This letter was written by Vanja Filipovic in response to an op-ed piece by Jonathan Clarke urging abandonment of a unified Bosnia and the partition of Bosnia into three religiously defined states, Croat, Serb, and Muslim. It appeared at the same time as other, similar proposals by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and several other writers.

Dear Editor,

On Tuesday's issue (09.24.96) of the LA Times we had a chance to read a column written by Mr. Jonathan Clarke. The column's content is not only a strike against the state and people of Bosnia, but it is also a strike against every democratic, ethical and humane principle. Mr. Clarke has shown a great deal of cynicism, political pragmatism - in its worse interpretation - and, above all, he has shown a complete indifference toward the victims of war in Bosnia.

Mr. Clarke is right to say that the ethnicity "runs like a spinal cord" in Bosnia. The results of the recent Bosnian elections prove this claim. However, Mr. Clarke does not bother ask why is it so? He does not bother ask where this "ethnicity" and "nationality" business comes from. And above all, he does not bother to take into account all the people that are pro multi-ethnic Bosnia.

What is far more disturbing are his cynical notions that the division along the ethnic lines is a "popular will," and if the international community did not bother to prevent this "popular will," there would be no war. "Popular will," for Mr. Clarke, means that ethnic group, backed with the fourth strongest army in Europe (JNA), and led with ultra-nationalist leaders, can impose its will upon another ethnic group, which happens to be defenseless. Indeed, the war in Bosnia would have been a very short war if the international community did not get involved, even in a very limited way, as was the case until late in 1993.

Furthermore, Mr. Clarke's cynicism increases as he talks about what should the "do-gooder," the international community, led by the United States, do today in Bosnia. His solution, once again, is letting Bosnia "be Serb, Croat and Muslim," or letting Bosnia not be Bosnia, simply let it fall apart. He gives us a wonderful example how the ethnic tensions can be prevented of becoming an "ethnic power-keg" in the case of differences between Romania and Hungary, where the two nations solved their problems without interference of the international community. What he really means by this example is that the nationalist forces that started the war in 1992 should be allowed to finish it where they were stopped in the summer of 1995. If the "do-gooders" stay aside, peace will prevail, as soon as the Bosnia and Bosnians are gone.

Finally, Mr. Clarke calls for a dismissal of the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He expects us to forget about 200,000 dead Bosnians, over a million refugees in all parts of the world, to forget the concentration camps, mass rapes, mutilations, tortures and mass killings as if they never happened.

My question to Mr. Clark is: If you lived and worked fifty years ago, at the end of the Second World War, would you say "Never Again!" to genocide, or would you call for the dismissal of the Nuremberg trials, letting the Nazis go free, and solve their "problem" with the Jews "peacefully," by killing them all?

Sincerely,

Vanja Filipovic