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- From: CATHYF%EARLHAM.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU
- Subject: REPORT:MIRacles #5 from Croatia
- Message-ID: <1992Jul29.091018.10469@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 09:10:18 GMT
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- /* Written 3:58 pm Jul 28, 1992 by gn:jsax in cdp:gen.quaker */
- /* ---------- "MIRacles No. 5" ---------- */
- ===================================================================
- MIRacles No. 5 Joel GAzis-SAx
- Zagreb, 19 Srpanj 1992
- Copyright 1992
- ===================================================================
- "Today, I sat at a table with a Dutch peace activist who supported
- intervention," I wrote to Friend Carol Newgate of Northumberland. "He
- seemed to reserve for himself the right to kill when convenient and I
- told him flat out that he was no pacifist. These words sound strong,
- but George Fox, I think, would not have reserved them. In any case,
- Joel Gazis-Sax did not and he has no shame for it."
-
- Many peace activists coming through and back in the United States have
- convinced themselves that, at last, here we have a war in which
- intervention is justified. Even the best among us have had our doubts
- because the Serbs seem to be some inhuman things who kill without
- thought or remorse.
-
-
- Not too long ago, I cited in an argument against this perennial myth the
- fact that the Serbian Orthodox Church has issued a statement condemning
- the war. An American activist scoffed at my evidence, saying "They only
- did that for political and strategic reasons." I could only say "There
- is that of God in Serbs, too."
-
- I am not an absolute cultural relativist. I accept that God is manifest
- in all people and in most faiths. I do not proceed from this, however,
- to hold that a destructive practice should be ignored simply "because
- that is what people do down here." The atrocities committed by
- nationalist elements of the Serbian army and irregulars should receive a
- strong witness. As people of faith and love, we should also witness
- against intervention. The Croats want intervention so that they can
- kill more Serbs. I am disturbed that the some of the same activists who
- complain to me about America's use of the death penalty (where many
- justify it as an act of revenge) cannot see that they are supporting a
- larger version of the death penalty here. Just as the death penalty in
- America fails to deter crime, so intervention will not end ethnic
- conflict in the Balkans unless there is utter genocide.Wam Kat, another
- Dutch peace activist working here, argues against intervention on the
- grounds that it will be as impossible to root out all the irregulars as
- it was to seek and destroy the Viet Cong. You will kill more people
- than you will liberate.
-
- While I hear the pragmatism in his words, I also hear military
- pragmatism in them, a surrender to the thinking that we must use
- military analysis when we make our decision to intervene or not to
- intervene. And, I think, too, I hear a certain vain hopefulness. I
- remember how many of us gathered before the Gulf War, prophesying how
- Hussein would be a major nuisance for the American forces, that this
- would be no easy victory for America, etc. I confess to finding myself
- gloating with others over the number of Americans who might die with our
- pathetic conventional forces and weapons.
-
-
- These same forces and weapons pulverized Iraq. Civilians died in
- numbers that are still mostly secret. The Gulf War resulted in my
- conversion to real pacifism and this conflict refines and strengthens my
- vision. I do not oppose intervention for its impossibilities, now, but
- for its possibilities, which are death and destruction.
-
- I am saddened by the way in which we are willing to spend billions to
- maintain our war machines while mere millions to feed the hungry, clothe
- the naked, and shelter the homeless go unspent. Fifteen percent of the
- world's refugees stream around me and, yet, the UN gave Slovenia only
- US$40,000 to feed its 300,000 Bosnians! The UN has shifted from an
- agency for peace to one that uses war as its main tool for conflict
- resolution. By not helping the new nations of the Balkans care for
- these people, we sow the seeds of the next war by fueling resentment
- against the displaced, the new homeless.
-
- Croatia now refuses to take any more refugees. Italy and Hungary may
- close their borders. Do we send these people back into Bosnia where
- more civilians are dying than soldiers and irregulars? I believe that
- Croatia will change its policy if the rest of us help them cope with the
- flood. A photo in one of the Croatian newspapers showed hundreds of
- Bosnian refugees sitting in the streets of Rjeka. I find it interesting
- that the Croatian word for refugee, "izbjeglica" comes from the same
- root as the word for avoidance, "izbjegavatis." The refugees, who come
- to Croatia and Slovenia to avoid death, are people who the whole world
- are avoiding and this is simply not right.
