The West's `Realistic' Policy on Bosnia?

In return for Sarajevo being spared a few days of heavy bombardment, the Bosnian government is being manipulated into handing over its heavy weapons and signing away its rights. The Russians have maneuvered themselves into a position to prevent further ultimatums against Serbs and to undermine NATO. The United States has been maneuvered into openly supporting the unjust and unworkable plan to divide Bosnia into ethnic partitions.

The Bosnian government, in its desperation and abandonment, is not doing what it should to protest this set of outrageous manipulations. The West has no reason to pretend that this is just.

Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, the former United Nations commander in Bosnia, says the US recognizes ``Bosnia has lost the war.'' But this is because negotiators Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg, and UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and their supporters in Britain, France, and Russia, and the weak foreign-policy establishment in Washington want to ensure that Bosnia loses the war by helping Serbia keep its conquests. We need to make this clear to the American public. Alan F. Fogelquist, Pacific Palisades, Calif.

The West's `Realistic' Policy on Bosnia?

As you put it nicely in your editorial ``Bosnia and `Realism', '' Feb. 23, ``realism'' of the United States policy in Bosnia is a farce. People responsible for genocide and war crimes are still smiling on TV.

Borders changed by ethnic cleansing, rape, destruction, and fascism are crimes against humanity. The West's indecisiveness and misrepresentation of a real problem (Serbian aggression) makes it an accomplice in that crime.

As the Russians move west of the River Drina (posing as ``UN troops'') into the sphere of the West's influence (if one's yardstick is the postwar Yalta Conference), they may claim victory in a conflict in which 250,000 people were killed. As Stalin put it, ``Kill one person, it's a tragedy; kill a million, it's a statistic.'' Dragon Ivkovic, Oak Brook, Ill.

of stories this month > Get unlimited stories
You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Unlimited digital access $11/month.

Get unlimited Monitor journalism.