁT(CF =&(m>hu&FMED(EMZs=Y湝UK~ND}5B9Q>I:V9jiOJSS*BĬSD+K}"Z5U^kѰR!9R]S!,4ĪU^)iʊj%o3r;u*j& :k>}Nt)@]DM@󈳞ԥ%Zd^f~hS**u].E|72U&_3i:/h괫|ӝ.|~q*/ƢME=GQ4e)6f:]*G???UM)tREtz]E|bQ&&SE &DiUԕMy<̧3U**٫S9gZ9zњ+UTʤiLJ|f8SuZ_աt6UGRoFyjFtM.QJ|^j#J}wt'OAmZ]SJWD'Rh68SSn]۲ke . iTkteE"Z~sfZZ͚V:oy5T)u?SҨ]tUR=5URS͙3o<] w<֏?<`USSS_zUO8"GUuW4f0HDk0Le H%* V$&PQ)!8t2@AxqD 8lJJ'mQyDg%&T:1O )9n ]frޓvDH(5FMBb4!Xإ'?f\߬0HH2La QM%( ΞNvCTt w[s3&7GORU[TbKbhXTcڿ/n" ܱ8 FDG2HajUE1 41(Ha$bV6Tl?k*n$& 0HT2l`I& )*qs -V"{Zphudbbvr~N$Vs昷~\Q0a=?KL-S~yʎөUI(Vpq])O{40Hl2l`I %%(^`jU&F\ G:bkܑ޽88BE;4x K1o]=@|QVdkA2˘(ɚÙ)I *4VL-mfSڻjbز`0HX,'iA%͇(0( xCXȞip eVDf6]w{5Π+Em%(UAo'QJ,8KJ5%:8pT틒1Hm_1j?;Ԙ0l.g)A%%(9P) 20s.we"];&S(,-;~!0R=$Si?;#P:C8,|Z2vXb <ԓsQX ɢ5 궪I@ĔWJ7&'0h,La A ( [Z%D+1Y01{S[Hjvc!̩i@w<`OQ&z{0W@ p6^ Hox:`aF r3Z5m'D^h B7~4F#~[G@e!椉"bz}c.'S0HL.ld3US3eOBtk~MfS*MIjg6w~nRJԖTfHZRmyjzԶAyQ]s-WMНq GTUUٿDR){\jh;FhZJJU4U2ipnv^o!I}*M R՟Mz&ևP3tBDP 1T 5EOK7SJkY5u SP:K>C*z(hE"1O=TZ.A'at4j*jw* qQ msJZjK]Kn(fY ?C_:&]N|7ԙ54Djk ivTQhM=K|BT}] m)3>Co3LA**U U&\4O@ѵ@}5O@;3(oԝP'u+i]JSP5թOIh|kV0E*5M5]HElK &t"6_R*.SH!OVTM9&J䩫qyjWգ(ʊEmsDR9^1%EY>MMKf:5f(E55ULcjBZZDi5hM\uJLsy5ԅj5ΧBELJZI(UWJ\T4YbS$Y(JT3 3?[U PN._ʹ5?FSWR =Vբmfߛ57 BPkfqf}},Wh&:pzQFMt+9<=^kBggR sz%N|澨RK<ѪKR+є]&oMK_Vϩ*Wf/K]L?֤.M2^kzNKykmҫ<νNG",5ǭգ"EAAJB=jR R?53*u5z yT)E*QBoj?SRi괊|t:S\77-\3*^44)jӚsDJ+jo42[湳A&MQOI*?UJte5Z]QERNk_M&^ysz.s2DZTR.UM*J_ST']'D.TFkUEQT]Z9zit.j湮o5ϩ ֤ەssW惚Lu="ssO榹QM.9Ri4M5[DRʿi4:sMQ+uit#D~gMsH5k4LQ.SikϟU4jZ_U5]IjU zRS?4M4^yFJouU2GmFjTow7Yg\g7Rt77*sjdnyԕj9Nќ6*TʄJt.Hy̓A776et盫k>k5KTofZURU|?NoԅjB?F7MR)_l7O-g Wx+[_Gapɴe%YXR/; d\D aK7[sT+BNsͳ0ӉYSOk_I" hWXS?a>P$}&d(DVF "ɀyItxd+V"Tarj`ޫ$"'ez,Nl˜IYB2  Ҿ5eǤ ݹ.6s0b]i;"RI k6ϽkMa3N4Cni\12.pѲ%'H2a[oNnw nucrSg,>]0\$Re~jh7MxvYV9d h ;\u0vh V-^ -?NAJ}Nyۛ:|^B+v;#?xA%_s/JAit? U\ǒ=J` L4ohּ0?P]5y| Tk( u(Xm* &z(MvvgvI֟k< WirJۅ[I`ⶔؤVZdA \ +К6u.Y)ޯ-hC/@م/aI xfh5?c+JJ Z~mXKѣ;L+<OwŞJTnx'm\ZG)"حEЭW,{t+'Gec򱎦d^Lu{%XQo1.\n톟HmYb/Yxuw-n);KdD+|ឫ~g `rĵgW = yѐ(ap+0s]g% DDU%`ԖV] ^rQg.pL& L= ˥ J*op**VXmJ/K.HC2^˛:qR`y-sig#:I形gdd`ʿt]~-njX}3!^<h)\ k)L@Qpl|CV#1JsQɌCJ/)%Jz;Ԋ 9`Uۆ vu/AVYʌ 0 Kwwk tE詌ˏ5+EޔUY ^*<{mW X4?rxjU~.kH3O/ {, !j~HGzߧb( |պGZ{[Ewft[.] Oe+ ?DhImU_wT'уI-\Rķy4G-H Uǣu#ϗ0*K鑯ZU?]apW Tg @[ÜʉK#DLΝu(O&I<;Kx'6(!Qɧ/x< ttg}4v;3vIeFWйJۊ(@]Cم/~N_S_IF=Hgz<#Vlu; seV/ ?wcK/8qL*ϑO+WH [8KEuzO(k,NFf#ʿ9=W 2L:K CyHDYJW!O Ƈŀ=NX#uZ1 PGebcx9>I_ղ ΒŻLbS30Z9Tl/ J4[2i#koh}+XIOj8Xip"!