David and Goliath: Bosnian Serbs Against the West
by Wanda Schindley
.
<http://www.globalresearch.ca> Global Research, July 31, 2009
<http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2347> Strategic Culture Foundation
On June 20th the High Representative for Bosnia, Austrian Valentin Inzko,
annulled legislation passed by the Bosnian Serb, Republika Srpska (RS),
parliament that would reclaim some of the powers of “semi-autonomy” that were
promised to it in the constitution but that have been stripped away
incrementally by International Community (IC) High Representatives under the
so-called Bonn powers. Inzko, the latest of seven High Representatives under
the direction of Javier Solana, was offended that the Bosnian Serbs did not
capitulate under the threat of “consequences” and withdraw the legislation on
their own. Offering to negotiate and amend some things in the legislation was
not satisfactory to High Representative Inzko, who has dictatorial powers over
occupied Bosnia.
Inzko saw the RS legislation to reclaim some of the constitutional powers
stripped away by openly pro-Muslim High Representative Paddy Ashdown ten years
after Dayton as “regressive.” Until less than four years ago, the Bosnian Serbs
had their own police force, army (even though they were pretty much stripped of
armaments), courts, and so forth. But each new edict of the High Representative
raised the bar and further stripped Bosnian Serbs of their institutions and
constitutional “rights.” Each mandate to expand the role of the central
government in Sarajevo was movement toward the ultimate goal of a united One
Bosnia—abolishment of the Serb entity set up at Dayton and the Dayton agreement
signed (under threat of further bombardment) by Serbs and, apparently, with
disappearing ink by the IC.
While the UN occupation was biased toward Muslims and against Serbs as
demonstrated, for instance, in the rules for and rate of reclaiming property by
the two groups, the EU occupation appears even more intent on strangling the RS
out of existence and humiliating Serbs into capitulating to a centralized
government in Sarajevo, which for Serbs is really “regressive” to the some 400
years of Serb suffering under the occupation of the “Turks” of the Ottoman
Empire. But Turkey is not the only country now meddling in the affairs of
Bosnia and supporting the Islamic take-over of the entire country: Saudi Arabia
is still a primary funder of Bosnian Muslims and the mosque-building (in some
areas, one every few kilometers) that makes the country appear to be a real
Muslim country (even though it is majority Christian); Iran supplied weapons to
Bosnian Muslims during the war; and mujahideen fighters came from the Muslim
world to fight Christians in their own back yards.
Not only are Serbs in the RS expected to submit to the Islamists in Sarajevo
(see the Bosnian Grand Mufti’s defense of, for instance, Islamic education in
public schools1), they also are being asked, in fact, demanded, to give up any
thread of independence and, eventually, their Orthodox Christian religion,
along with their democratic institutions. (Those who do not understand that
“Islamic democracy” is an oxymoron should read Alija Izetbegovic’s 1970 Islamic
Declaration and study Sarajevo Chief Imam Nezim Halilovic Muderris’ radical
intolerance and calls for institutionalization of Sharia law in Bosnia.2)
The Bosnian Court, for instance, of the “centralized” government has
demonstrated its bias and inability to deal with the crimes committed against
Serbs. The focus has been on convicting Serbs who, in spite of being dubbed by
international media as “aggressors,” were often fighting against foreign
Islamic fighters from their own back yards to protect their families and
property. Yet, the courts of Bosnia’s central government have sentenced Serbs
to 1,118 total years in jail, Croats to 140 years, and Bosnian Muslims to only
42 years in jail in spite of the realities of the civil war and atrocities
committed by the foreign mujahidin and Bosnian Muslims.3 On 23 June, the
Bosnian “central” government refused to extradite Croat war criminal Branimir
Glavas, who was convicted and sentenced last month to 10 years in prison for
torturing and killing Serbian civilians during the war. Yet, Serbs are held
responsible for finding and depositing at The Hague even the un-convicted as
the West repeats ad nauseam the unsubstantiated 40,000-rape hoax. (Even if it
were true, the West has a higher per capita incident of rape under peaceful
circumstances.)
It is not as though Serbs, who produced Nikola Tesla, Mileva Maric (physicist
wife of Albert Einstein who contributed to his famous theories), Mihajlo Pupin
(Columbia’s Pupin Hall named after him for his work on x-rays, long-distance
telephone service), etc. are too stupid to take lessons from not only the
historical but also the recent past. For instance, Serbs know that the IC’s
demands for “privatization” mean “rape” of their resources by the IC:
(1.) Examples are replete in Serbia. For instance, in Pancevo, the successful
glass factory, electric bulb factory, chemical factory, and beer factory (since
1722) are now closed after being “privatized” and bought.
(2.) Croatia, after seceding with the bank in which all Yugoslavs had
deposited, sold cheaply the Adriatic hotels (to which Croatia, historically a
small province around Zagreb, did not have claim until all that was changed,
first by Hitler when Italy capitulated in 1943 and then by the Croat Tito),
mostly to Germans.
