At 07:08 PM 5/2/99 -0700, you wrote:
>AN OPEN LETTER TO MY JEWISH FRIENDS
>
>Since the beginning of the attack on Yugoslavia the American Jewish
>Committee and the American Jewish Congress in Boston gave their full
>support of the NATO's bombings. It is hard to tell whether their
>endorsement is an act of opportunism or ignorance. It is definitely not
>the expression of high moral standards they would like us to believe.
>
>I am not familiar with the decision making process of their main offices
>in New York. For that reason I will limit my remarks to the actions of
>their Boston representatives in this open letter.
>
>I have known Ms. Sheila Decter the Director of the American Jewish
>Congress in Boston for more than twenty years. We collaborated on many
>occasions on the variety of cultural programs. I cooperated frequently
>with Lawrence Lowental, the Executive Director of the American Jewish
>Committee. Together we introduced the film "The Righteous Enemy." A
>segment of the documentary deals with the Italian occupation of the
>Croatian province of Dalmatia where my entire family was killed during
>the Second World War.
>
>As a child of the Holocaust survivors and with my own personal history
>of victimization, when at twelve a group of Croatian youths almost
>killed me and tried to burn me in a school stove, I am very sensitive to
>any kind of religious or racial intolerance. I am opposed to persecution
>of civilians, as much as the directors of the American Jewish Congress
>and the American Jewish Committee are. Still, I do not hold all Germans
>or all Croatians responsible for the fate of my family or for my
>personal experience.
>
>Since the beginning of the ethnic fighting in Yugoslavia eight years ago
>both the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee have
>taken one sided and partial view of the conflict. The organizations have
>distorted the truth, have refused to hear the greviances of the other
>side and have suppresed information they possessed, all in order to
>support their preconcieved notion of who the innocent victims are and
>who the murderers in the civil war. It might have been easier to sell
>this black and white picture to their members, but the picture in no way
>reflects the facts. Throughout the conflict militias and paramilitary
>forces belonging to all sides have committed attrocities against
>civilians and other ethnic groups. To single out only Serbs and
>especially all Serbs is not only incorrect but immoral.
>
>I strongly believe that all those responsible for the war crimes should
>be brought to justice by impartial international courts, regardless of
>their nationality. I also believe that international order should be
>upheld by the UN and World Court to prevent the small and weak nations
>from being destroyed by either evil or self-righteous empires. I also
>believe, as naive as it may sound, that all nations and all conflicts
>should be judged by the same standards while ethnic strives should be
>resolved peacefully through negotiations and not ultimatums and bombs.
>
>After reading that the American Jewish Committee was a strong supporter
>of the bombings, I called Mr. Lowental. When I asked him why his
>organization did not endorse an intervention in Sudan where two million
>people have been killed in a civil war or Rwanda where six hundred
>thousand people were killed, as compared to two thousand in Kosovo, Mr.
>Lowental responded that we (Who are we? Jews? Americans? NATO?) did not
>have any strategic interests in Africa. How about East Timor (250,000
>dead) or Sri Lanka (80,000 dead)? No strategic interests. How about
>China (1,500.000 dead), Kashmir (300,000) or Chechnya (250,000 dead)?
>His answer was that those countries had atomic weapons. We have been
>repeatedly given similar explanations by the US media and the US
>Government. This means that our high moral standards apply only if the
>victims are Europeans and if the perceived perpetrators do not have
>atomic weapons or are not the American NATO friends like Turkey. If that
>is the case, than it is understandable that the NATO attacked
>Yugoslavia.
>
>Mr. Lowental pointed out to me that the American Jewish Committee could
>not stand silent while the ethnic cleansing was going on. Why was the
>Committee silent when 200,000 Krajina Serbs (out of total of 900,000
>ethnically cleansed Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia) were expelled from
>Croatia four years ago? Mr. Lowental could not remember the incident.
>Well, let me remind him. While the 150 miles long column of refugees in
>tractors and cars was harassed in Croatia, the US government sent a
>stern statement to Yugoslavia warning them not to settle the expelled
>refugees in several Serbian provinces with large minorities in order not
>to tilt the ethnic balance there. We have had a chance to hear many
>cynical pronouncements during the civil war in former Yugoslavia, but
>this one definitively tops them all. It would be pity for Mr. Lowental's
>checkered memory not to remember it, despite the fact that there is
>nothing the American Jewish Committee can do about that incident of
>ethnic cleansing now.
