Srdjan B. Stakic defends Patriarch Pavle by citing his statement on religious persecution in Banja Luka. Mr. Stakic is not the only person to judge such language a proper response to the persecutions in Banja Luka. No less a person that James Forest, an active peacemaking in the Orthodox Christian tradition, with a proven record of supporting non-violence, has pointed to this statement by Pavle as a defense of the Serb Church stand in Bosnia. [See James Forest, "We Drink the Same Water and Pray to the Same God, an Orthodox Repsonse to the War in former Yugoslavia," In Communion: Journal of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship of the Protection of the Mother of God, 1995: 1-3.]
Forest was one of several key Orthodox figures to sign a petition condemning religious violence in Bosnia. [See Syndesmos, The World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth Orthodox Press Service 70 (31 August 1995).] Among the signatories were Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia (UK), Professor Olivier Clement (France), Professor Nicholas Lossky (France), and James Forest (USA), Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. James Forest is a religious figure for whom I have the most profound respect. Yet I cannot agree with his assessment. Here is why.
The Statement of the Holy Synod of Bishops Serbian Orthodox Church May 19, 1995, Belgrade, was made in connection with two events: 1) the Croat army offensive in the area called Slavonia that drove thousands of Serbs refugees into the Banja Luka region, with atrocities against Serbs on the part of the Croat military, and 2) the persecution of non-Serbs by Serb authorities in Banja Luka. In the Serb Synod's statement, Pavle condemns the burning of Catholic Churches in Banja Luka and the killing and persecution of Catholics, but he attributes these actions to the "vengeful despondency" of refugees from Slavonia. He states that such actions are understandable but not justifiable. (See the statement, numbered "2" in Mr. Stakic's posting). a.
This sounds reasonable. Except for one, tragic, horrifying, and crucial fact. The persecutions of non-Serbs in Banja Luka were never the result of "vengeful despondency" by Serbian refugees. According to the International Red Cross, Helsinki Watch, The International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which had representives in Banja Luka as eye witness, from the spring of 1992, when the Serb army occupied the Banja Luka region, until the Dayton accords in the fall of 1995, the persecution of Catholics and Muslims was organized and perpetrated by the civil, police, and military leadership in Banja Luka. It was methodical, and, according to the Tribunal in The Hague, entailed deliberate acts of genocide. Almost all 500,000 non-Serbs were killed, tortured, expelled from their homes, put into slave-labor camps, or forced to live in terror. Every single mosque in Banja Luka was dynamited and effaced from the earth, including the masterwork of 16th century South Slavic art, the Ferhadija Mosque. Many Catholic Churches were burned.
Two death camps, Omarska and Keraterm, and two notoriously brutal concentration camps, Trnopolje and Manjaca, were set up for the liquidation and abuse of Muslims (and some Catholics). The Tribunal has indicted the commanders of Omarska and Keraterm for genocide.
I have spent two years studying and editing the war-crimes reports in Bosnia and have posted my edited and indexed version of the 8 U.S. State Dept. Reports on the WEB, along with links to the tribunal indictments of the Omarska and Keraterm commandants. See http://www.students.haverford.edu/vfilipov Just scroll down to the Eight U.S. State Department Reports on War Crimes for an index and text with voluminous documentation of the Banja Luka persecutions. Also see the Home Page of the Tribunal: http://www.igc.apc.org/tribunal/
Patriarch Pavle misrepresented a methodical, systematic religious persecution in Banja Luka by putting responsibility upon vengefully despondent refugees rather than upon the authorities in Banja Luka. According to all the sources I have cited, the Banja Luka genocide (labeled as such by the International Jurists in The Hague) was carried out in an organized fashion by civil, police, and military authorities.
The notion that the persecutions of non-Serbs were random crimes carried out by despondent Serb refugees has been one of the major alibis of Radovan Karadzic throughout his four year organized campaign of religious persecution, and thus Pavle's statement, as compassionate and reasonable as it may sound, is really helping to cover up the organized element of the religious persecutions in Banja Luka.
Let me end with the statement of Louis Gentille, the UNHCR head of operations in Banja Luka, who was an eyewitness to the terror against non-Serb Orthodox inhabitants of Banja Luka for two years:
"It should be known, and recorded for all time, that the so-called leaders of the Western world have known for the past year and a half what is happening here. They receive play-by play reports. They talk of prosecuting war-criminals but do nothing to stop the continuing war crimes. May God forgive them, may God forgive us all." The Globe and Mail, 13 January, 1994.
As for those who continually justify these atrocities by citing atrocities against Serbs from World War 2, I should point out that during the terrible WW2 persecution of Serbs in Banja Luka by the Nazis and Ustashe, the Muslim leader of Banja Luka, the Imam, wrote a courageous letter to the President of Croatia demanding that the persecutions of Serbs and destruction of Serb property be stopped. Would that we would find a letter like that from Patriarch Pavle to Radovan Karadzic! Karadzic was very closely tied into the Serb Church leadership and a strong message from Pavle would might have saved untold numbers of lives.
Michael Sells
PS
[For those wishing to consult the war-crimes documentation I mentioned above on the persecution in the Banja Luka region, here are some specific index citations available at the WEB site mentioned above: OMARSKA 1:20, 2:13, 2:15, 2:16, 2:17, 2:24, 3:4, 3:7, 3:8, 3:9, 3:11, 3:12, 3:17, 3:18, 3:21, 3:24, 3:36, 4:3, 4:9, 5:15, 6:1, 6:2, 6:6, 6:7, 7:7, 7:14, 7:16, 8:6, 8:10, 8:13, 8:14 TRNOPOLJE 1:8, 1:20, 1:30, 2:15(A), 2:22, 2:23, 3:7, 3:11, 3:16, 3:21, 3:24, 3:25, 4:3, 4:5, 4:25, 5:10, 5:36, 6:2, 6:5, 6:7, 6:18, 7:1, 8:11, 8:26 MANJACA 1:1, 1:25, 1:42, 2:26, 3:24, 6:1, 6:6, 6:11, 7:14, 7:16, 8:6, 8:14, 8:17, 8:23, 8:24, 8:51 KOZARAC 1:7, 1:8, 1:12, 2:24, 3:11, 3:35, 4:10, 4:20, 4:21, 4:25, 5:10, 5:36, 6:18, 8:11, 8:26 KERATERM 1:3, 1:7, 2:4, 2:24, 3:6, 3:11, 3:21, 3:24, 4:3, 4:4, 4:9, 5:6, 5:13, 6:2, 6:7, 6:8, 7:1, 7:14, 8:13,8:14 BANJA LUKA 1:42, 1:51, 2:15, 2:26, 2:29, 2:33, 3:15, 3:16, 3:34, 4:6, 4:24, 5:2, 5:10, 5:22, 6:3, 6:13, 6:24, 6:25, 7:40, 7:43, 8:13, 8:14, 8:23, 8:55, 8:56, 8:57]