$5&xMv Q<漱w(D7<`|wbxb@dmVџ1K.NWxDZΝ T[4f˟C֙ :6Ibl NftDw,CcRW)ܼO^mꡏ1Otw["Tǿ_Hnز BvHJO$7·w(7Q(aDA6ɐzLكuD 3--X&sz^d$4QL h*>Q`r.ʍFQS`5eXbWKQ](F|`m.9#)VCi~}MDQs:sOJxzHd}jgKw!DBKXVG(teg Cd+CJ1.)#1eP],02BC!؇b p47EA mTHkHzQ ir񺖓gҀFQ9~fKi> KhV 8SxK\0L;桀ML-ճa .D#_XK E3?Tgv$զ_m ` uxʹ,[U{hZ{m˶μ>,5 #"m_ >JbYR:k=#KI}G!] y~=(a&4'|j1\Pb]/Y&l7Icfꚮ?{eHM-`ŃJ)j &zXz A)gK5nKUY`il2> iOݓ$5\VS|W[GbSiy-4ٖ,@%Y @5әmG]52y@=SlL"򷭷88쏮%ZgFd-Q:ƹPhH Y~ Nj=alycN(R>CzB` fO5vq^~`{7낰/(qz||"VL5Dmɻ%ʾ> 6u~D]gqke`d]~OQQ{N⫶Ͼ3-6aI2-V,8LvGo-q!J#h7ؙbU;E:sSٱíPz ,>C=QYS%gd*t?0&B^Œ AǞk.7y|]by鼍W3GJVE\0-yoj<A_둎)Y}dV3[Cl˙a",_iZj{y`|E95j`Q:;$dK_t{:~q3( H~U+*o6ʾOQF\|!틉u% .<(w{xfSPd}TwytQ(|q L<4gG'uzۗVtѴtŎ/-1{;J Ͳ/b _]Șڣ(zF;Ֆ$lr Nz֊ɷ ҞV{8E8_ Rz@3%a}ng[ILgϟG!ş`r5PlR(]4 ā=XTJ+C*S3@? j^ӻ*FE@9 1R9i1B9Rӏ\pHqa@04< 9v\J%>*&yb붿!kBO^L o!cJ LP;`pN;KN_2yRN|0d4DH7Hf&hS 9bA)̥P#&! ^,yC7'B:4 حS|@]ѱoG/n cH@s!v1ƦvΘՕSq wa8?}Rӳ<м`—s4M!et aV~XVu]Lkί;s/x |6)T[ɏw/gx`=KfAKQ]3 i/;P˳WUa(ETH#Dtpx9.]1i!\l X*Vn2 #b0ې;he+PKrX3q81|:b&ag(MFF5zzwtA"+6W4'r3Ԯ[X?4?"1vHEƈ"EFERI"DTzV&]~s]5pd8sLQ)ҪnJu ,{7$4\Z(+4"G/Ċ)H(罾M/w3LxevW &GOSsd5i0;mS<>ruwx|K1ŸRjWI.Bɪm,3{b~ xⴢ\ *Tq,s@sq,FAfa bW;?rF(eQ i(6pryFg^ ΟGwX lj%WR 6X5UߐMOB oq:Nl%p_ڳC*v)¢ ncQdfŵ(*N(_?18h&`3CѪ YU)jH\UI#!IW5FNl Ah_;Lõ[s$BQyZ[.I̪Q#Vʄ~>bk2v\*+ i^(.kWg_FL!&#Fa1I"qnA8wfV5WtZ1}QWų)f`#R.I,Fvx[ߐQw{%S[w[$KJ`KQ&\ե+HRReu'2~Vhd&"d(\o :cwnM;xLzԺR~C1ϓcQ׮$63/"٫еOH{QnSL13ߪOOCN|BN0= IW!cmɛx0W7ݹW`欚 2$/Q}\|ǜp ELD]+>,}OItO/S)$L(ʝzܚM:ԙVebq8ZLhyϫ@yi?Dpzt[1sUΝI7%1 f'a|}Zެ@UC2TY< &TVEY2d'0Q{8VuޢdG@Ruem2xe^nlj7Ghzr(9ѽe2ԡU16lM S|zy`ɱsSeSTUu&fw&U)r/a4pR=3.ɵBTJ)sCXw8¹i,0!Of 0tVVFHB{,~P^fzABf?GV165 Vo .oލẹ6ȕ+wDPjWt$PP}:'"ID\@M L/`"Db&vtQ.N( pxmP[kD95K%z>=v%^E-TmU[j'Cj^aƗwʊ "؃*Rr‰@4(M2$ lVN@7 t_W/¿NiŌ'1dbd|yr@6Y8 Vtr];AO҈Bwsft]f#1չiZoz]=(ӛfp9-HehV Nw%Jnsider issue of former Yugoslavia to be terribly important to how the new world order was evolving. Some of them were preoccupied with elections of 1992. Others just considered this to be a continuation of a kind of tribal, ethnic war going on for hundreds of years, and that’s of course always the answer if you don’t want to do anything. You then just say it’s a civil war happening for centuries and everybody knows that you can describe every segment of the world as a sort of tribal or ethnic conflict continued for centuries, whether its Poland and Russia, whether it’s France and Germany or France and England, whether it’s the Ottomans and Russians. All conflicts could fit that line, sometime. So that’s an empty excuse.

