Muslim Groundswell? : Islamic world aims its attention--and aid--to Bosnia

Is Bosnia about to be taken out of European hands? On Wednesday Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and Prime Minister Tansu Ciller of Turkey visited Sarajevo to demonstrate solidarity with Muslims there and confer with government leaders. Both women lead Muslim, Asian countries in which there is widespread opinion that Christian Europe is indifferent to genocide so long as the victims are not Christian.

That view--no doubt, an outrageous overstatement of the matter--seemed until recently to be without real consequences. Public opinion in the Muslim countries about the Bosnian conflict mattered little because nothing stood behind that opinion, either politically or materially. Now there is reason to wonder whether this situation is changing. The military strength of the Bosnian government is obviously growing, and material as well as political support from Muslims around the world may be one of the reasons.

The Bosnian government has generally not welcomed the participation of Muslim volunteers from outside the country. Three foreign Muslim radicals were killed Monday in a shootout with Bosnian security forces outside Sarajevo. The three were believed to be responsible for the kidnaping of three British aid workers and the murder of one last week. The fact that such volunteers operate outside the control of the Bosnian army has made them a military liability rather than an asset.

Such is clearly not the case, however, as regards international Muslim funding or political support. On Jan. 26, Bosnia’s president was in Jakarta, Indonesia, seeking that Muslim nation’s support for a lifting of the arms embargo. The Balkans War, so confidently dismissed as a species of civil war, may be on the verge of becoming something worse.