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Death Sentence to Bosnia
Behind the Dayton’s
Closed Doors
By Musadik Borogovac
Bosnian Congress USA
Tuesday, 11 June 1996
See counterpoint . . .
Time for the Bosnian Government to
Begin Working with Neighbours
By Amir Handzel(Boston) -- If you are concerned about the US soldiers in Bosnia, do not blame Bosnia. US soldiers will stay in Bosnia as long as Milosevic needs them to ensure that Bosnian refugees who want to go back home will not be able to do so. Why? Please note that, by the Dayton agreement, US soldiers are guarding the borders of the Serb Republic (the graveyard state created by methods of genocide and war crimes) and not the state borders that the American people recognized on April 7, 1992.
If you think that Clinton's Bosnia envoy Richard Holbrook is a good businessman, you are right, since he sold Milosevic's plan for (first ilegal, than legal) carving Bosnia to the world as the US plan from Dayton. While speaking about the necessity of Bosnian elections, against the wishes of the Bosnian people, and their ability to vote he was selling out the some basic principles of the American people and US troops in Bosnia, too.
If you think the NATO exercise against Serbian military positions in Bosnia (summer 1995) brought peace to Bosnia you are right. The NATO bombs destroyed a few of Serb warehouses, but gave them what they could never get by legal means or by war: Dayton papers (November, 1995) upholding the creation of a new state, on half of Bosnian land, protected and guaranteed by the US military. But now the Administration is planing to rebuild those warehouses with promises of financial credit, and is also insisting on elections that will nullify Bosnia's pre-war Constitution and make final rendering of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina irreversible forever.
If you believe the isolation of Karadjic is important for the implementation of Clinton's Dayton agreement, you are right since the US Administration does not wish to jeopardize Karadjic's project of creating "three Bosnias" with his notorious reputation of a war criminal. Still, the Dayton Plan for Bosnia is nothing but Karadjic's Plan for "Three Bosnia" minus Karadjic. It is designed to deceive not only the Bosnians but also the Americans who asked for several years that something be done FOR Bosnia -- not AGAINST Bosnia.
If you believe the Administration is representing US interests in Bosnia you are wrong since Greater Serbia or Greater Croatia interests are not necessarily American interests. De jure, a few Russians are under NATO command, but de facto, all US soldiers are under Milosevic's or Karadjic's command. Most recent example was an immediate extradition of seven Bosnian survivors from Srebrenica to Karadjic's militia because they were in uniform. An American officer delivered those Bosnians to Karadjic's Serb "authorities" because, for the US, Bosnian sovereignty is now a matter of the past after Dayton agreement took effect.
If you think the Administration allowed Iranian arms to supply Bosnia you are wrong. The majority of those supplies for Bosnia were aimed for, and ended up in, Croatia (as that country became the new US/EU player against Bosnia; a shift that happened when it was clear that Serbia alone was not powerful enough to render Bosnia).
If you think NATO stopped Karadjic's Serbs you are wrong. NATO bombed some infrastructure only (not tanks or infantry), in eastern Bosnia; Karadjic lost western Bosnia after he lost battle for Bihac (four years long) town where Bosnians never accepted "safe havens" and "demilitarization". It was not NATO that stopped the Serbs but the fact that Karadjic's military was a war-crime machine and not a war machine built for the long run. Bosnian liberation advance was stopped in Dayton when Serbs lost more than had been planned by the US Administration. Most important linking territories were returned to Karadjic's "entity" and Bosnian Army Bihac Corps again circled by the Croat and Serb "entities"
If you think the siege of Sarajevo is lifted, you are wrong, since the circular noose has only expanded and Tudjman's Croats in Bosnia have the again permission (now backed by the US) to join the blockade of Sarajevo institutions of still legal Republic and blackmail Bosnians accepting (not yet legal) "entities". The Dayton Plan becomes a new Bosnia Constitution and division of Bosnia permanent, only if ANY election occur in Bosnia regardless of the results or abilities of refugees to vote.
You are also wrong if you think the Administration plans to arm Bosnians in accordance with the Dayton agreement. The major condition for that in Dayton plan is the compliance of Croatia and the Bosnian Croats to join in "Croat-Bosnian Federation". Why should a regime that counts on US support in annexing a part of Bosnia be committed to working on a Croat-Bosnian Federation if the arms embargo on Bosnia is to be lifted and Bosnians eventually released of the Croatia communication blackmail. That embargo has made possible the Croatian ultra-nationalist movement within Bosnia and forced the Bosnians to accept old and new blackmails of new US allies -- the Croatian/Tudjmans separatist Mafia -- instead of Croats loyal to the integral Bosnia and Sarajevo Republic institutions.