However, people who were familiar with the region happened to be mostly influenced by Slobodan Milosevic himself. Eagleburger, who became the de facto Secretary of State, was previously stationed for quite some time in Belgrade. Henry Kissinger also had some connections. Most had initially seen Milosevic as a reformer. Milosevic has spent much time in the United States as a banker. Some saw him as some sort of opportunity for change rather than a dictator and ultimately the orchestrator of genocide.

On the other hand people who actually came to see Bosnia as being critical, people like Madeleine Albright or Brzezinski, they actually came from that region, so they understood that there was a certain element of generalization, perhaps prejudice, being applied.

I’ve been to Krakow in Poland and I know there is the clock tower in which a bugler toots the horn to mark the passing of every hour and at the end of his play the horn makes this disharmonic sound. When I first heard it, I asked the young Polish woman with me, “does this guy know how to play the horn?” She was at first chuckling, a bit uncomfortably. Then she explained that actually the reason he goes off key at the end is because it signifies the moment when the Turks attacked Krakow and an arrow was shot to his throat by a Turkish archer just as he was sounding the alarm of the invading Turks.

Of course, this is an hourly reminder of invasion of the Turks, presumably of Islam. So of course to someone like Zbigniew Brzezinski it could have been seen as a threat from outside. However, Zbig had faced the indoctrination of bias and had consciously looked beyond it to some agenda with greater relevance, shared relevance and integrity. But I also found out that most of the people particularly from Central and Eastern Europe, even the peasants, they actually do read their history. So, if they are bigoted, they know the source what it is that they are prejudiced about. One can challenge the rationality of such bias especially when used as basis for political appeal.

We see in much of the United States a prejudice of ignorance and what we see in Western Europe is prejudice of arrogance. I am afraid that to overcome these prejudices of ignorance and arrogance in one case you have to act as an American cowboy so you can tell the arrogant not to be so cocky. On the other hand, to counter the ignorance, the prejudice of ignorance, you have to educate and somehow allow people to understand that there are other people on the other side, who are very much like them.

