A.M. Rosenthal (July 25) uses a U.N. report about Bosnian military activity around the "Safe Areas" to blame Bosnians. Mr. Rosenthal fails to note that for over three years the "Safe Areas" have been starved and shelled by the Bosnian Serb army, despite U.N. resolutions demanding free-access of food convoys and forbidding the shelling of civilians.
Rosenthal then supports the claim of Bosnian Serb officials that they are fighting for the "right to separate from a government they fear and detest." The actions of Bosnian Serb leaders, however, do not match their words. After three years of "ethnic-cleansing," the 70% of Bosnia occupied by the Serb army is now almost 100%-pure Serb.
The dynamiting of many of the Catholic churches and almost all the mosques (an estimated 600) and the destruction every other trace of the civilization of non-Serb Bonsians is a graphic proof that the "ethnic cleansing" is not an unfortunate side-effect of war, but deliberate policy.
Rafael Lemkin, a key proponent of the international ban against genocide, clearly defined the kind of policy carried out by the Serb army. Genocide, he emphasized, does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of the entire nation. Rather, "the objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups." (Leo Kuper, The Prevention of Genocide, 1985).
Rosenthal calls for negotiations. The Bosnian Serb army of General Ratko Mladic has used three years of protracted negotiations to destroy or expel the non-Serb peoples from its territory, through mass-killings and other atrocities, and to obliterate all traces of their existence. Further negotiations will allow Mladic's army (with its huge advantage in tanks and heavy artillery guaranteed by the UN arms embargo) to carry the "ethnic-cleansing" displayed at Srebenica into the remaining areas of Bosnia. The final goal is Sarajevo, which the Serb government in Pale claims as its capital.
Michael Sells
President, Community of Bosnia Foundation
Haverford, PA, July 25
Office Phone: 610-896-1027 Home Phone: 610-649-6523 Home Address: 8 College Ln.,
Haverford, PA 19041; From July 31-August 3, c/o McNicholas Family: 503-249-1857