Editors
The Nation
72 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10011

I am writing to express concern with George Kenney's article "Balkan Shoals." My concern is not with Mr. Kenney's opinion, but with the decision by The Nation to publish such grave allegations and insinuations,when they are offered without any supporting evidence.

Mr. Kenney denies that Serb militants have committed genocide in Bosnia, but he never acknowledges the evidence on which genocide accusations are based. After meticulous investigation, the UN War Crimes Tribunal has issued several indictments for genocide: to Radovan Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic, Zeljko Meakic (commander of the Omarska concentration camp), Goran Jelisic (commander of the Brcko-Luka camp), and Dusan Sikirica (commander of the Prijedor-Keraterm camp). The evidence is open to public view in the reports and annexes of the United Nations Commission of Experts on the Former Yugoslavia Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992). It is also corroborated by the reports of respected human rights organizations such as Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, and Doctors without Borders. Mr. Kenney is irresponsible to leave out any mention of such evidence and indictments, and to imply thereby that allegations of genocide are based solely on false analogies with the Holocaust.

Kenney limits genocide to mass killing of the scope of the Holocaust or the Cambodian killing fields. He ignores the definition of genocide in the 1948 Geneva Convention and with the writings of Rafael Lemkin, who invented the term "genocide" and successfully campaigned to give it international recognition. Genocide is determined not by the numbers killed, but the nature of the atrocities and the intent with which they were carried out. The intent and the organized nature of the atrocities by Serb militants is clearly displayed in the destruction of every mosque (over 600) in Serb occupied Bosnia. By contrast, there has been no organized destruction of Serbian places of worship within territory controlled by the Bosnian government and Serbs worship freely in government territory.

The following sentence typifies Kenney's combination of speculation and insinuation: "Mass graves on all sides could contain civilians killed in cold blood or soldiers killed in battle who needed a rapid burial or, most likely, both. No doubt thousands were slaughtered in cold blood." Kenney offers no evidence whatsoever to bolster his insinuation that the Bosnian government has engaged in acts of a parallel nature to the atrocities of Serb militants. He does not cite a single concentration camp, name a single mass grave, point to any campaign to destroy Serb places of worship. Is it so much to ask that when making such sweeping and grave charges, a writer supply some specifics?

According to Serb witnesses, Serb officials at the Ljubija pit-mine near Prijedor have tried to destroy the evidence of their genocide by mangling corpses with machinery, pouring chemicals on them, and burying them under debris.

It will be some time before we know how many were killed by Serb militants at places such as Ljubija, Omarska, Prijedor-Keraterm, Susica, Foca, Visegrad, Srebrenica, Zepa, and Brcko-Luka. Whatever Serb religious nationalists are doing at the Ljubija pit-mine, it is cleaner and more honest that what George Kenney has done in the pages of The Nation.

Sincerely yours,

Michael A. Sells
Professor of Comparative Religions and Chairperson, Department of Religion

Author of The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, forthcoming, University of California Press, 1996.