You said that the unwillingness to intervene was also due to France’s endeavors to create a new kind of Europe, this is a Europe without NATO and American presence.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :I think I am being a little bit unkind to France. My words should be more focused on Mitterrand himself. This was Mitterrand’s idea and Mitterrand was unfortunately influenced by some ugly prejudices. This prejudice was not so much of being pro-Serb as many assumed, but being frankly anti-Muslim. And as we now know, he was also anti-Jewish and almost anti-everything which wasn’t exactly like him. I don’t think that Mitterrand had ever outgrown Vichy France and its bigotry. His vision of a new Europe in many ways developed not in 1970’s, 1980’s or even 1990’s but it developed in 1940’s. It was not progressive and open, but quasi feudal.

When one says about U.S. response, one faces a situation in which Americans do not care that much about what is going on in the outside world. They actually have whatever they need over here. They have peace, they have economic prosperity. Why would they want to focus on bad things that go on in some distant parts of the world?

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :But it’s no more quite understood that way. The problem with American reaction to new world’s events is that it is not a very calculated reaction. It’s not a reaction of a surgeon’s scalpel. It is a reaction of an axe.

But when you expect something from the U.S. you assume that the U.S. would be a moral leader in overcoming such crises. However, when you take a look at the U.S. history, this country never wanted to be a leader and was rather forced to become such. For the majority of its history, the U.S. was pretty much isolated from the rest of the world and only until the First World War and the Second World War, America emerged as a global empire. The U.S. didn’t even have ideological and moral background predestining it to be the world’s leader. Now, you are saying that in cases of genocide the U.S. never assumed any kind of leadership and was merely acting as a policeman, even further damaging its image of a global leader.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :I think that in 1992, one would assume that the United States had an opportunity to assert its moral leadership, which would of course transfer into political capital, authority. Unfortunately the U.S. only managed some part of that moral leadership and unfortunately it was not enough to counter the ugly ideology of Islamic radicals. The United States for long time was being the number one guy on top of this hill and was open to accusations of all sorts of policies that were characterized as anti-Islamic as well as selective. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.S. had a chance to show that America could act objectively when applying its policies and not being only seen as pro-Israel, pro-Western Europe, but in certain situations being seen as defending the rights, the law, those who were threatened.

Although I do conclude that the United States in many ways was more forthcoming than France and the U.K., but ultimately the result we see today in Bosnia and Herzegovina is flawed, morally and politically short. So in fact it has been a good selling point for al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Nonetheless, I think that the United States had much greater opportunity in 1992 to reclaim the moral high grounds, which it had in 1945. In the end, there was not even political understanding and political will to do this. So in the context of your previous question, there was lack of personalities on the U.S. side.

The key U.S. personality in that crisis was and is Richard Holbrooke. Although Richard claims to be a friend of Bosnia, ultimately he converted more into a perverse pragmatist. He also took the road of expediency and the perverse deals that such translates into. Richard deserves a great deal credit for translating pragmatism into helping bring an end to war. Unfortunately he deserves also a great blame for his methodology. The method he chose, the role he chose, was to make one of the ugliest, in effect, alliances with Slobodan Milosevic. He explicitly or implicitly signaled a green light to and allowed Milosevic, and Mladic, and their military, to create new facts on the ground, to overrun Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde.

These were NATO and UN protected areas. Consequently, his “deal” violated the fabric as well as resolutions of NATO and the United Nations. In return, he garnered a short term benefit: to establish the new map on the ground into a politically sanctioned cessation of hostilities. However, this is neither a solution consistent with the principles or ultimately the strategic interests of our Euro-Atlantic family.

I wouldn’t even call it a pragmatic solution, I would rather call it an expedient solution. In other words, many of the people who were at some time for doing the right thing, the long term progressive and sustainable in Bosnia, ultimately used expediency that suited their own political agenda, frequently personal ambitions.

But that was the time when the Soviet Union collapsed, and in fact it was also a hard time for the U.S. itself because during the Cold War there was this devotion to multilateralism that Western nations should cooperate closely with each other to face the communist threat. When the Soviet Union dissolved, this ideology of Cold War multilateralism remained in place. There was not enough time to adjust the foreign policy of the U.S. to different global circumstances, in terms of evolution from multilateralism to acting more unilaterally to be able to intervene in places like Bosnia without political consent of France, Great Britain or Germany.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :I would disagree with you on that statement. It is only one form of multilateralism transcending into a new form adjusted for the time. The United States certainly could have helped translate the new world order interaction into a new manner of multilateralism.

It’s also very clear that in 1992 and 1993, while people like Mitterrand and John Major maybe took the lead in developing policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, if the United States said “listen it’s not working, we need to try something new” it would have been done. They, Major and Mitterrand had no capacity or maybe will, to bring about a solution on their own.

I would disagree with the notion that we were going from multilateralism to unilateralism. I would say that it was an evolution in multilateral institutions and the most critical one was NATO, the other was the EU.