(3.) In the RS, many factory workers went to work for years without pay as
crooked “directors,” supported by the IC, drove BMWs and as ancient forests
were stripped, a la Brazil and then Haiti, and irreplaceable resources
transported to Western Europe.
The “Bonn powers,” which allow High Representatives (called “viceroys” in
another time) to fire elected officials and make or nullify laws, have been
used mostly against Serbs. In spite of its efforts to comply with the Dayton
Accords, the 49% of Bosnia included in the Republika Srpska remains the
“bastard child” of Dayton, notwithstanding that the only major ethnic violence
since the war has been between Bosnian Muslims and Croats who were unhappy in
their “shotgun” marriage and that the Bosnian Muslims have been in violation of
Dayton since January 1, 1996 when they were supposed to have sent home the
foreign Islamic fighters who were imported to fight the Christian Serbs and,
sometimes, Croats.4
Serbs stand alone against an IC which (along with the Vatican), during the
1990’s wars, supported Croats, knowing that Croat leader Franjo Tudjman’s goal
was to have an “ethnically pure” Catholic Croatia, and Bosnian Muslims, knowing
that Alija Izetbegovic had made clear in his 1970 Islamic Declaration that his
idea of “democracy” was an “Islamic democracy.” And now, almost 14 years after
the end of the war, Serbs are blamed for the lack of progress toward a “modern
multi-ethnic” state. Leaving aside the fact that before the orchestrated
break-up of Yugoslavia Bosnia was a modern multi-ethnic republic, Bosnia has
still not regained the economy, employment, technology, industry, and
infrastructure it enjoyed before the war.
The blame can easily be placed on Bosnian Serbs because they have not
sufficiently cooperated in their own annihilation to make way for a One Bosnia,
a Muslim-controlled Bosnia, in order to move toward “Euro-Atlantic
integration,” now framed as (eventual) membership in the EU. Bosnian Serbs are
accused of being distrustful of and of misjudging the IC. Yet, any Serb
distrust of the IC is rational considering the IC’s involvement in the bombing
of Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia (Slavonia and Krajina), Kosovo, and Serbia proper
and the IC cheerleaders’ continuing anti-Serb bias. Even those Serbs who sell
out to the West are subject to being thrown overboard if they step out of line.
But saying that trouble in Bosnia results from “misjudgment of the
international community,” as former High Representative Paddy Ashdown claimed
last year in his editorial from Sarajevo after the arrest of Radovan Karadzic,
is more than simplistic.5 It is wrong.
Bosnian Serbs know very well that the intention of the IC is to “reform” the
constitution and discard Dayton to make One Bosnia, and they have witnessed
first-hand the unequal treatment under the UN and the EU. To many Serbs,
submission to Sarajevo for the dangling carrot of EU membership is not
attractive. It is a future without the small protections of “semi-autonomy” in
the RS and being once again under the yoke of Muslims and being once again
under Germany, which has shown little sympathy for non-Catholic Slavs through
the German-dominated EU.6 Already there is concern that the Dayton agreement
was simply a way to buy time for Saudi-backed Muslims to continue building
mosques and buying property from desperate Serbs to gain control through
stealth as the IC slurps up Bosnia’s resources. IC lies might fool the
uninformed Western public but not the Bosnian Serbs who have lived through the
intervention and years of IC dictatorship. Mr. Inzko should reconsider his
approach.
Notes
1
<http://www.rferl.org/content/Interview_Grand_Mufti_of_Bosnia_Herzegovina_Mustafa_Efendi_Ceric/1778439.html>
Interview: Bosnia's Grand Mufti Defends Religious Freedom
2 See, for instance, <http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=6690>
http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=6690
3 The Hague court has been similarly biased against Serbs, meting out 904 years
of sentences to Serbs, 171 years to Croats, 39 to Bosnian Muslims, and 19 to
Kosovo Albanians. Figures from an interview with Dr. Elena Guskova on RTRS TV
in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska.
4 Instead, the “moderate” Bosnian Muslim government gave the foreign mujahidin
citizenship and failed to notice connections between those same fighters and
major international terror attacks and has since banned Santa Claus. Also see
the June 24th New York Times article
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion>
“Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists” (and Bosnia)
5 See Paddy Ashdown’s “Europe needs a wake-up call. Bosnia is on the edge
again.” The Observer. UK, 27 July 2008.
6 Of the seven High Representatives to date, two were Austrian (Petritsch and
Inzko), one German (Schwarz-Schilling), one Spanish (Westendorf), one English
(Ashdown), one Swede (Carl Bildt) and one Slovak (Lajcak). Those who are from
Catholic-dominated countries are joined by Ashdown, the Catholic Englishman.
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