Durakovic: Why has this country suffered, why have you ill-treated it?

(Patria) - Let us start talking openly, at last, about the “guilt“ of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the reasons for which it has suffered. Why have you ill-treated this country for over a quarter of the century now, while failing, even now, through your insincere emissaries, to enable a break of dawn in it? We have hoped for a long time that you would really help this country, which is an example of multiethnicity and harmonious co-existence, and that you would introduce it into the circle of values which you, as it is obvious now, have reserved only for yourselves.

One should speak openly indeed. I hereby present to you, the powerful ones (as, of course, there are also such people in Europe who have not quit either Virtue or Humanity) the list of your deliberate “mistakes” which have been so consistent that they have gained a shape of a morbid political construction: 

- You imposed an arms embargo on Bosnia, a victim of the three simultaneous aggressions perpetrated by its neighbours;
- You, who have vowed to humanity, deprived the victim from its right to self-defense;
- When the Bosnians were about to achieve a certain liberation of their whole country, you threatened them by the NATO strikes;
- You disarmed the defenders of Srebrenica, declaring that place a UN safe area, and then you allowed the worst bloodthirsders to enter and massacre, to epic proportions, the unarmed and innocent Bosniaks there;
- Then, you awarded these same bloodthirsders, gifting them with that very area which they had devastated both physically and ethically - as if in the world of antic tragedies… Is that the face of the 20 th century’s humanity?!
- Then, you constructed the Republic (what a term of noble meaning!) on an endless array of mass graves filled with the killed Bosniaks. What a shame it is to give the noble name of a REPUBLIC to such a construct!
- Then, you presented the greatest global literary award – the Nobel Prize – to Peter Handke, another genocide denier and a friend of S. Milošević. What a great humiliation for the Prize and for literature alike! And, what sense is it possible to make of art, after all, following the presentation of such award to the promoter of genocide committed against the Bosniaks?!

- These days you awarded an accolade to Gideon Greif, another plagiarist and denier of genocide committed against the Bosniaks. Is there any end at all to your lack of humanity?! Thanks to your emissaries, the so-called European values have been killed, or, better to say they - have been exhausted to death in Bosnia during all these years. Even now, it is here in Bosnia that your withered face of humanity gets mutilated further! One cannot not notice that there has been an obvious continuity, consistency, not any ad hoc diplomatic or political mistake, in all these endeavours. The main cause is that this is about the Bosniaks, the majority of whom are Muslims. 

One has to name, at last, the essence of the problem. We do remember – within that same consistency – the words of the British Prime Minister John Major (1993) addressed to his Minister of Foreign Affairs Douglass Hurd – that he would not allow “that Muslims receive the arms”; then, the admission of the high ranking French officers about the pro-Chetnik orders they received from President Mitterrand; then, Tuđman and Boban who proclaimed that their goal was to baptize the Bosniaks and kill those of them who would refuse to be converted.

Everything would have been different here if it were not about the Bosniaks – and this is because most of them are Muslims. Let us remember the noble words of Mr Biden from the war times – when he publicly, before the American Congress, testified that a different approach would have been taken to Bosnia if it were not about the Muslims living in this country.

We firmly believe, esteemed Mr President, that you still stand behind your righteous words. Unfortunately, your emissary Palmer has not worked here in accordance with a sense of justice and humanity that you have strongly and convincingly advocated. A huge difference between then and now is that today you are the most powerful man in the world and that now you can act efficiently in accordance with your words as the medieval Andalusia script has been re-played in Bosnia.

It may be that there is a little bit of time still left to put an end to this this historic disgrace.

(Prof. Esad Duraković, July 23, 2022)