The one thing I have not addressed is a very complex story of how the flight of the former Yugoslavia, in particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina, accelerated the admission of the new Europe, that is Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, the Baltic Sates into NATO, frequently driven by the neo-cons, people like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. This also ultimately compelled the EU to say if we don’t admit them into EU than we risk creating a significant distinction between NATO and the EU. There was a time when Mitterrand was in fact trying to marginalize NATO and his failure to bring an end to the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina ultimately marginalized Mitterrand himself. It also marginalized his efforts to diminish the importance of NATO and accelerated the admission of new Europe to NATO and into the EU family.

But in respect to Bosnia there was devotion to such kind of U.S. multilateralism, which actually required “ok” from France and Great Britain in order to start the much-needed intervention. What in fact was hard to get because of France’s pro-Serbian approach.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :I wouldn’t say that approach of France was pro-Serbian. I think the French, Mitterrand, simply had his own agenda. Maybe they developed a pro-Serbian perspective out of it because it served their purpose or actually I should say the purpose of Mitterrand. I don’t want to accuse the whole France of what Mitterrand did. There was huge number of political and intellectual forces in France, from the current Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Daniel Con-Bendit to Gescard D’Estaing, who were concerned by Mitterrand’s course. I think that the point you are driving is: how could the United States do this without France and Great Britain. It could. It did it in Iraq in considerably more demanding terms. What the US, we, did in Kuwait did not require U.S. unilateralism but required U.S. leadership.

And once it was seen, that Mitterrand’s policy, Major’s policy, was not working to stop war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then the United States could and should have indicated “what you are doing is not working, people are being murdered, we are creating dangerous precedent, a threat to international peace and security, we now will take the leadership”. But the United States did not take the leadership.

So you blame the United States for its inaction?

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :Absolutely, but only as one of several who failed both in securing America’s own strategic interests as well as on an international legal and humanitarian basis. The people I blame the least for this whole situation are the Serbs. Why? Simply because under Milosevic’s regime, which was never challenged the way it should have been in terms of its underlying philosophy, it was allowed to cultivate. And this fascist agenda still exists even today. The world says that this was a case of hundreds of years of nationalism and fascisms. However, in most of Western Europe fascism was and is actively confronted while in Serbia it was and still is not confronted.

After the chaos of dissolution of the communist world and the Soviet Union, one should have expected these types of challenges, local leaders appealing to fascism to take the power. But it was not challenged. Now we see other examples where fascism is just underneath the surface, as it continues to be legitimized. I am afraid that the countries which bear the greatest responsibility for tolerating that fascism were the Western democracies. The number one is the US political leadership. Do I hold the United States more accountable than France? It’s not that I hold it more accountable. Certainly, Mitterrand in my opinion has proven himself one of the most regressive forces that we have seen in the last 20, 30 years. The U.S. had a strategic and leadership reason to react more assertively, especially in view of Mitterrand’s not so subtle challenge and use of bigotry to attain his narrow agenda and selective application of international law.

But let’s take a look at this matter from a little bit different perspective. You have Second World War and the genocide of 6 million Jews. The United States does not act to stop it. Then, the genocide in Cambodia in which the U.S. does not act either. The same thing with the genocide of Kurds in Northern Iraq and genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda. But then you have the genocide in Bosnia, where Muslims are being murdered and the U.S. does act. So from that perspective it was a successful leadership, a kind of evolution from the policy of non-involvement to the policy of unprecedented intervention.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :Well, the end result in Bosnia is certainly not just and not necessarily very functional. When we talk about Bosnia and Herzegovina, the State Department sometimes now might appear to be the greatest friend of “Republika Srpska”, by further embedding, legitimizing and thus perpetuating the status quo.

The Dayton Accords, when signed, were supposed to be a dynamic process. However, we have not seen a real change, certainly to disassociate Dayton and its sponsors in implementation from the “European Apartheid” that is taking root in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and under the most dangerous conditions. Bosnia and Herzegovina is now built upon the notion of an ethnic divide, which I call the European Apartheid. So let’s not take too much credit for it yet.

As for the Holocaust, I am deeply critical of the failure of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration to, first, identify what was going on and then not to confront it. I think it is an empty argument to say that too much military resources would have been expended to bomb the railroad lines which were leading to Auschwitz. I’ve seen Auschwitz. It was not buried in a mountain or pretending to be a farm. The Allies knew, certainly if they wanted to know, as well as Auschwitz’s neighbors. We also know that when Jewish refugees starting in late 30’s were looking to flee Germany, were seeking to flee the countries that were already occupied by the Nazis, they were not welcomed anywhere. So of course many of them eventually ended up in Palestine.