-
- As I reached this point two hours ago, Edin Tuzlak came with a tall
- woman wearing a blue scarf over her head. Semra Turkovic has just come
- from Sarajevo via Kiseljak. Despite her Australian passport, UNPROFOR
- did nothing to help her because they had no mandate from the UN do to
- so. She came with her two younger brothers on her own. She took off her
- hijab and let her hair down so that the guards at the Serbian
- checkpoints would not know that she was a Bosnian Muslim. The journey
- from Sarajevo to Kiseljak normally takes four hours. She and her
- brothers spent twenty four hours driving over stones, grass, and fields
- to reach this place of safety. Once, a Serbian guard thought he
- recognized her, but she managed to convince him that she was really the
- person whom her forged papers claimed she was. The Croatian military
- issued her a special pass to enter the country on account of her
- Australian citizenship. Had she held a Bosnian passport, she could not
- have escaped.
-
- A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad shelling, she found herself
- underground praying that she would be killed rather than lose her legs.
- Nonetheless, she spoke of her faith becoming stronger under the strain.
- She reminded me of one of my neighbors back at home, a Palestinian
- woman, who lost everything she owned in East Jerusalem. The bombings
- and shellings have become part of daily life. "You know when to run.
- You know when to duck. You know when to hide. It is normal for us."
-
- Another thing that has become normal is the lack of food, water, and
- electricity. When Semra's younger brother saw a potato, he became very
- excited. Semra hates tomatoes, but when she could find them in
- Sarajevo, she ate them. The UN is making no effort, it seems, to
- distribute food to the people. When the UNPROFOR vehicles pass, the
- people of Sarajevo call out "Chetnik taxi!" Only the press and the
- severely injured or ill get transport out of Sarajevo.
-
- Semra, who has been in the thick of the fighting, understands better
- than most that I cannot accept intervention as a solution. When she
- asked if I would wear a bullet-proof vest, I said "yes". Wha.she asked
- if I could handle a gun, I said "I do not carry guns or use them." I
- could see, however, that she understood that I cared for the people of
- Bosnia, that I wanted to do all that I could to see that they received
- the food and aid that they so desparately needed.
-
- Christian and Jewish readers of this message should remember that Allah,
- the God of the Koran, is Yahweh, the God of the Old and New Testaments.
- Our Muslim brothers and sisters love the same God as we do: in the name
- of that God, should we not do all that we can to feed the Bosnians
- instead of doing that which will ensure that many more Bosnians, Croats,
- and Serbs die? We should not reserve the right to kill while neglecting
- the basic duties of our faith. Our witness to the whole world is peace.
- Let us do all that we can to create it in Bosnia and in the whole world.
-
- * * *
- Wam Kat is trying to find a Vietnam veteran who knows how to fly a
- helicopter. In this time when the military strategists of the world
- will not even attempt an airlift of food and medical supplies to
- Visegrad and other besieged Bosnian cities, perhaps there is a brave man
- of peace who will.
- * * *
- Once more I urge Friends and their organizations to urge their elected
- representatives and formulators of foreign policy to seek nonmilitary
- solutions to the conflict. The creation of an effective framework for
- dialogue (one which includes representatives from the government, the
- irregulars, and the peace movements) and an increase in aid to Croatia,
- Slovenia, Bosnia, and Serbia to care for the refugees is essential to
- the peace process at this time. Also a mandate which would allow
- UNPROFOR to move the people of Sarajevo and other beleaguered cities to
- places of safety is another thing that is needed right away. Other
- people of peace should do the same.
-
- ABOUT THE TITLE: Brethren theogian Dale Brown once counted the ability
- to believe in miracles as an essential component in the psychic
- constituency of the peace activists. "Mir" is the word for "peace" in
- Croatian, Serbian, and most other Slavic languages. The title,
- therefore, reflects the writer's personal belief in persistant
- peacemaking.
-
- * * *
- This publication is circulated over the Association for Progressive
- Communications Networks by Joel GAzis-Sax. Users may download this
- article for their own use, but are asked to make a donation to help
- support Joel's work in the Balkans. Checks should be made in U.S.
- dollars and made out to Palo Alto Friends Meeting and earmarked "Balkans
- Peace Fund". The address is:
-
-
- Palo Alto Friends Meeting
- 957 Colorado Avenue
- Palo Alto, California 94303
- U.S.A.
-