If you think President Clinton stopped the atrocities in Bosnia, you are wrong, since the Bosnian army, with its local soldiers and their simple survival instinct, stopped them. Actually, in order to stop the Bosnian Army advances and Congressional initiative to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia, Clinton "bombed the Serbs (i.e., their warehouses) into their acceptance of "only one half of" Bosnia, and declared the slaughter in Srebrenica a "new opportunity for peace". However, it is easy to have peace at home (or a "successful foreign policy") if one gives the murderers what they want. Representing Serb General Mladic's genocide of the people in "UN demilitarized - safe havens" as the "Serb military victories" was a method that Administration accepted in order to hide from Americans the real military Serb inferiority on all other front-lines.
The real goal of NATO raids was hiding the truth of Serbian defeat by the Bosnians; it was a panicked measure implemented to stop Congressional decision to lift the arms embargo to Bosnians and allow the victim to win in this war. Four years of Bosnian victories was sold by Clinton to his own people as his victory in his pre-election campaign.
If you think that "400 years of animosities in Bosnia" generate that in Bosnia "they kill each other" (a quote from a Clinton speech) you are wrong. The administration gave clear signs to Serbia that it accepted a new map in Bosnia in early 1993 after Warren Christopher's visit to Europe. That generated visions of success to Serbia -=- visions that "ethnic cleancing" will work in spite of verbal US confrontation with Milosevic's people in Bosnia. If you think Secretary of State Christopher traveled in Europe in 1993 to ask European leaders to heed the American public's demands that something be done to help Bosnia, you are wrong. Instead, he asked European leaders to "pressure" him (and thus the American people too) into accepting a Bosnia policy established by foreign countries - one or two European allies.
If you think the US Administration is hiding evidence of Milosevic's guilt--about his connection with concentration camps and genocide in Bosnia--because of concerns for the allies in Europe, you are wrong. The Administration is in direct alliance with the Milosevic/Tudjman regime as the two, plus some European leaders, proved insufficient to transform Bosnia from a rational, modern, and parliamentary state, into a "Muslim state". That transformation was desirable to the Administration in order to turn your feelings against very ordinary Bosnian people who are very similar to you. You can read such critics now in British press more than it could be expected after the Administration accepted the British policy to help Serbia in reduce Bosnian's statehood rights to have Bosnia - to the religious autonomy on "some teritory for" Muslims a.k.a. "small Muslim Bosnia". Albanians already understud the message: "they are the next " humanitarian problem". If you think Administration's terminology (such as "Muslim led government") is insignificant, occasional consider the consequences for the USA legal system and integrity of state if the term "Protestant led government" was used for the USA. The slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia was unavoidable for such transformation to be permanent in the future and "Serb Bosnia" to be safe and Bosnian "voluntary" acceptance of Dayton plan is necessary for such violation of UN charter to be "legal" and protected by NATO against. some "illegal" Muslim militia (or terrorists and "fundamentalists") instead of Bosnian State Army (armed with UN charter) in the future.
If you think it is an unavoidable consequence of the war, you are wrong. It is Milosevic's idea of how to divide Bosnia after hundreds of years of its integrated history, and make it acceptable to you. Simply put, the US is successfully translating his ideas, thus making it acceptable to you that Russia finally expands its zone of influence over the river Drina. All Administrations, before Clinton's, were aware of that border's importance; a border that is now given out to war criminals, and their historical Russian allies, on their way to the Mediterranean Sea.
If you think that President Clinton is not enough independent of the UN, you are wrong. This is the first time in the history of the UN that one formally armed criminal separatist movement succeeded in destroying a legal UN member state. The UN charter is thus violated and US troops and US "credibility" feature as the guarantor of the existence and safety of this illegally created "entity". The term "entity" is Holbrook's diplomatic marketing product intended to hide from Bosnians, and Americans too, the fact that the half of the territory set up by an extreme nationalist movement has all the attributes that International law requires for a real state: legislative, judical and executive powers. Warren Christopher is a lawyer who knows full well what that implies. So a UN fraud, a US public image crisis, and an armed minority group have led to the creation of a new illegal state. US has taken over a leading role in making it legal.
The US troops may withdraw from Bosnia only because the European Union, Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia's advocates are concerned to face the event of the American people questioning and discussing what exactly has been written here and much more. If that happens, Bosnians in the USA sincerely thank the American public in advance -- in the name of all Bosnians. But for now, unfortunately, American soldiers are positioned between us and our homes, taking from us our visions for the future and giving our homes to hundreds of war criminals.
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