And let’s not overlook how Western Allies and Soviet Union reacted to Warsaw Uprising. That not only was a non-intervention, on the part of the Soviet Union it was a calculated to have the Nazis beat the Polish, including Jewish partisans, so the Soviets could subdue the Poles and bring them into the communist block. It was a very conscious act on the part of the Western Allies to accept, validate the Stalinist Soviet domination.

Those were very tough deals made, maybe for expediency and the greater goal of military victory over Germany, but at a huge and probably too high cost. I thought that we learnt something from the World War II. There was and is a high political and moral price for the Allies, the Western world allowed to happen during the Holocaust. And I thought that the world might have also learnt a lesson of betraying its own values as well those who resisted the totalitarianism. Why could I expect that in 1992? Once again, there was no Soviet Union and we did now have a legacy of that very famous phrase “Never again!” and we did have the precedent of Kuwait.

But the phrase “never again” is mainly connected to the Holocaust. It means “never again 6 millions Jews will be killed”. It means Holocaust will never happen again, it does not relate to genocides of different races in different parts of the world. The Holocaust had raised the bar so high that death of tens of thousands doesn’t compare to that at all, doesn’t amount to be understood as genocide.

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :That’s a point of view, which I would not share. First of all, the group of people in this country, who were most supportive of Bosnia’s case, were Jews. They understood that “never again” meant something much broader than “never again 6 million Jews”. Maybe others did not understand that. Maybe others, as you put it rightfully, thought of genocide only as of a number of 6 million, 9 million or 12 million killed. But this is why we call it the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was genocide, but certainly not all genocides are Holocausts. I am concerned that sometimes people do look at Holocaust and only see it in one perspective. They overlook the millions of others who were exterminated as well alongside the Jews, whether they were Polish, Gypsies, communists or homosexuals. What it tells you is that the Holocaust was not just about Jews, and although it was primarily directed at Jews, it was also directed at everybody else that was different. It tells you that any of us can be a victim of genocide. I’m certain that there were those who thought it was OK to persecute the Jews. After all, in their thinking, the Jews were not the “us.” They felt that they themselves would not become the victims, but then they ended up in the killing camps or the front lines dying for the last breadth of an evil ideology. We all can be victims, either as targets or sacrifices.

And the genocide directed at the Bosnians was not because they were invaders, outsiders. We are Slavic as the Serbs, Croats and the Polish are. We just became a convenient focus of a political regime that sought fear and exclusion to reinvent itself from communism to nationalism, a way to perpetuate its own power.

This is nothing different than the marriage of fascism and socialism under Hitler. Fascism needs an enemy. Communism is similarly susceptible because it is totalitarianism.

You did mention a country before, Rwanda. The question here is very clear. Was the Holocaust in World War II allowed to go much further as it did because it was about Jews? Was the genocide in Bosnia allowed to go because it was about Muslims regardless that they were Slavic? Was it allowed to continue in Rwanda because these were Africans, i.e. “black people”? I am totally convinced through my experience at the United Nations that the further you are from being Christian and the less you are white, the more likely the violations against you, against international law, violations of human rights will be ignored and the genocide will be tolerated.

You see it in Darfur today. It seems to me that the most important point being made about Darfur today is that the perpetrators are Arab Muslims, so the world is very quick to condemn them because they are Muslims. On the other hand the victims are African Muslims, but it seems that because they are Muslims they don’t deserve being saved. Arab Muslims deserve to be condemned, while African Muslims don’t deserve to be saved. I am also condemning the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur, but I am also for saving the victims because again I see that there is another little game being played there. We heard condemnation of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, but the victims did not benefit unless they were saved including if necessary confronting the perpetrators. Will Darfur’s history be written on the basis of who was helped, saved, or will Darfur serve political rhetoric by “the world” simply verbally condemning the perpetrators?

It seems to me that you view those issues from a racial, ethnical and religious perspective. You name white Christian people being indifferent to what is going on to people of other races and religions. In other words, you believe in this clash of civilizations, clash between Christians and Muslims?

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :I don’t believe in clash of civilizations. It may exist, but it needs to be manufactured and constantly fueled. Let’s be frank, when I speak about the egocentrism of Western Europe or Christian America, I am actually speaking about myself as well. I’m part of this egocentrism. I lived my life here very much as an American or someone who belongs. I don’t see myself somehow separate from this. However, the term “clash of civilizations” seems to legitimize the view that conflict is natural, inevitable and that we are on one side or the other: “With us or against us.” Real civilization means human civilization where each society, culture benefits, learns, contemplates from contact rather than instinctively, by fear and bigotry, reacting to defend or attack what is merely somewhat different.

