While the rise of Russia is seen as a good sign to contain America’s belligerence, on the flip side, Moscow is courting the Serbs in Bosnia threatening the Muslim majority country in the Balkans.
2Early last month, Bosnians marked the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocidal war waged against them by the Serbs and Croats of former Yugoslavia, a war whose objective was the extermination of the largest indigenous Muslim community remaining in Europe.
The two defendants convicted of genocide were Lt. Col.Ljubisa Beara, 70. A third Bosnian Serb Army officer, Drago Nikolic, 52, was found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide and sentenced to 35 years. Four other defendants were convicted of crimes against humanity and other wartime atrocities...
Last month’s conviction of three Serbs as war criminals at the Hague Tribunal brought little joy to the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hundreds of thousands still await the results of forensic tests to identify relatives after their bodies were exhumed from mass graves...
The demons of Serbian nationalism are on the loose again, this time in the overwhelmingly Muslim province of Kosova. With their blood lust not nearly satiated in Bosnia even after three years of macabre killing rituals, they have now turned their wrath against the defenceless people of Kosova.
As Serbia moves against another of Europe’s indigenous Muslim communities, comparisons are inevitably drawn with events in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs’ attempted genocide of the Muslims of Bosnia had a great impact on Muslims everywhere.
The brutal assault by Serb police on peaceful student rallies in Pristina and five other towns on December 30 indicates that Belgrade is pressing ahead with its policy of Serbianization in the predominantly Muslim Albanian province of Kosovo.
‘What shocked you most in Bosnia?’ people keep asking me since I got back. Probably a reply bewailing the gutted houses or the glutted cemeteries or the vandalised mosques is what they expect.
