The Serbs of Bosnia had excellent historical grounds for wanting to be part of Serbia. The Serbs had been serfs in Bosnia, while the landlords were Moslems. The Moslems owned the land because they were Serbs who had converted to Islam. Serbs who converted were favored in many ways and often received land seized from Christian Serbs. Conversion to Islam offered members of the conquered nations of the Balkans the opportunity to join the Ottoman rulers. That was very generous of the Ottomans, and it created a very efficient empire. The Ottoman Empire was definitely the most advanced and tolerant European state in the sixteenth century, but as time went it lagged behind and became corrupt, as the converts obtained full control of their own areas, ignored imperial edicts, imposed very oppressive taxation, and treated their former coreligionists with ever greater contempt. In 1875 a Bosnian Serb peasants revolt against landlords and tax collectors turned into a Serb national revolution, which received sympathy and volunteers from European liberals. Bosnia's Serbs proclaimed their union to Serbia. At that time, before the Austrian genocide of WWI and the Croatian Nazi genocide of WWII, the Serbs were the majority in Bosnia. However, at the Congress of Berlin, the western powers, who knew what was best for Bosnia, gave it to Austria, as a present . That wise decision gave us WWI, which in turn gave us both Hitler and Stalin.
The Serbs of Bosnia in 1992 wanted to remain part of a state associated with Serbia, rather than becoming an endangered minority. An Islamic fundamentalist and minority candidate had managed to become the Bosnian president. Islamic fundamentalists in Bosnia had actively cooperated with the Croatian Nazis in the extermination of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies during WWII. The Serbs had good reasons for concern, and many felt that if the Croats in Yugoslavia, due to the principle of self-determination, had the right to become independent, so should the Serbs. American history provides us with an excellent precedent for the legitimacy of the Serbs' secession from Bosnia. Virginia seceded, but the people of the western part of Virginia did not want to secede from the Union. Thus they seceded from Virginia, forming a new state that remained in the Union.
The majority of Bosnia's Serbs were more moderate than the West Virginians and were willing to remain in the secessionist Bosnian State as long as they could maintain their culture and a significant degree of autonomy, which would allow them to maintain their ties to Serbia. The three Bosnian sides, on Feb. 23,1992, before the war started, agreed in Lisbon to a tripartite solution. Basically that was the Dayton Accord, without years of horrible war. Actually it would have given the Moslems a better deal than Dayton finally gave them. It was an easy agreement to make since nobody claimed to be oppressed in Bosnia, and there had been no warfare there as yet. Populations were not homogeneous but fragmented and there was a great deal of intermarriage: war was really unthinkable. The issue of secure communications and defensible borders was easily overlooked and the real issues were administrative and cultural: the Serbs did not want to see their own people fired from public service jobs, they did not want to see their culture disappear, starting with schoolbooks and road signs. They were not as yet fearful of actual genocide, but they knew that the European Community would not have defended them from cultural genocide, just as it had not protected the Serbs of Croatia. Amongst the good reasons why the Lisbon agreement was the best possible deal for the Moslems was that it had been negotiated by Jose Cutileiro, Foreign Minister of Portugal, and would thus have morally involved the European Community as a guarantor of the deal. Moreover it was clear that the leaders of Serbia and of Croatia intended to split Bosnia between themselves. The Moslems had no harbor, no friendly EC neighbors delivering truckloads or shiploads of weapons. They were largely isolated in the towns in a sea of Serb farmers. So it was a done deal, signed, sealed, and... not so fast, boys... Who's that fellow in the top hat coming down the garden path, whistling? Well, well, it's Uncle Sam, in the person of U.S. Ambassador Zimmerman. "Nema problema," he says to President Izetbegovic . "We've got you covered. It's a bad deal for you boys. Why sign it?" Izetbegovich tore up the agreement and chose war. (The New York Times, August 29, 1993)
So much for the claim that it was NATO's decision to use force that brought "peace" to Bosnia. Bosnia had real peace, without murderous ethnic cleansing, until the day when the U.S. and the EC arrived on the scene. After reading the reports of people involved in the Bosnia affair at the highest level, "responsible" folks such as Canadian Major-General Mackenzie and British Foreign Secretary Owen, one must conclude that there is overwhelming evidence that the Serbs were victims of a series of very efficient frame-ups. By shooting down an Italian UN relief plane with a Stinger missile , attacking and killing French UN troops, and organizing various self-bombings in Sarajevo, the Bosnian Moslem Government in Sarajevo convinced the world "public opinion", that "the Serbs did it". (see David Owen, Balkan Odyssey, pp41-48, pp.255-262 and Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper) Thus it obtained the sympathy of the western media, a bombing campaign against the Serbs, and western support in its military campaign to destroy the moderate Moslems who wanted peace with the Serbs. By the way, the leader of the moderate Moslems had outpolled the fundamentalist Izetbegovic at the elections. Oh well, Democracy works in mysterious ways. After the Serbs' command and control had been destroyed by NATO "humanitarian bombing", the U.S. government, which had in the meanwhile re-organized, trained, and armed the Croat armed forces, all in breach of an avowed arms embargo policy, gave the go-ahead for Operation Storm, which cleansed the entire Serb nation of Krajna out of its ancestral lands.
Uncle Sam sauntered through the Balkans' barn, whistling and swinging his cane, like W.C. Fields would, with airy persiflage, tossing matchbooks and cigarettes to the drunks laying up there in the hayloft. Surprise, surprise, the barn burned down. It might have made a funny slapstick movie in 1930's, but this was not the model of a barn that burned, it was the real thing, and every straw that burned inside was a wrecked human life. The U.S. and the EC have far greater responsibility for the fire than the local drunks: they were not drunk, they ought to have known better.
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