On a much more global perspective, civilizations or in particular parts of civilizations they tend to fall behind. During Middle Ages we have the Muslim world, which came from rather backward area called Arabia and very quickly jumped ahead of the so-termed Christian world. It jumped ahead even in Western Europe in Spain and also in the Middle East. However, it had also adopted, advanced and employed much of what it learned from other civilizations like the Chinese and African, Greek and Roman. Ultimately the so termed Western world jumped ahead of the Muslim world. But we know that what in fact Western civilization gained were the benefits of the interactions with Muslims in Spain, with Ottomans and other segments of Muslim world. Clearly they are different cultural spheres, but rather than clashing, these spheres also benefited from interaction. All seem to benefit, advance on the knowledge which is infusing one into the other. Sometimes it was political knowledge, sometimes scientific, sometimes industrial knowledge etc. We develop not as isolated civilizations, but as a whole global community, but within different segments, sometimes one jumping ahead of the other. There is dynamics involved which indicates much more cooperation and interaction rather than war. Of course we remember the wars because we are taught by our teachers about wars. We are not being taught about when two scientists meet and what happens with that exchange.

However, there is something I don’t understand. Previously you mentioned that the terrorists in London used Bosnia as their rationale to conduct their attacks. On one hand, Islamic extremists use it as their motive to act against the whole West, but on the other hand you have this situation where the U.S. and the West as a whole did not do anything about 6 millions Jews being exterminated but it did a lot when tens of thousands Muslims were being murdered. The U.S. stopped the genocide directed against Muslims, what is now being used against it?

MUHAMED SAICIRBEY :Let me make sure it’s clear at this point. Al-Qaeda loves the term: “clash of civilizations”, because their notion is that there should be completely two separate civilizations, where Al-Qaeda rules in one segment. And as far as they are concerned what happens in the rest of the world is, well, not much of their concern. They want to create this notion that there is one set of standards that apply in the Western world and there is another set of standard which applies in the Muslim world. What they would say is: what comes to the Muslim world, we will do what we have to do in Muslim world and that means very conservative, harsh type of Islam. But to understand that, we need to compare 1992 Bosnia and let’s say Israel of 1992. Most Islamic radicals would say that the United States intervention on behalf of Israel in no way could be compared to actions of the United States to help Bosnian Muslims. Certainly the standard of justice, standard of what has been left behind in terms of a state, Israel and Bosnia and Herzegovina can in no way be compared. So that is what Islamic radicals will use as a comparison. Frankly I think that American Jewish community was always aware of this and this is just one more reason why many of them were very supportive of Bosnia’s cause.

Not only American Jews, but all of us who are believers and practitioners of the ideology of an open society, did not wish to give the radicals an opportunity to say that in fact there were two standards on the level of human rights, on the level on international humanitarian law, of democracy and open societies. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has not left either a good precedent or legacy. The precedent is that what still counts most is expediency rather than either legality or long term strategic considerations. Buy cheap now and pay the price later. Another consequence is the privatization and ultimate devaluation of multilateralism.

The most visible legacy is this new European Apartheid, a return to ethnic or religious ghettoization. Some may wish to ignore by acting as if they do not see it. They may even acknowledge it, but then blame this bad smell on the Bosnians or Balkan history. This has not been part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s history. Rather, it is the resurrection of something that may have been part of a less brilliant part of European history and now persists as a fever blister on all of the Euro-Atlantic family.

Some might try to convince you and me that this is not a fever blister, but that the Balkans, or Slavs or former Communist states or Muslims are just ugly. Well, we are not ugly and it is a fever blister, in part because the Euro-Atlantic democracies in Dayton chose our mouth to kiss the ugly lips of fascism. Those who want to notice it and remedy it, will do so for the sake of all of us rather than believing that it should be ignored as if it does not exist. I’m certain that those who wish to exploit it for radical propaganda will not ignore it. From my perspective, maybe the biggest peccadillo is in the lost opportunity of Bosnia and Herzegovina being exploited by the global democracies and open societies as a model for the alternative to what the others are peddling, the clash of civilizations, fear, exclusion and ghettoization.

Mr. Muhamed Sacirbey holds B.A. degree in history and J. D. degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. He also holds M.B.A. degree from Columbia University. Prior to becoming Bosnia’s Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United Nations, he practiced as an attorney in New York City and worked for several years as an investment banker. He presently writes his book “A Convenient Genocide, in a fishbowl ” and is a commentator on human rights and political issues.

24.August 2007.

