The Victim of Rules of War

The world can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The unbearable moral pressure caused by the war in Bosnia has been lifted abruptly after two Frenchmen were killed near the Sarajevo airport. If the affair over the downing of the Italian jet is still unclear, this time nearly everybody agrees that the crime was committed by the Muslims. So far, the number one culprits and aggressors have been the Serbs and the Croats, while the Muslims have generally been looked upon as innocent victims. The world which recognized Bosnia and accepted Alija Izetbegovic as its president, didn't want to, or couldn't help him efficiently, while those who were called to take care of the world order didn't know how to defend themselves from accusations at home.

Western press and TV practically managed to extract the military intervention so hated by politicians and generals. The Muslim crime has now become the key argument for those who advocated humanitarian help only, as nobody is innocent any longer, and since Izetbegovic's initial moral advantage can now be played down, the intervention has become senseless and unjustified. If the blue helmets are shot at by the Muslim side as well, then there is nobody left to be helped.

This atmosphere was felt at the London Conference, before the two Frenchmen had been killed. The diplomatic option which eventually prevailed, no doubt, disillusioned Izetbegovic and made him lose confidence in world justice. He knows that none of those at the round table can bring back what he has lost in the field and that his whole strategy has gone up in smoke. To all effects, the Conference has significantly changed the behavior of his army. Not only has it turned out that waiting for foreign help was a waste of time, but it has also turned the peacekeeping troops into a symbol of injustice and an obstacle to waging war after no other solution was left.

Izetbegovic's policy was not in favor of war; he never wanted the war nor believed in it, which is clear from the fact that it caught him unprepared. He spoke of a united Bosnia as a state of citizens and probably believed in it, which, of course, sounded reasonable but turned out to be unrealistic. Karadzic's party wouldn't agree to the option, and HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) waited for the Serbs to come into conflict with Muslims first.

The Bosnians who rejected all national parties and who, even today, from their cellars or emigration still believe that their beloved Bosnia cannot be destroyed, were ready to admit Izetbegovic a certain advantage over Serbian and Croatian leaders. Izetbegovic had to be a greater Bosnian than they were, because Muslims from Bosnia have no alternative country. That distinction was being made until the beginning of the war and even later, at least in Sarajevo, where for quite a while there were only two kinds of people: those who were attacking the city and those who were defending it.

Karadzic, however, could easily have won a bet, that the Bosnian president would, during the course of the war, become a Muslim leader only. His political ideal of Bosnia as a citizens' state will have to be followed by somebody else, once this blood bath is over. Izetbegovic sacrificed his moral advantage which didn't bring him much, except sympathy and favor with the world public. Immediately after his return from London he announced that freedom and not peace would be his prime goal from now on, which meant that the war would be fought to the bloody end. Izetbegovic doesn't need the peacekeeping troops any more and it may be true that the attack on them was "planned and premeditated". Izetbegovic is probably under the impression that the world has sacrificed the Muslims and Bosnia consciously.

However, it will soon turn out that Izetbegovic was wrong and that giving up even the useless support of the word public and the few Bosnians who have not lost their faith in a renaissance of a life together, was a mistake. Because the agreement between the Muslims and the Croats, whatever this may mean, cannot hold. For the same mysterious reasons that no agreement made in this former country in the past few years has ever been kept.

Sporadic clashes between Muslims and Croats have already started and there is no one capable of persuading them that their leaders have made different agreements. True fundamentalists will inevitably show up among Muslims, the ones mentioned by Serbian propaganda from the very beginning, but not because they have always hidden behind the mask of a civilian Bosnia, but because war steps up extremes, and seeks out primitive and instinctual explanations, and because it cannot be waged in the name of a life together. Izetbegovic could not go to war in the name of three nations, and the SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) and HDZ can only lead their nations. The theory on the lifting of masks leads directly into an anti-civilization chaos and nightmare, which in fact proves that man is an animal, and the rest is just hypocrisy. Had life in the jungle been comfortable, we would not have left it.

The world has passed up the opportunity of getting involved in the war at the very beginning when Serbian volunteers entered Bijeljina and when it became obvious who was in the service of the JNA and what its role was. All are slowly accepting the Serbian version, whereby this is a religious, ethnic and civil war, in other words, the jungle. It is too late for intervention, and diplomacy had an early start. The only thing which could help now, would be to spray the whole of Bosnia with a drowsiness which would bring out the contemplative, fatalist passiveness in which the country has lived for so many centuries. Without this spray, more time and blood will be used up. In the end, which may be so far that it does not concern us, the spirit of the area and history will be set up once more, because this cannot be overcome by human effort.

The fact that Izetbegovic's desperate attempt at saving Bosnia has met with failure, does not mean, however, that any other option has succeeded or won the day. Bosnia has not been saved but it has not been divided either. At least in this phase, wherever one looks, the impression gained is that of defeat and that there is no solution in sight. This holds true for the Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Montenegrins, Albanians and Macedonians. None of them have solved their problems, resolved the border question, constituted something stable or created hope for a peaceful life. Prosperity, democracy or inclusion in the world order do not even bear mentioning.

All have, however, given verbal assurances of wishing to be in accord with the rest of the world; with the exception of the Serbian regime, which rejects such a possibility in principle as a shameful capitulation. Should Panic's "capitulative" policy win, things will not change greatly for the better, because the problem is no longer dependent on individual will. The opposition in Belgrade and Zagreb seek democracy in vain. With national and minority problems and antagonisms such as these, there will be no democracy, regardless of who is in power.

Yugoslavia was never a cradle of freedom, but its spaces are so bewitched that with disintegration it has become a collection of lesser Fascisms and, of course, reverted to the jungle. It is like six people trying to put together a Rubik cube simultaneously and in two moves, with each person working on his own color. The Slovenians have succeeded, but the others had to grab axes.

It remains for the world order to withdraw and conclude that international norms are observed everywhere except where they are not valid. Our case can serve as an example to the point and contribute to a lessening of civilizational ambitions. The world is not a global village and its civilized parts may find it harder to accept this truth, than it is for us who are on the sidelines. This is where the difference lies; they are more concerned for us than we are. If they eventually give up, if they continue without us, as we would if we were in their place, in three years' time we will no longer remember how to use a doorknob on London doors.