>
>Six years ago, at the height of the conflict in Bosnia, Ms. Decter asked
>me to translate testimonies given by a group of Bosnian Muslim prisoners
>that were brought to Boston (Allston) the previous day. They gave a
>harrowing account about being kept for months in a dark underground
>military tunnel in Hercegovina. The detainees described the torture and
>killings they witnessed, and talked about their transfer to the island
>of Badia and their consequent release to the USA. When they asked me to
>translate, the American Jewish Congress was not aware that the prisoners
>were not held in Serbian but in a Croatian detention camp. When did the
>Serbs put them in prison? the AJC representative repeatedly asked me.
>They were in a Croatian camp, I kept repeating. They were tortured by
>the Croats not Serbs. This came to them as a complete surprise.
>
>To make the situation more ironic, the former Muslim prisoners described
>in detail how at the beginning of the conflict, they, together with the
>Croatians from the area, ethnically cleansed and killed all the Serbs
>from the town of Chaplina and the surrounding villages. They showed no
>remorse for their actions, but told me the story embittered by the
>betrayal of their former Croatian allies. The American Jewish Congress
>office in Boston never released the tapes, that are probably still in
>their possession. Since the tapes did not show the Serbs as being solely
>responsible for the civil war in Bosnia, Sheila Decter must have decided
>that it is better not to ruin her imaginary account of the conflict in
>Bosnia.
>
>Long after it became apparent that the story of a systematic rape of
>50,000 Muslim women by Serbian soldiers was a hoax, both the AJ Congress
>and the AJ Committee continued to trumpet the false charges. The tragic
>truth was that around three thousand women were raped on all sides of
>the ethnic divide. I brought this to the attention of Ms. Decter and
>suggested that she get in touch with Lepa Mladjenovic who was at that
>time running a rape victim center in the vicinity of Belgrade for both
>Serbian and Muslim rape victims. Ms. Mladjenovic has impeccable
>credentials. She was a well known feminist in former Yugoslavia and an
>active opponent of the war. During the siege of Sarajevo she organized
>and sent through the Adventist Church thousands of packages of food to
>the civilians in Sarajevo, regardless of their religion, thus saving
>hundreds of lives. Since Ms. Mladjenovic was a Serbian, and Serbs were
>suspects regardless of what they did, Sheila Decter scoffed at my
>suggestion and showed no interest in getting in touch with her. Of
>course, since more is better, it was much easier to sell memberships to
>the AJ Congress by being concerned for the 50,000 allegedly raped Muslim
>women, than to show a real compassion for the true rape victims on all
>sides of the conflict. Now incidentally, the story of the systematic
>rape has been conveniently moved to Kosovo.
>
>The demonization of the Serbs and Yugoslavia by these two Jewish
>organizations extends to the Yugoslav Jews as well. During the
>sanctions, I suggested on several occasions that something should be
>done for the Yugoslav Jews so they would not feel completely isolated.
>The suggestion was met with complete indifference, even hostility. Not a
>single time did they speak to Aleksandar Singer, the President of the
>Jewish Federation in Belgrade, an Auschwitz survivor who also spent
>three years in a labor camp under communism, to find out what his views
>of the conflict were. Had they called Mr. Singer recently, they might
>have discovered that one of the first bombs dropped over Yugoslavia by
>the NATO, destroyed the old bridge in Novi Sad and the Holocaust
>memorial commemorating killing of 1219 people, 809 of them Jews at the
>site in 1942. They also might have heard that Yugoslav Jews feel
>perfectly safe in Belgrade, as do the other minorities, except for the
>NATO bombings.
>
>In the past several years both organizations have hosted many
>delegations from Bosnia, with token Jewish representatives who were
>never before involved in life of the Jewish community and knew nothing
>about it. Unlike the Yugoslav Jews, the Bosnian Jews deserved the
>attention of the AJ Congress and Committee. This approach is completely
>absurd, considering that the Jews of former Yugoslavia were always one
>interrelated and cohesive Jewish community. The Yugoslav Jews became
>Jewish communities of five different countries, only by the fact that at
>the time of the breakup of Yugoslavia they happened to live in five
>different parts of the country. Furthermore, around 300 Jewish refugees
>from Sarajevo now live in Belgrade.