BOSNIAN MINISTER OF JUSTICE BARISA COLAK AND SERBIAN MINISTER OF JUSTICE DUSAN PETROVIC DISCUSSED JURISIC CASE

SARAJEVO,Bosnia – The Bosnian Minister of Justice Barisa Colak met with Serbian Minister of Justice Dusan Petrovic in Belgrade this week.

“I am pleased with talks on all issues except the issue that was the most important for us, i.e. the extradition of Bosnian citizen Ilija Jurisic who is in prison in Belgrade”, Colak said after the meeting. He said that the Serbian judicial institutions and Criminal Code they are unable to hand over Jurisic to the Bosnian authorities because a penalty of 10 years or more is specified for "crimes" he is charged with.

“I reminded them that this case has been already rendered to the Bosnian judiciary under the Rome Agreement, i.e. the Rules of the Road, that the alleged crime was committed in Bosnia and that Jurisic should therefore be tried in Bosnia”, Colak said.

In addition, Colak stressed, that would provide for better cooperation not only between the two ministries, but it would also open up new prospects in cooperation between the two countries and better relations between the two countries in general.

“I also reminded of international standards, i.e. that the European Convention on the transfer of cases does not prevent extradition in this case, that international conventions always have priority and supremacy over national regulations”, Colak said.

Asked what the Bosnian government can now do, Colak said that they have done everything that was possible.

“In legal terms we have delivered everything that was requested of us. Our request is now before the Court in Serbia. However, what I heard from Minister Petrovic and his assistants gives me little hope that Jurisic will be transferred to the Bosnian judiciary any time soon. The only promise I received is that they will quickly end this case and that they are almost done with questioning witnesses”, Colak said.

Ilija Jurisic is a Bosnian patriot who participated in defending the Bosnian city of Tuzla from the Serbian aggressor,during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggresion against Bosnia.Jurisic has been arrested by the Serbian aggressor and has been in a prison in Belgrade since 11 May 2007.

24.August 2007.

BOSNIA INTERESTED IN FATE OF SIX BOSNIAN CITIZENS DETAINED IN GUANTANAMO BAY PRISON

SARAJEVO,Bosnia - The Bosnian government recently requested guarantees from the US government that six Bosnian citizens detained in Guantanamo Bay prison would not be executed or tortured, the Bosnian Foreign Ministry confirmed yesterday in Sarajevo.

"Bosnia asked the US authorities to give guarantees that those people will not be sentenced to death, and will not be exposed to torture, inhumane and humiliating treatment," said the letter signed by the Bosnian Ministers Of Justice, Human Rights and Foreign Affairs.

The Bosnian Foreign Affairs Ministry said the official correspondence was sent earlier this month, after the Bosnian government approved it last month.

Six Bosnian citizens of Algerian origin,all married to Bosnian women and known as the Algerian Group, were arrested in Bosnia in October 2001 under suspicion of planning an attack against US and British diplomatic missions in Bosnia.

The Bosnian Parliament’s House of Representatives decided on March 15,2007 in Sarajevo upon the design of the so-called map of the return of the “Algerian Group” from Gantanamo.

The SDP BiH Party delegates made a proposal which plans that the Bosnian government, coordinated by the field ministries and the Bosnian Presidency, should request the release of six Bosnian citizens which belong to the so-called “Algerian Group” from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison.

In February 2002, immediately after the six were released by a Bosnian court due to lack of evidence, the Bosnian government handed them over to the United States, which transferred them to the US Guantanamo Bay prison.

24.August 2007.

BOSNIAN FOREIGN TRADE CHAMBER : ELIMINATION OF CUSTOMS DUTIES FOR IMPORTED CROPS IS A PRIORITY

SARAJEVO,Bosnia – The Bosnian Foreign Trade Chamber Vice President Milan Lovric stated on that elimination of customs duties from the imported crops from the third world countries to Bosnia is a priority.

He started at a press conference that it is necessary that the existing customs to the flour import are eliminated. The windmill capacities have been used only in the amount of 30 to 40 per cent.

”Flour producers have asked, however, to keep the maximum prices of imported flour, so that the domestic production is protected”, Savo Marjanac, Head of Economy department at the Bosnian Foreign Trade Chamber said.

The Bosnian crop growers have proposed all the field institutions to participate in order to solve problems in the sector and ensure sustainable quantities of crops.

Crop growers concluded that the increase of prices of crop and flour at the market will force them to increase the prices of final products.

BOSNIA NEWS ARCHIVES (click here)

.



LINKS

BOSNIAN PYRAMIDS - NEWS & PHOTOS

BOSNIA NEWS ARCHIVES



AddThis Social Bookmark Button
AddThis Feed Button