Appease with Dishonor: Faulty History

From that central asymmetry, other differences follow. The Serbs--in Belgrade, Banja Luka, and Pale--initiated the use of large-scale military force; the Bosnian government did not. The Serb leadership has no democratic mandate to wage war; the Bosnian government possesses just such a mandate, as well as a right under international law, to defend Bosnian territory. Boyd's claim that the Serb population of Bosnia boycotted the 1992 referendum on independence and "made it unmistakably clear that it would take up arms if the new state was created" is unfounded. The threat was made by a few radical politicians, who also arranged for roadblocks to prevent ballot boxes from reaching many Serb-inhabited areas. In the main cities, where Serbs were able to vote, they opted for independence. Boyd notes that less than half the original Serb population may still live in Serb-controlled territory in Bosnia but attributes this to "fear, combat, and forced expulsion." Given that most of this area has not been subjected to forced expulsions of Serbs and has not seen combat for a full three years after its initial seizure, many Serbs may have left because they did not want to live in a gangsterized para-state.

The Serb leadership has used the prolonged shelling of civilian areas as its primary military and political tactic; the Bosnian government has not. The Serb leadership has attempted to destroy an ethnic and religious group; the Bosnian government has not. The Serb leadership has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of serious human rights violations in Bosnia; the Bosnian government has been responsible for a very small minority of them.

Despite occasional disclaimers, Boyd repeatedly suggests that the two groups' behavior during the conflict has been morally equivalent, but this is simply false. He writes, astonishingly, that the "only" difference between Serb actions after the fall of Srebrenica and Croat conduct during the recapture of western Slavonia was "the degree of Western hand-wringing." In Srebrenica, the non-Serb population was removed at gunpoint, and several thousand male inhabitants are believed to have been shot and buried in mass graves. In western Slavonia, most of the Serb population fled, apparently on instructions from Serb leaders, before the arrival of Croat troops; those who remained suffered neither expulsion nor mass murder. According to the U.N. secretary-general's report on those events, "The holding of over 1,400 Serbs, mostly male, in detention centres was generally monitored satisfactorily, as was the release of all but 186 of them, who remain under investigation for alleged war crimes. The Croatian Government has sought to encourage Serbs to remain in the Sector and has issued personal documents, including citizenship papers and some passports, to those who have applied for them." Can Boyd really see no difference between that and what happened in Srebrenica? And if he cannot, does he really have the right to accuse others of being "underinformed" about the nature of this war?

Noel Malcolm, of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, is the author of Bosnia: A Short History.

FALSE RELATIVISM

Norman Cigar

Boyd prescribes a policy that treats the interests of all sides alike, but his attempt at relativism rests on flawed premises. The war was not caused by understandable Bosnian Serb desires for self-determination or by the international recognition of Bosnia. If Belgrade had not formulated a well-organized policy and supplied muscle and leadership, war would probably not have erupted. Serb objectives had been articulated by the mid-1980s in the "Serbian Memorandum" adopted by President Slobodan Milosevi'c to shore up his power. At the core of the plan was the establishment of a greater Serbia. The envisioned territorial expansion meant that the Serbs would unavoidably become a minority unless non-Serbs were killed, expelled, or assimilated on a large scale. The Bosnian Muslims never articulated an equivalent strategy.

Even if Bosnia had remained part of Yugoslavia and the international community had not recognized it, ethnic cleansing would still have occurred. A systematic, top-down campaign by the Serb government, intellectuals, and the Orthodox Church had already targeted the Muslims as a permanent and insolvable "threat." Some Serbs had called early on for what were euphemistically termed "population exchanges." Significantly, Kosovo, Vojvodina, and the Sandz ak region, although part of Serbia, have not been spared "quiet" ethnic cleansing, which may yet become violent if the victims resist.

We do a disservice to the Serbs by assuming they all support their leaders' objectives. Many Bosnian Serbs, labeled traitors by the authorities in Belgrade and Pale, have voted with their feet, fleeing Serb-controlled areas. Since 1991, 615,000 people have left Serbia itself, many of them young men unwilling to die for a greater Serbia. In contrast, the Bosnian government has never said there was no place for non-Muslims. Some 200,000 Serbs live in government-controlled areas of Bosnia, while the deputy commander in chief of the Bosnian Army is a Serb, as is 11 percent of the army.

Boyd appears surprised that venal and cruel individuals exist in all the communities involved in this conflict. But the World War II allies were not perfect either. The United States organized internment camps, France and Great Britain ruled colonial empires, and Joseph Stalin was our partner in arms. The Czechs, Poles, Russians, and other allies took revenge on many innocent Germans during and after the war. Yet most would find it difficult to argue that both sides were equally bad or that one ought to have been--or should now be--indifferent to the outcome of a war in which the main parties have such disparate objectives, ideologies, and methods.