Holocaust in Bosnia

In response to the column by Henry Siegman of the American Jewish Congress, “The Holocaust Analogy Is Too True,” regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina (Commentary, July 11):

He writes that the goal of Serbs and Croats is “. . . to drive into exile all of its Muslim inhabitants.” Bear with me for reminding Siegman of the rallying cry regarding the Holocaust, “Never Forget, Never Again.”

In his charge about the Croats, it seems that Siegman has forgotten about the hundreds of thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees from Serbian aggression that “were not turned away” by Croatia.

These Bosnian Muslims, as well as Croatians of the Islamic faith, are still being cared for in Croatia, despite the hardships Croatia still suffers from the full onslaught of the Serbian Chetniks and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army. Perhaps Siegman has forgotten that aggression as well.

The overwhelming majority of Croatians worldwide are against any dissolution of Bosnia-Herzegovina in its present state and within its present borders.

ANTHONY F. BAZDARICH

American-Croatian Assn.

Mid-California Chapter, Santa Barbara

* I want to thank you and your reporter Kim Murphy for the very informative article regarding Croatia: “Region Grappling With Nazi Past” (July 8).

In its entire 1,000-plus years of history, Croatia had a Nazi puppet regime for all of four years during World War II. So had Serbia, and both committed atrocities against each other equally. At least a half dozen other countries in Europe had Nazi puppet regimes at that time too, including the Vichy government in France, etc. None of these countries are now maligned because of it, or their past Nazi association thrown into their faces at every opportunity. Only Croatia is being vilified into the third generation for it.

There is only one cause for this injustice: the Serb propaganda machine, which has worked hard to keep this “Nazi past” of Croatia alive to this day.

HILDA M. FOLEY

Santa Ana

* As the leaders of the West were announcing from Tokyo their “resolve” not to accept the partition of Bosnia, their own representatives in Europe (the EC’s Lord David Owen and the U.N.’s Thorvald Stoltenberg) were pressuring the Bosnian government to take part in a conference on exactly the same subject, the partition of Bosnia, as desired by the terrorist Serbs and their newfound partners in “ethnic cleansing,” the Croats.

Is there anybody out there who is unable to see through this transparent, two-faced treachery?! It is even more shocking and infuriating to see that not only has David Owen been allowed to remain on the job, even after having failed miserably with his earlier plan, but he actually has the gall to upbraid the poor Bosnians for refusing to capitulate and accept the butchering of their little country. These very same Bosnians have already once before been the victims of Owen’s shameless bait-and-switch tactics when he pressured them into signing the stillborn Vance-Owen plan.

It is high time to stop all this nonsensical, wishy-washy double talk and face the problem firmly and actively on the basis of the fundamental laws, principles and morals upon which our present-day civilized societies are founded!

A. M. SYED

Los Angeles

* While the whole world, tired from civil war in the former Yugoslavia, follows with hope the latest round of peace talks that started in Geneva a month ago and brought a truce and agreement between the Serbs and Croats, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and other Muslim leaders are still hoping that they can provoke a military intervention by the United Nations, NATO or the United States.

By avoiding the peace talks and threatening the West with terrorism, they show no concern for peace in Bosnia in their quest for an Islam-dominated state. It shouldn’t be forgotten that this is the same government which masterminded:

” . . . A series of atrocities, including some of the worst recent killings, against Muslim civilians in Sarajevo as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention” (from the report “Iran’s European Springboard?” by the House Republican Research Committee Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, dated Sept. 1, 1992) and followed by more conclusive statements: “ . . . A U.N. investigation concluded that several key events, mostly strikes against civilians, that had galvanized public opinion . . . were in fact ‘staged’ for the Western media by the Muslims themselves. . . .”

Such perfidious acts can be compared only to a ruse used by Hitler to provoke war with Poland. Are we living in a society where such behavior remains unnoticed, not to say condemned? Is there any moral justification for Izetbegovic’s government?

ALEXANDER YAHONTOV

Researcher for the Serbian-American

Community Relations Coalition