>
>In contrast to the empty posturing by the AJ Committee and Congress, the
>JOINT Distribution Committee in New York has been successfully helping
>the victims of the civil war in Yugoslavia regardless of their ethnic
>background. During the siege of Sarajevo the organization managed to
>rescue from the city thousands of Jews, Serbs, Muslims and Croatians. At
>the Jewish Center in Sarajevo it organized the only telephone link with
>the outside world and served hot meals to all starving citizens of
>Sarajevo. During the sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia, which had
>devastating effect on the poor and the old, the JOINT Distribution
>Committee opened a pharmacy in the offices of the Jewish Federation in
>Belgrade. The pharmacy, still operating, has provided over the past six
>years free medications both to the Jewish community and to the poor
>citizens of Belgrade.
>
>There is a Jewish saying that one who saves a human life, has saved the
>whole world. In contrast, to the humanitarian activities of the JOINT
>Distribution Committee, the American Jewish Committee and the American
>Jewish Congress have become vocal advocates of bombings and further
>killings, without helping anyone.
>
>The NATO bombings which the American Jewish Committee and Congress
>support has done nothing to reduce the suffering of the ethnic
>Albanians. As might have been envisaged, the removal of the
>international monitors, who discouraged the atrocities prior to the
>bombing, has resulted in a humanitarian tragedy of enormous proportions.
>The relief workers who might have continued to mitigate the suffering of
>the civilians are also gone. The destruction of the city of Pristina and
>other towns throughout Kosovo by the NATO bombers can hardly be
>considered helpful to either Albanian or Serbian civilians remaining in
>the cities.
>
>Considering that prior to the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, there were no
>refugees outside of Kosovo, it is clear that it is the bombings that
>provoked a horrific outburst of ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces. This
>in no way absolves those committing the crimes from their
>responsibility.
>
>The alliance's lofty pronouncements that it has nothing against Yugoslav
>people sound rather hollow in view of the mounting civilian casualties
>damaged cities and completely destroyed industry. The ecological
>disaster caused by the oil spillage into the Danube from the repeatedly
>hit refineries, poisonous fumes released from the chemical plants, use
>of the cluster bombs and low grade uranium, will be felt in the area for
>generations to come. Is this what we are supposed to support?
>
>It is no coincidence that the countries closest to the conflict, Greece,
>Italy, Macedonia and the democratic government of the Yugoslav republic
>of Montenegro, all oppose the NATO bombings as counterproductive. It is
>not surprising that the opposition parties and the leading dissident
>intellectuals in Yugoslavia, whose lives are endangered not just by
>bombs but also by the increased internal repression, all oppose bombing
>of Yugoslavia. Their painstaking work to bring democracy to their
>country, which the US government never supported, now lies in ruins. It
>is equally understandable that the Yugoslav Jews along with all other
>citizens of Yugoslavia do not see the NATO action as a fight against
>Milosevic, but as a destructive war with an aim to destroy their country
>and their very existence. It is hard to fathom the blind arrogance and
>callousness of those living 5000 miles away, with no understanding of
>the area, wishing to perpetuate the killings, in order to justify the
>disastrous and misguided decision by the US government and its NATO
>pawns. Is this what Jewish moral response should be according to the
>American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Congress?
>
>It is difficult to believe that only a month has passed since Mr.
>Lowental and I introduced to over six hundred people at the JFK Library
>in Boston the film "The Righteous Enemy." The documentary tells a story
>about courageous Italians, both military men and civilians, who during
>the Second World War defied their government in order to save thousands
>of lives. As we all know, it is always safer, more opportune and much
>more profitable to jump on a bandwagon. I can only wish that the
>American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress might have
>learned something from this historic example. It is useless to honor the
>heroic deeds from the past, if we are, by following the stampede,
>unwilling to show the same compassion and concern for all victims of the
>conflict.
>
>David Mladinov
>
>David Mladinov is Cultural Arts Director of the Leventhal-Sidman JCC and
>Artistic Director of the Jewish Theatre of New England. His collection
>of short stories was recently published in Belgrade by B92 Radio and
>Publishing which was closed down at the beginning of the conflict.
>-------------------------
>Wilhelm Glowacki
>
A significant testimony
AJM
Alexander J.Matejko
University of Alberta
fax (403)4927196
