[captain albala]

JCB,

now we come to the point - should all bosnian serbs have waited for them to be personaly attacked? If serbs in Sijekovac and Kupres, and before that grooms father shot dead in Sarajevo, and muslims arming themselves by PLN all over Bosnia, breeching Constitution in october 1991 (the main cause for tensed situation, and eventualy, war), anti-serbian propaganda, so, you say "if serbs were attacked in Sijekovac, why they had to react in Bjeljina?" What great logic!

Another issue. let us presume, for the sake of conversation, there were no mujaheedins in 1992. They came in 1993. What's the big difference? We have major part of Bosnian and Serbian muslims voting for SDA, Alija Izetbegovic and his Islamic declaration. Calling upon traditions of WW2 and Handjar SS division, founded by Jerusalem Mufti (Yassir Arafat's oncle). During the war, they were very religious. So, contingents of mujaheedins came during the war, this guy among them http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/forbidden_pictures/present/serb_head1.html

---breaking news-- as Sarajevo muslim daily paper "Dnevni avaz" says, Sanel Sjekirica, suspect of Madrid terrorist attack, is about to be released.

As someone has already said, Serbs took what was theirs. Serbs owned more land than their percent was, because serbs lived more in rural areas, and muslims in urban. Heritige of islamic domination, when rural serbs were exploited by urban muslims, as serfs. For centuries.

70 000+ dead you could subscribe to Alija and his words "I would sacrifice peace for independant Bosnia, and never independant Bosnia for peace", followed by his destruction of Lisboa agreement in spring of 1992, that was about to prevent the war, and was signed there by all three parties, but then rejected upon Izetbegovic's return to Bosnia. Way to go Alija!

Bjeljina and Zvornik were strategic points, lines of communication. Serbs would be sliced to pieces in 1993, maybe even in 1992, if there was no prompt reaction.

Let me turn question around: Why killing at the wedding? Why Pofalici massacre? Why Sjekovac and Kupres?

The magazine "Novi voks" published in Sarajevo promoted the most extreme Moslem stances and openly called for genocide of the Serbian people.

Thus in its October 1991 issue No.3, on page 40, in a regular feature called "Documents", "Novi voks" published an article entitled "What (is to be done) with the Serbs in the Moslem Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina", which, inter alia, states the following
Quote:

1. Every individual Serb must be aware of the responsibility of the entire nation for his own uncontrolled acts. The punishment for evildoings committed will be collective - for one Moslem house torn down ten Serbian houses will be demolished, for one dead Moslem 100 Serbs will be liquidated. For a wounded Moslem, depending on the severity of the wound - 10 to 50 Serbs.

2. All Serbs will have 12-hour working days, the salaries of all employees will reflect the degree of their loyalty and will as a rule be by 30% below the salaries Moslems occupying the same posts receive.

9. A good Serb is a live and obedient Serb; or a dead disobedient Serb.....
(End quote)

NOTE: The above ratio of retaliation 9one dead Moslem equals 100 (hundred) dead Serbs is exactly the ratio that Nazi occupation force of Serbia, during WWII, had in store for the "rebellious Serbs"...

The front page of the No.3 issue of this magazine which came out half a year before the so-called Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was proclaimed in April 1992, carried the message "Hanjar division readying" illustrated with a drawing of an armed Moslem soldier beneath whom were the cut off heads of the Serb leaders Karadzic, Koljevic, Milosevic and Seselj with the Moslem soldier trampling Karadzic's head underfoot.

Serbs realy had no reason to feel threatened upon Izetbegovic and Croats breeched the BiH Constitution in october 1991! They should have waited, how long !?

You don't have a clue...

[JCB]

"should all bosnian serbs have waited for them to be personaly attacked?"

Talk about missing the point! If you're attacked in Sijekovac then why not strike back against the militants in Sijekovac? What connection does a poorly-armed militia in the Bileljina region have to do with it? Why rape women at a hotel in Zvornik? Why lay seige to Bihac? The atrocities that you claim provoked these attacks were death tolls of 1 in Sarajevo and a few dozen elsewhere in Sijekovac etc. Do you honestly expect me to believe that subsequent Serb offences all over the damn country were the result of these attacks as opposed to a pre-made plan to carve out Serb regions (or even Muslim areas like Bihac that stood in the way of linking them up)?

"let us presume, for the sake of conversation, there were no mujaheedins in 1992. They came in 1993. What's the big difference?"

As long as I've been on FR I'd been bombarded with Serb claims of having fought a war against foreign Al Qaeda-type Mujehedin Islamic warriors from abroad who aimed to turn Bosnia into the next Afghanistan. The Serbs, the story goes, were merely fighting the same war America is now when they struck Eastern Bosnia in spring of 1992. That being the case, don't you need to have the afformentioned Muj fighters IN BOSNIA before you fight a war against them? Surely you can see the problem of fighting against people who were not yet in the country in any sort of significant number. Justification for war comes BEFORE you fight, not after.

"Serbs took what was theirs."

Which of course is why they struck numerous cities, towns and villages were Serbs were not the majority.

The tale of the Lisbon agreement is a good one - if only the Croats hadn't rejected the deal before the Muslims. It offered the Serbs only 44% of Bosnia wihtout linking up the territory as Serb leaders envisioned. All that was agreed on at the Lisbon talks was a general framework for the carving up of Bosnia and not the actual demarcation lines.

"Let me turn question around: Why killing at the wedding? Why Pofalici massacre? Why Sjekovac and Kupres?"

One killed at a wedding is hardly a Muslim offensive. The rest, I'd have to know the scale and co-ordination from a source other than a Serb nationalist site. By all I've heard the Muslims had not launched a massive strike against the Serbs by the time the Serbs set about seizing the east and north.

A question that I think would summ up the situation for you would be: why would the Bosnian government call on the Serb-led JNA to help them if they had a plot all along to whipe out the Serbs?

Your quotes from Muslim magazines (if true) sound sorta like the paper thrown together by Serb intellectuals in the 80s that called for a return of Serb dominance to Yugoslavia which caused much of the tensions later seen.

Either way, your story of imminent genocide holds no water unless you can explain why the Muslims were so unprepared for war at a time when you claim they were set to re-enact the horrors of WWII. Izetbegovic's call to the JNA after Bileljina was akin to Pavlich calling for help from the Chetniks and Partisans. Blows your theory out of the water.

You know, I see this whole debate as being more sad than absurd or frustrating. The Serbs did have legitimate grievences in Bosnia and especially in Croatia. In many ways they got screwed. All sides committed crimes in the Balkans (Serbs more than others) and all sides shoulder some blame. The main reason why Serbs have been unable to shake their often unjust villain image after almost 10 years is largely because of people like DTA and yourself - people who deny the obvious, who keep parroting the same lines Karadzic used in 1992, who keep trying to justify the unjustifiable.

The Serbs largely messed up! They attacked regions they shouldn't have, with force that was unwaranted despite what was done to them in WWII, under justifications that often did not hold water. The sooner you realize that the sooner everyone - especially the Serb nation - can move on and progress instead of still sulking in the past.