In response to "UN's Costly Empire in the Balkans" by Carol Williams, July 5 and "A Great Power Vacuum" by Edward Luttwak, July 12.





Editor:


As a student of Serbo-Croatian who lived in Sarajevo just before war broke out and who then spent a year in Central Bosnia as a United Nations interpreter, I would like to give a different viewpoint on the whole Yugoslav crisis.


The Williams and Luttwak articles reflect the paucity of knowledge that seems to abound in American coverage of the situation. Both writers put forward the fallacious argument that if the West had stepped in early enough with military force, the whole crisis might have been averted. There are, however, two difficulties with this proposal. First, Western forces could not actually mount "a swift and decisive military intervention" (as Williams puts it) to restore order. Second, it is very difficult -- unless you are an American, it seems -- to decide who is the guilty party in the whole conflict.


As to the first, of course the West has powerful armed forces: equipped to fight on the North German plain or the flat deserts of Iraq. Bosnia is a different world. It is a Western general's nightmare.


Americans accuse Europe of dithering over military action in Bosnia. This indecision comes about when well-meaning politicians want to act as their conscience dictates, but are then constrained by wiser military councils who, because they are on the ground, can advise their political masters. There are no such military councils advising equally well-meaning U.S. politicians.


As to the second fallacy of Serb guilt, there are the oft-repeated figures of the population breakdown: Moslems constitute 44 percent, Serbs 33 percent and Croats 17 percent. Therefore, it is argued, the country should be split roughly in proportion to those population statistics. This, however, ignores the fact that the Moslems tend to be the more educated, urban classes. The Serbs are the farmers. Being farmers, they have always owned more land than the Moslems. In fact, the Serbs -- according to the 1991 census -- owned 64 percent of the land in Bosnia. They are now, in the latest proposed carve-up, being asked to accept 49 percent. To a Serb, this does not seem equitable.


The Serbs in Bosnia have a long history of persecution. They suffered terribly at the hands of the Turks under Ottoman rule, and their fears for the future were hardly eased by the fact that the doctoral thesis of the president of the new Bosnian republic, Alija Izetbegovic, concerned the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic republic in Bosnia.


By putting forward these points of view I do not wish to defend the heinous acts of cruelty committed by the Serbs. However, to read Western (and especially American) reports from Bosnia it would appear that the Bosnian Serbs are more guilty in this regard than their Croat and Moslem neighbors. What I find incredible is the total lack of coverage by the media of massacres against the Serbs.


Take, for instance, the so-called "Moslem enclaves" of eastern Bosnia: Srebrenica and Gorazde. These towns only became Moslem because Moslem forces forced out the Serb populations, with -- especially in the case of Srebrenica -- great loss of Serb life.


Another aspect of the war that I found remarkable was the Serbs' willingness to allow the passage of humanitarian aid convoys into Central Bosnia. They, in effect, were supplying their enemies. For many months, the only food aid reaching the Croats and Moslems came courtesy of the Serbs. Despite the ire heaped upon them by the world, it was Serb goodwill towards the UN that kept many people alive in Bosnia.


My time in Bosnia taught me that there are two sides to any story. Whenever cease-fires were negotiated to halt the shelling of Sarajevo, they were always -- in my experience -- broken by the Moslem side opening fire on the Serb suburb of Grbavica. The Serbs then retaliated. The Moslems broke the cease-fires because they wanted the world's attention focused on the city.


Once I was part of a UN repair team sent to the no-man's land between Serb and Moslem forces around Sarajevo. We were supposed to mend an electricity pylon. The Serbs were quite willing to let us do the work, but we came under fire from the Moslem trenches. It turned out that they had orders from their government that the power to the city had to remain off, because a city with heat and lighting was of no propaganda value on the world stage.


Such experiences convinced me, and others like me, that taking sides in the Yugoslav morass is morally wrong. All are guilty.


I.R. Thornton


Birmingham, England





No More Excuses, Please


In response to the letter "We Had it Really Bad," by Monika Cornielle, July 16.





Editor:


I am sure many of your readers are familiar with the infamous "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch from the Monty Python stable, in which each character tries to "out-hardship" the others with tales of childhood woe. "That were luxury, we lived in t' 'ole in t' middle of t' road." "We used to dream about 'ole in t' road," etc.


Cornielle attempts to equate 1990s Moscow with 1940/50s East Germany. Any comparison is ludicrous and tiresome. I am siding with those who realize that these "gripes" are not a result of some debilitating war or national disaster, but of inefficiency and incompetence.


As a reader of The Moscow Times, Cornielle will no doubt have seen the recent article that blew the myth of the three week hydro-hiatus right out of the water. If the Hungarians can repair the same hot water system in three days, why does it take our hosts three weeks?


It is only by highlighting the inadequacies and inefficiencies that plague a system that changes can be made -- making that often-repeated, but nevertheless pitiful defense eto zhe Rossiya (It's only Russia) as distant a memory as candle-lit homework.


Andrew Sparke


Moscow